The club has traditionally rejected social media. Some attributed that to Sir Alex Ferguson’s reluctance to let his players be distracted / exposed by social tools. But for a time the commercial department was also reported to be concerned that diverting audiences from manutd.com would reduce advertising revenue from the club’s official website.

However, this week’s announcement was given the full social media treatment. And the handling contains some important lessons for marketers:

1. Surprise can be as effective as suspense at generating buzz

Film releases are all about suspense. There’s the news that a film will be made, who will be in it. Then there’s the release date, the footage from the making of the film, the interviews with the cast, the release of the trailer and then, eventually the premiere and the opening weekend. The suspense is built over weeks, months and even years.

But as David Bowie demonstrated, in the right circumstances surprise can be as effective at generating interest. If there’s something, or probably someone, who has significant cache, their fanbase can react to the news, bringing it to the attention of the wider, passive audience. The surprise element can grab sudden attention in a way that the slow-burn of suspense may never do.

2. Make the actions obvious for your audience

Manchester United fans, and most British football fans were always going to react to the news. By placing #thankyouSirAlex on the banner of the website, the club marshalled its fanbase around a clear proposition. Oh, and they incorporated their largest commercial partner into the picture.

3. Social first, website always

Lots of brands make announcements on social media channels first. Some don’t even use standalone websites. But there’s some content that just doesn’t work on social channels. Long-form quotes, press releases – nuanced messaging isn’t for Facebook status updates. Without a website, there’s no space to make this work. And a website isn’t just for imparting news or even selling advertising but can develop passing interest into deeper engagement – merchandise sales, subscriptions, ticket purchases.

4. Don’t forget internal comms

Wayne Rooney removed ‘Manchester United player‘ from his Twitter bio on the day of the announcement of Ferguson leaving. It probably didn’t damage the Man United brand unduly given Mr Rooney’s previous behaviour towards the club. But it took some of the gloss off the day and distracted the press office. Ensuring key stakeholders are managed, and preferably lined up in support, is critical for making the most of big news.

5. Explain why not just what 

Jose Mourinho was the obvious assumption for those speculating about Ferguson’s successor. Until David Gill, chief executive, set out the criteria for the new manager on MUTV. From that point on, most informed commentators expected the job to go to David Moyes. Explaining what they wanted – and didn’t want – in a new manager was critical to framing expectations amongst fans and the commentariat. Had the appointment of Moyes been a surprise, it may have been less well-received.

So 48 hours of excellent execution at Manchester United. How the team supports David Moyes’ early days in the job will be critical for determining whether or not he will be accepted by the club and its global community.

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O – Social media is ordinary not extraordinary

Both campaigns followed a pretty similar public-facing approach. Social media is mainstream not a +1. There were a few new stunts – Obama’s Ask Me Anything caught the eye. But whereas the last campaign was notable for social media being a public positioning tool, now it’s just another media to incorporate.

B – Our best rivals their best

The big news from the Obama campaign was the launch of Dashboard. It’s brilliant, it really is. It allows activists to make calls to voters from the app. And record the conversation. Decentralised phone banking. It lists campaign sessions and key talking points. Or MembersNet as we’ve been calling it for years. Obama’s campaign benefitted from having the infrastructure of the last election in place. Labour has had its infrastructure in place for years – sometimes the same people putting their hands up for the same tasks for 30+ years.

A – Amazing content triumphs

You can have a great strategy and the best implementation. But content remains critical. My favourite examples from the campaign? The ‘this seat’s taken‘ tweet was a masterpiece of rapid rebuttal. The polling day page was wonderfully simple.

M – Micro-targetting is big and will get bigger

The ability to predict the likelihood of someone voting, and who they will vote for has won elections before. But the most innovative private sector segmentation and targetting is now in politics and it’s here to stay.  In an era of tight resources, focussing them in the right place to achieve the optimum impact is very important. It could be mis-used (to tell different people different things) but that’s not a sustainable strategy. Entering a conversation with a voter about something relevant to them is very obvious but still do very infrequently in the UK.

A – Analysis beats tradition

The Obama campaign is consistently good at trying something and stopping it if it doesn’t work. In the UK we aren’t. We print 10,000 leaflets, deliver them and print 10,000 more. With the economies of scale of printing now changed for good, why aren’t we more experimental? Why continue to treat volunteers as fodder rather than protecting and valuing their time as highly as possible?

Further reading:

• This article from the Economist on the cyber war is a good summary
• And this on the ground war

For more in-depth study:

The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns
Sasha Issenberg

Ground Wars: Personalized Communication in Political Campaigns
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation: How We Make Up Our Minds Without Using Our Heads
Drew Weston

And for useful training on community organising:

Movement for Change

Related posts:

1. What can British politics learns from Obama’s digital media campaign?
2. Save General Election night campaign: politicos at their worst

In 2008, Obama’s adoption of social media was widely considered to have a significant impact on his campaign. His enthusiastic adoption of Facebook and YouTube and the campaign’s use of Twitter reinforced his image as a new President for a new era. Perhaps more notable was his ability to raise millions of dollars in small donations, primarily through the use of email.

His re-election campaign moved with the times. Online giving was made slightly easier. He used Tumblr and Google+, not available in 2008. His campaign created some beautiful boards on Pinterest. And in one of the more memorable moments of the digital campaign, he tweeted a picture of his occupied chair in the Oval Office – helping position Clint Eastwood’s contribution to the Republican Convention as madness and obscuring his opponent’s message. If in 2008 Obama campaigned in poetry, perhaps the 2012 campaign was notable for its pictures.

When leading Labour activists visited the Clinton campaign in 1996 it took months for their findings to seep out into the ether. This time around, leading British activists like Mark Pack are already using powerful imagery to create virtual campaign posters based on short-term topical issues – just like the Obama campaign. And social media is the driver for this rapid discovery and adoption of successful US techniques.

Social media was integral to the air war between the candidates. So much so, that mostly it went unnoticed. There were the occasional stunts – such as Obama taking part in an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, but mostly social media was rightly seen as a central campaigning tool – not an afterthought. Both campaigns were pretty similar in their approach.

But the big news of 2012 was not the air war but the ground war. Obama built on his web-based organising tools of 2008 and extended them significantly. At the last election it was ground-breaking to be able to tap in your postcode and discover your local campaign event. I did just that when I visited Spokane, WA during the 2007 primaries).  In 2012, Dashboard enabled activists to access individual voter records and canvas them from the comfort of their home.

Here there are fewer lessons for British politics. Both main parties have had these services for some time. Labour’s (often-derided) MembersNet has allowed activists to view local campaign activity and phone voters long before the Obama’s  Dashboard was launched. The strength and consistency of the party machines means they have much more of the infrastructure in place to deliver the nuts and bolts of campaigns than US Presidential candidates.

However, hidden in the ground war was the most sophisticated voter segmentation effort ever. Both campaigns drew data from electoral registration, consumer databases, shopping habits, Facebook and even used cookies to identify the issues that were of most interest and the micro-segments of the election that could help push them over the line. This largely unnoticed effort actually flies in the face of Obama’s criticism of such tactics. But it has enabled the campaigns to focus on the most likely voters, pitching to them in the most relevant fashion. It mirrors the behaviour of large corporates from Tesco to Target.

Trufflenet has long believed that understanding an audience is critical to successful campaigning. Researching audiences rather than topics enables organisations to develop deep insights into what makes people tick online: what do they read and share, what advertising crosses their radar, what policy areas are of interest. Quantitative data on someone’s shopping habits may help you identify their wealth, family status or leisure activities. But qualitative understanding of their opinions gives a far richer layer of insight. Combining quantitative and qualitative ‘big data’ and using it to influence tactics and personalised campaigns is the future.

There’s significant scope for learning here in British politics. The task is subtly different: the UK has higher voter registration but lower turnout. When registering to vote in many states, US citizens reveal their party allegiance. But in my experience, much of British voter ID is based on targeting large areas which have voted for the party in local elections and knocking on doors regardless of propensity to vote. With limited activists and money, the more and earlier a British parliamentary campaign can focus on the few swing voters, the more effective it will be.

In the coming months, litres of ink will be spilt analysing the campaigns. Whilst the public move on, the politicos will dissect the campaign for every last lesson and we can expect to see the results long before 2015.

Related posts:

1. O-B-A-M-A Five digital lessons from the campaign
2. US and UK politics: separated by a common language
3. Save General Election night campaign: politicos at their worst

But in return, the players were treated to a passionate block of Spurs fans in the lower tier of the east stand. They were a credit to the club, singing throughout. I’d be amazed if those players have ever played in a better atmosphere.

I went to the match because I wanted to scrutinise the Barcelona team, like many others. I was left underwhelmed:

• The players were composed on the ball but were not obviously more talented than their Spurs counterparts
• Whilst the centrebacks split when Barca were in position, it wasn’t as pronounced as you’d see from the first team and the full backs weren’t as far advanced
• The back 4 was not playing a particularly high line
• The pressing wasn’t anything special
• The goalkeeper started deep and his distribution was poor
• There was an obvious centre-forward who scored both goals. For the first, Barca got it wide and knocked it into the box. For the second, the keeper punted a long ball down field, and the number 9 latched onto it

Credit must also go to Spurs – and particularly the young blonde number 20. He was very composed in midfield, had a decent first touch and could pick a pass. Importantly, he also kept the game ticking over. They also had a number of players which I assume were recruited from overseas who looked as though they had a decent skill level.  Will any of them be good enough for first team football? I’ve no idea – there are too many variables facing most of them. But they will be better for the NextGen experience.

It makes me wonder about the Barcelona model. In recent times we’ve had the golden generation of Man United players, the Clairefontaine generation of French players and now the La Maisa era. But in all the examination of systems there’s a danger that a crucial point is missed. The difference between good and excellent is often not determined by the raw materials of coaching, recruitment and investment but attitude and mentality. That can be established by a culture but cultures depend on people. Two or three individuals with big personalities and poor attitudes can undo a lot of good. Or perhaps Barcelona have got lucky over 5-10 years for wider socio-economic reasons.

I’m conscious that I’ve seen once Barcelona team, once. I don’t even know if the starting XI was the first choice in each position. But if it was easy to replicate success, Scholes and Giggs wouldn’t still be playing for Manchester United.

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If you are running a small business it can be hard to find good staff and harder still to know when to employ them. The overheads of your first member of staff are significantly higher than your thirtieth. You can use freelancers or agencies for big jobs, where you have the expertise to tell the good from the bad. But as a founder you end up either over-paying for small jobs (setting up a simple website) or using your own time to do it inefficiently (appointment setting).

As an RSA fellow you want to run a good company which makes a valuable contribution to society. You’d like to have a CSR policy but need to wait until you’re much bigger. You’d like to create opportunities for apprentices or unemployed people but it’s a big risk when you’re small.

So what you really need is a Flying Freelancer from the RSA. The team are specialist. They’ve been vetted by RSA fellows so you know that they are good. They’ve been recruited from the massed ranks of the young unemployed. Your participation in the scheme makes your company look good and you feel good. And their wages help support the scheme, making it more valuable than using Odesk or Amazon Mechanical Turks.

I’d be delighted to hear from small business owners, charity directors etc to find out whether there’s demand / interest in supporting the concept or whether I’ve just come up with a magic idea . . . . which is already being done elsewhere.

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