Barack Obama hosted an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit on Wednesday, August 29^th. He answered ten questions, a combination of political and personal ones. If we judge AMA solely on his responses, he did not reveal anything that we did not already know his campaign platform. His responses to personal questions were more interesting and helped paint the picture of a down to earth man.  Understandably, he played it safe with his responses.

Overall, Obama’s (or his campaign staff’s) decision to host an AMA was a great social media marketing play that will drive visibility to his campaign. The actual responses in his AMA may not be comprehensive enough to sway someone’s vote, but it garnered a lot of online buzz and calls attention to his campaign right in the middle of the Republican National Convention. The AMA was not announced beforehand, but it managed to attract so many visitors to Reddit that the site crashed.

The majority of Reddit users were respectful and asked valid questions. Even the ones who asked joking questions were well behaved. Considering the potential risks involved in doing an AMA on Reddit, whose users are not afraid to raise serious questions or call out individuals (see Woody Harrelson’s AMA disaster), Obama and his campaign team should be commended for doing it in the first place. He did not speak as candidly as some other public figures had done during their AMAs, but then again, this IS the President of the United States we’re talking about. Mitt Romney and other politicians might decide to use Reddit in the future, but Obama will always be remembered as the first incumbent or presidential candidate to host an AMA.

From August 16th to 19th, I attended Gen Con, a hobby game convention held in the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis. The four-day convention was attended by over 41,000 unique individuals this year, which marked its most successful year to date. Started in 1967, Gen Con is one of the world’s first gaming conventions. Unlike the NY and CA Comic Cons, or E3, Gen Con is mainly focused on tabletop games, like Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and board games like Settlers of Catan.
Attendance numbers for Gen Con peaked in the mid-90s at around 30,000 unique visitors, fell a bit during the subsequent decade, and regained its popularity during 2010, when it once again reached 30,000 unique visitors. 2011 and 2012 both resulted in the unique visitor count being shattered. In my opinion, part of the success of Gen Con in recent years is due to the proliferation of social media. According to Senior Marketing Communication Manager Jake Theis, “One of the most potent things we’ve seen for marketing outreach has been social media. We had 600,000 people check the Facebook site this week for information.” Thesis also attributes Gen Con’s growth to a couple of different factors, including the emergence of “geek” culture in mainstream media (see comic book movies), the growing popularity of hobby games and local awareness of the convention in Indianapolis. However, the impact that social media has had on Gen Con cannot be discounted.
Gen Con’s fan base was built largely off of word of mouth, which is something that social media can help amplify. Twitter was bustling with activity from individuals using the #gencon hashtag, including popular media outlets like G4TV and celebrities like Wil Wheaton. The majority of the conversation was positive. Attendees, panelists, exhibitors and sponsors all contributed to the dialogue on social media. Will Gen Con have another record breaking year in terms of attendance next year? All signs point to “yes.”

I was surfing trough the periodicals on Mashable and came across a little gem that caught my interest: Reconnect. The Reconnect article challenged the internet community to disconnect from the Matrix and get outside. Participants of the Reconnect campaign would disconnect from anything and everything digital and create from their own minds original and creative content that can then be shared on the Reconnect Facebook page. The creative content can range from painting to flash mobs and is only for a single day.

Seems interesting enough but is this campaign capable of lifting off the ground? My guess is no.

I believe that although the Reconnect Campaign has merit and can prove to be something great, I believe that the world is far too connected to let go of their smartphones or status updates. I find that disconnecting for a single day is a brilliant idea; at times I wish I could take my phone and throw the damn thing in a lake and let go of all of the digital aspects of my life. Unfortunately, I am one of the connected.

Besides the lack luster of the tree hugging and flash mobbing, the campaign has been set to launch on Labor Day weekend. Most of us that are human have plans to BBQ and go to the beach for the final weekend and most of us want to tweet invites or share cool pics.

Here is what I propose to the Reconnect Campaign:

1. Change the date – I work seven days a week and Labor Day weekend is my only time to sit back with a cold one. If you wish to disconnect the world for a single day, choose a more daring day like Monday to really cause some waves.
2. Incentive – I don’t think that the world will disconnect for the sake of disconnecting. As human beings, we LOVE to be accessible and broadcasted on the internet. If there is something more to the campaign, something meatier, I think people would be more likely to Reconnect after they disconnect
3. Fans – Get more fans and tweet your message to a larger audience. With fewer than 700 likes you won’t reach the world. Utilize the strategy of an online marketing company and get your message out there.

The world can Reconnect but only if you can convince them. Can you convince them to disconnect in order to Reconnect?

In May, Microsoft launched So.Cl, a social media platform focused on helping users collect and share images and discover web content with people that have similar interests. According to the site’s ‘About’ section, “So.cl (pronounced social) is an experimental research project, developed by Microsoft’s FUSE Labs, that lets you use search to express and share ideas through beautiful story collages.” The platform is geared toward students, but it is open to everyone and is not meant to be a competitor to the large social networks out there, like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Unfortunately, So.Cl seems to have fallen off the map since its initial launch.

When So.Cl was first launched, I wrote a blog about my thoughts and collected some other reactions from the social media marketing world. I have not been able to find any news or articles written recently about So.Cl; the majority of the items were dated in May and I cannot find any information about how many active users are on So.Cl at this point. When I set my feed to “everyone”, it still averages less than one post a minute. This is an incredibly low number for a social network.

So.Cl is supposed to be tailored to students doing research, so perhaps usage will pick up once the school year starts. Additionally, Microsoft has not been actively promoting the platform. However, the content being shared on So.Cl does not appear much different from what can easily be shared through Pinterest. I do not think So.Cl differs enough from any other social media platform enough to make an impact.

What are your thoughts on So.Cl? Do you think it has sticking power?