Some people say that a part of Mr. Barack Obama’s victory as President of the United States can be attributed to his use of Facebook. That may seem to be true when you go into Facebook and type “Barack Obama” to find that he has millions of “fans”. Obama was very wise to have used Facebook as a channel to express his views and campaigns, since Facebook is easily the biggest social networking tool online. What people did not know was Obama employed the help of Facebook as early as 2007. Therefore, it was not really sudden wisdom.

Barack Obama has more than 2 million supporters on Facebook, and millions more on other such websites. Facebook is one of the platforms that he uses to carry out his campaigns, although I’m not sure if he is the one directly running them or is it one of his aides. In Obama’s Facebook cause, he has got comments, pictures and videos for people to see and study, and then make their voting decisions. All these facilitate communication and interaction with the users. I believe interaction is very important with something like an election.

Facebook is very powerful as a political tool because it can communicate updated and changes to all people who are in the contact/ friends list. So every time there is a new post or note or video or picture, the contact list of Barack Obama will know. This is great interaction between politician and the public.

Furthermore, Mr. Obama’s use of Facebook also has an emotional effect as people think that he is a friendly person. Using Facebook, for someone as high up in the office as Barack Obama, would give that friendly impression. On the other hand, McCain’s lack of online interactions may have brought him a disadvantage. Obama’s involvement in Facebook would tell the public that he follows the times too, strengthening his views on changes. He felt that Facebook can be a political tool, and that is a great change. On the other hand, McCain did no such stuff to show that he is a people person. Obama, with his natural charisma, a strong belief in change, and Facebook helped him won a difficult battle.

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