A recent report from the internet marketing agency iCrossing, finds Arizona Senator John McCain leads all presidential candidates in paid online visibility.
John Edwards’ spends more for issue-based searches, but receives less visibility and only in searches for “Iraq” and “War in Iraq.”
McCain's domination of the paid search landscape among presidential candidates isn't going to mean much if he can't raise sufficient funds to compete.
According to the study, presidential candidates need to adjust online strategies. Forty-two percent of voters use the Internet for information regarding 2008 presidential issues and candidates, but nearly all the candidates rank poorly for issue-based search visibility:
Our research shows that people are looking for election-related information online, but most presidential hopefuls are missing out on the opportunity. If they want to reach these voters, the candidates and their campaign staff need to develop and implement digital strategies that increase a candidate’s visibility in the places where users are most often looking for information.
Other intersting findings include:
- The internet is a more popular information source than newspapers among those between the ages of 18 and 34.
- Traditional news organization and social media sites top candidate sites.
- Eighty-eight percent of those who use the Internet for information about candidates and issues in the 2008 presidential election visit sites of news organizations such as CNN and The New York Times and 42 percent go to a range of social media sites; only 30 percent go to candidate Web sites.
- More than half of younger online voters are turning to social media for election information.
- Of potential voters who are looking for election information online, 61 percent of 18 to 24 year olds and 55 percent of 25 to 34 year olds seek answers on user-driven content sites such as blogs, YouTube and Wikipedia.
- Barack Obama and war in Iraq are tops in current candidate and issue searches. Obama attracts the largest share of searches among candidates in the survey of voter interest as of May 2008, topping Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. The war in Iraq is the most searched for issue.
These findings are the result of iCrossing's analysis of 126 election-related issue keywords along with candidates' site URLs to determine which campaigners had a search presence. The company also factored in rank and coverage data from search marketing research firm AdGooroo and Google AdWords data on keyword costs. In addition to estimating search ad spending and visibility, Opinion Research Corporation surveyed over 1,000 study participants about their search habits when it comes to election-related information.
Clinton accepts money from Indian Media.
http://mutiny.in/2007/07/07/hillary-clinton-d-punjab
Posted by: Chacko | Saturday, July 07, 2007 at 12:27 PM