I was blown away by the precision with which the Fox News Google Debate was run on September 22, 2011.

This debate to me was the ultimate in conversational marketing. Fox News and Google utilizing a wide variety of social media assets to engage the audience before, during and after the debate …
isn’t this the goal of social media?

In April 2011, I blogged and tweeted about Social Media Marketing Prerequisites. I instructed that “building a successful social media marketing campaign is really about creating and sharing quality content – images, text, videos, comments, FAQ, tweets, newsfeeds, answers across the social web. Then, driving engagement and interaction with your followers across the social web.”

Engagement and Interaction with Viewers Across Broadcast and Social Networks

I was more engaged in this debate than any other I’ve watched. I applaud the fact that with all of the moving parts – live online polling, Google search analysis, YouTube streams, live Tweets, Tag Cloud analysis, and more – it was smooth and engaging.

Prior to the debate, more than 20,000 questions and 100,000 votes had been submitted via text or video to YouTube. This enabled us, the viewing public to weigh in and vote on questions we wanted asked.

Also prior to the debate, Fox News and Google used public data and Google search trends to help provide context to the questions and unveil the hottest topics people are talking about. The Fox correspondents shared these trends on air throughout the debate.

I particularly enjoyed how each new debate topic opened with a visual of a Tag Cloud or graph generated via Google analytics. At the opening of the Foreign Policy portion of the debate, viewers, the audience, and candidates alike virtually saw the word Israel stand out as the most important topic on the minds of the American people.

During the debate, new poll questions were presented to viewers every three minutes; then analyzed both online and some on air by Fox correspondents – talk about real time.

Also during the debate, viewers were able to offer their reaction to the debate. Some of those comments were shared at the debate. This gave at-home viewers privy to the reactions of many people, rather than just the reactions of the live audience.

No matter your political preference, you have to agree that Social Media is taking our decisions, reactions and interest to a new level.

I didn’t miss the buzzer either!

Leave a Reply