Change Has Come to WhiteHouse.gov

As the clock struck noon EST and Barack Obama was being sworn in as our next president, the White House IT department flipped the switch on the new White House website. (See the difference in these before and after screen shots.)

According to Macon Phillips, director of New Media for the White House (in the first blog post ever from the White House), the new website will focus on:

• Communication - new briefing room, blog RSS feeds and email updates from the President, as well as a weekly video broadcast from President Obama.
• Transparency - yes, we know the government can only go so far in how much they can share, but their goal is to create the most open administration in history (perception is reality, remember?).
• Participation - submit your ideas to the President now.

Here’s what I really like:

“One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise
from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to
the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment
before the President signs it.”

A bold strategy, and extremely challenging to execute properly even for a mid-size corporation, let along the white house. Nonetheless, the formula above is how you keep and grow brand evangelists. We’ve already seen it work it Obama’s campaign, and now he aims to continue this as President.

It’s not a complicated formula:

• Content - continually publish high-quality information to customers and prospects (US citizens).
• Set up Listening Posts and Enable Participation – continually gather information about the needs of your customers (blog comments, submission form). I can’t imagine the staffing needed to do this correctly.
• Be the Media – be honest and communcate directly with customers – engage with the community without a filter. This may be the first administration that will actually morph into their own media property (Go to the white house for news and updates before CNN or Fox?).

And after 10 weeks of Twitter silence, Barack Obama’s Twitter account just went active again. This was the one area that I couldn’t understand about now President Obama…the Twitter communication just stopped after election day. Glad to see the Tweet lights are on again. I hope it continues.

Are you a business struggling with new media marketing? If so, following the new plan from the White House and the President wouldn’t be the worst thing you could do. Do you agree?

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