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Barack Obama has been the most active candidate on YouTube. By looking at his YouTube site, it is very clear that his campaign has invested a lot of time on their YouTube campaign.
One important thing to about Obama’s YouTube channel outside of his videos is that he provides users the ability to donate money to his campaign. This is an unique trait for Obama’s channel.
Here are some statistics of Obama’s site as of Sunday, May 4, 2008:
Channel views: 13,731,565
Joined: September 05, 2006
It is clear Obama is posting practically every video he can to his site. The actual views of these videos varies greatly, however. Many videos only receive a few thousand views while others reach into the hundred of thousands or even millions. As of May 4, 2008, the following three videos have received the most views:
The following three videos are the highest favorited videos as of May 4, 2008:
Videos
Barack Obama has been posting videos at a fairly consistent rate. In late March, however, the rate of videos being posted decreased slightly, most likely due to the lack of primary elections in that time frame. An important milestone to note is that on May 3, 2008, Barack Obama reached 1,000 videos with his video “Barack Obama: Closing arguments.”
Views
Obama’s views have been climbing at a fairly stable rate throughout the campaign season. In March there is a sharp spike in views due to the posting of his now famous speech “A More Perfect Union.”
Video Breakdown
Obama’s primary focus has been on speeches, which make up 38% of the videos his campaign has posted. The next most prominent video type is “other” (24%), followed by news clips (21%) and commercials (14%).
Trends
The graph below shows the trends in types of videos Barack Obama has been posting. From December 1st, 2007 to the beginning of March 2008, the number of commercials, news clips, and “other” videos were being posted at about the same rate. Commercials, debates, interviews, and personal stories were all being posted at lower rates. This trend changed drastically, however, during the month of March. The rate in which news clips were being posted dropped dramatically. “Other” videos also fell slightly. The rate in which speeches were being posted, however, stayed about the same. At the same time, the rate in which commercials were being posted increased slightly, while the other three video types remained being posted at a relatively low rate.
The decrease in the rate of news clips being posted makes sense within the context of Obama’s campaign. In mid-March, ABC News found and aired controversial videos of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor at United Trinity Church in Chicago.
These videos entered the traditional media echo chamber and were shown constantly for weeks. A reduction of news clips might reflect the bad press Obama has been receiving since that time.
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Barack Obama