PR NOTABLES OF AMERICAN

INEZ Y. KAISER

Digital PR Strategy Elects a President

1918–2016

Inez Yeargan Kaiser opened her own public relations firm, Inez Kaiser & Associates, in 1957 in Kansas City, Mo., to serve national clients, becoming the first African American woman to do so. Her first account was the Jenkins Music Company. It wasn’t long before her firm was serving clients such as 7Up, Sterling Drug, Burger King Corporation, Southwestern Bell Telephone Company and Sears, Roebuck and Co. Kaiser opened her agency at a time when businesses were becoming more interested in reaching Black consumers, which was one of her strengths. (Courtesy of the Museum of Public Relations)

2008

Barack Obama was a junior U.S. senator from Illinois in 2007 when he announced his candidacy for president. It was a long-shot bid against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, but he had a message of change and tools for a new generation of politics. For the first time, social media became the centerpiece of presidential campaign strategy.

When Obama announced his candidacy, he launched his own social network, www. my.barackobama.com (MyBO), a place where registered users could build profiles, share comments, chat with other users, sign up for events, donate money or view blogs, videos or other content. The Obama campaign also had a presence on 15 external social network sites, including MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Supporters could text HOPE to sign up for text messages from the campaign.

President Barack Obama was the first president to turn heavily to social media to help attract voters. With his back to the camera, he’s seen here responding to questions in a live tweet session. (White House Photo / Alamy Stock Photo)

While the Obama campaign still relied on traditional events, such as rallies and a doorto-door canvassing program that was known as Walk for Change, social media unleashed a massive grassroots effort. For example, with the Neighbor-to-Neighbor feature on MyBO, volunteers could access lists of undecided voters in their area to contact.

The Pew Research Center later reported that 55% of U.S. adults — 74 percent of all internet users — had been “online political users” in the 2008 election. They had gone online for political or campaign news, to share or receive campaign or political messages or to talk with others about politics.

When Obama won on Nov. 4, 2008, he sent a text message to a million followers: “All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack.”