YouTube as a Potential Indicator of the Future of Healthcare Reform
August 18, 2009
Filed Under: in Analysis, Featured Articles, Marketing 2.0, Sharing, Social Media, Tech Policy
Author: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins
Welcome back.
David Burch posted some interesting data (as he often does) at the Tubemogul blog analyzing a particularly hot topic through the lens of YouTube’s rating system.
Since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, the administration has been posting videos to YouTube quite regularly. When the President went on his campaign to implement his healthcare initiative, there have been a flurry of official and unofficial posts from Congressmen and other governmental officials on the topic.
According to Tubemogul’s data, the Obama Administration’s media team may be hitting ‘diminishing returns:’
Consider: July was the White House’s worst month in terms of views since the channel was created back in January, and White House videos are receiving the lowest ratings (i.e. “users give this video x stars out of five”) on record.
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As Burch says in his analysis, the allegations by liberal healthcare reform advocates of astroturfing are loud and plentiful, and I’m amongst the first to admit that the YouTube platform is well known for it’s ability to be gamed.
But, given the sheer volume of visits to the official White House YouTube channel, this is unlikely (the White House channel is the most popular political channel on YouTube, with over six million views last week).
Using YouTube to predict political results is hit or miss – if social media mojo was any indicator of future results, we’d all be reporting to President Ron Paul right now. Still, it is a possible indicator of waning support for the healthcare initiatives on Capitol Hill, and thus worthy of note.
The long term trend will be interesting to watch here. Clearly the euphoria of the inauguration wasn't built to last, but year/year trends will be interesting.