What Does LinkedIn Have to Do with the Presidential Race?

The 2008 presidential candidates have been busy using social networking platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube.  Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a leading candidate among Democrats, has also tapped LinkedIn to help him connect with entrepreneurs.  He used the feature "Answers" to pose the question "How can the next president better help small business and entrepreneurs thrive?" 

Within eight hours of posting his question, he received over 800 responses from other LinkedIn users.  This is amazing considering the average response rate is only seven.

To put Obama's use of LinkedIn into perspective to his other online means of connecting, his My-Space Web page lists 174,285 "friends" and visitors to his YouTube page have viewed video clips more than 11 million times.  His activity eclipses those of other presidential candidates.

Obama has been working hard at leveraging online tools to connect with his audience.  To read more about Obama's use of online tools, read the article Obama Uses LinkedIn To Plug Into Entrepreneurs.

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