PRactical P.R. BlogThe Leader in Small Business Public Relations

Last Wednesday I was amazed  to find a question on LinkedIn ”posted” by Barack Obama. I posted an answer, and was impressed with this P.R. tactic.

It was the first time a presidential candidate had held an event on the LinkedIn site.

Privately held LinkedIn started in 2003 as an online place for business professionals to post their profile and connect with like-minded people for advice.

As expected, one of Obama’s team members came up with this idea (isn’t it great to have amazing team members?) This team member wasn’t even paid! Obama’s use of LinkedIn’s Q&A feature was the idea of Steven Spinner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who does volunteer work for the Obama campaign.

Spinner, a LinkedIn subscriber himself, says the response to Obama’s questions far exceeded his expectations. “I’m blown away,” he said.

Using LinkedIn was a natural for Spinner.

“It’s about outreach and how you can use these networks to involve people in the process, energize them and introduce them to the uniqueness of the Barack Obama campaign,” said Spinner, who spoke as a volunteer and not as an official representative for the Obama campaign.

The Illinois senator’s campaign “is on the cutting edge of technology,” he said.

The full article on the subject is here: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-19538586.htm