Pulling together a social media plan

So it started with a profile on David Plouffe in the latest issue of Esquire.

Plouffe's the former campaign manager for Barack Obama. He's now heading up Organizing for America. Plouffe's the keeper of 13 million email addresses from the campaign. The plan is to stay connected with the army of volunteers who helped get Obama elected. When grassroots support is needed for the Administration's agenda and when the President wants to connect directly to the people, out goes messages to the 13 million volunteers.

That article in Esquire led to this great PowerPoint on slideshare.net — barack obama + social media. Read the notes to go with the slides. Key points. The Obama campaign had its own social network and created 16 official presences on other existing social networks. The communities and conversations are already out there — don't try and get them to come to you. You go to them. And play the part of a party host — introducing folks to big ideas and people doing groundbreaking work.

And so now I'm looking at a social media plan for a couple initiatives that would pull together:

• A blog on Typepad

• Twitter with those quick 140-word hits

• You Tube for videos

• Slideshare for PowerPoints

• Wikipedia for detailed background info

• Facebook / My Space / LinkedIn / Ning to join and start conversations

Every element would be linked together and be used to grow networks, ignite conversations that throw off sparks and make things happen.