• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 4, 2010

Arizona Senator John McCain has launched an online video initiative capitalizing on the surge in social media marketing. The campaign relies on Sorenson 360's online video platform to help drive the former Republican presidential nominee's 2010 senatorial reelection effort.

The "Video Supporter Wall" of more than 500 video messages highlights key issues from a variety of supporters, from Steve Forbes to every-day United States citizens who have a Web or movie camera and can generate video content. The social media campaign aims to connect with potential and existing McCain supporters who want to hear about the issues or speak out on McCain's behalf.

"The strategy for the supporter wall is to provide a way for voters in Arizona to come to site and interact with the Senator," says Corey Vale, Internet director for the McCain 2010 campaign. "It's a way for supporters to hop on the Web site and tell others why they support John McCain."

McCain has about 510,000 fans on Facebook and approximately 1.75 million followers @SenJohnMcCain. Vale says McCain dabbles in other social media, from Twitter to Facebook, but the video supporter wall gives people a chance to interact and share their views in one place. With a click of a button and a Web camera people can make and upload videos to the wall, explains Sorenson Media CEO Peter Csathy. The wall connects supporters by tying them to the campaign or others who have the same passion to reelect the senator.

January comScore Video Metric data shows that more than 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video in November. Online video viewing continued to reach record levels during the month, with nearly 31 billion videos viewed. Google sites, such as YouTube, account for 39% of all videos viewed online for that month in the United States.

The video offers a site feature, so people can search for videos via name, title or description. And although Sorenson's technology allows search engine bots from Google, Microsoft Bing, or Yahoo to pick up and index the videos, the clips remain behind a walled garden.

Sorenson Chief Technology Officer Michael Flathers says an API link between the McCain Web site and Sorenson's technology SquishNet provides the connection. "The video wall was implemented in less than 15 lines of code," he says.

Sorenson worked with Forty, a Phoenix-based marketing agency, to connect the video wall to the site. Forty designed the new McCain site from the ground up, from the overall strategy to building the site. The company worked with OVO, the campaign's branding agency, which designed the basic look of the site around the campaign.