Politics — Media Syndication — Caleb Gardner | Change Faster. Lead Smarter.

Biden's best weapon in a virtual campaign? @BarackObama

“It’s an incredibly powerful weapon,” said Caleb Gardner, a volunteer from the 2012 Obama for America Campaign who went on to oversee Obama’s social media strategy during the president's second term. “It’s not just the number of followers. You’ve got his ability to get media attention. His endorsement of Joe Biden set records in the number of people who shared it. The biggest hurdle for a campaign is to break through.” …

“Every cycle, what’s possible becomes different. The world changes,” said Gardner, who now runs 18 Coffees, an innovation and change-management consulting firm in Chicago. “That’s just the nature of campaigns.”

QuotesCaleb GardnerApril 23, 2020Digital, Social media, Politics, POTUS

Bloomberg's novel meme strategy is drawing the wrong kind of buzz

Adrienne Elrod, a Democratic strategist who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, was certain the Mike Bloomberg campaign account had been hacked.

On Jan. 14, the night of a Democratic presidential debate that did not include Bloomberg, his campaign’s Twitter account sent out a number of eyebrow-raising tweets, including a picture of him photoshopped as a meatball, round and covered in sauce. Elrod reached out to the campaign to let them know of the intrusion.

"Oh my God, I don't know if you guys realize this — your account's been hacked," she recalled telling the campaign. "And they're like: 'No, no, no. It's part of our strategy.'"

Media mentions, QuotesCaleb GardnerMarch 3, 2020Politics, Social media

Howard Schultz: Presidential Hopeful, Twitter Ratio King

“The specific outcry and outrage at what he is saying is not necessarily being driven by the individual tweet itself as it is the general feeling that this election is a crisis turning point in our lifetimes, and that we need to be all hands on deck about getting Trump out of office,” says Caleb Gardner, who ran the @BarackObama Twitter account for much of the 44th president’s second term, and now runs digital strategy firm 18 Coffees. “That’s where Twitter tends to be a reflection of our political id instead of the quality or content of a given tweet.”

QuotesCaleb GardnerFebruary 1, 2019Social media, Twitter, Politics

The Power of Twitter

How did Twitter, invented to allow friends to keep track of each other's social lives and interests, become a key forum for political debate? And what effect has the social media platform had on the nature and quality of public life?

Presenter David Baker speaks to the man who taught President Trump everything he knows about Twitter, the head of President Obama's social media campaign, and Twitter's own leader on strategy for public policy, to explore the real effect that it has had on politics.

Listen on BBC Radio →

QuotesCaleb GardnerDecember 23, 2018Social media, Politics, POTUS

Off The Record With Caleb Gardner: Net Neutrality

Caleb Gardner joins Scott Kitun for a bonus interview to discuss the ramifications of the FCC possibly changing net neutrality. How could this impact your internet experience? And what can you do to have your voice heard? Gardner was an organizer for the Obama campaign and is currently co-founder of 18 Coffees digital consultancy.

Listen at WGN Radio →

Podcast, InterviewsCaleb GardnerDecember 14, 2017Politics, Digital

Access to Anyone podcast | Caleb Gardner Talks PR, Community Building, and President Obama

Topics include:

How to solve problems and seize opportunities within the digital communications space
How Caleb landed a role working for President Obama
Navigating the new PR industry
How to move beyond the Rolodex
Using digital technology to cement and leverage relationships (personally and professionally)
The value of face-to-face meetings and being selective about connections
Understanding the intersection of community building and the future of the gig economy

Listen at the Access to Anyone podcast →

Interviews, PodcastCaleb GardnerDecember 1, 2017Networking, POTUS, Politics, Community-building, Digital

Rewrite the Rules podcast | Politics, Progress, and Digital Strategy

Our country's current political climate can be frustrating to witness. We have an endless, circus-like news cycle. President Trump is active and provocative on Twitter, and businesses, now, more than ever, are engaged in social issues, whether they want to be or not.

Listen on the Rewrite the Rules podcast →

Interviews, PodcastCaleb GardnerNovember 29, 2017Politics, Business, Digital

Inside The Disruptive Collision of Tech, Politics, and Race

One of the most powerful paradigm shifts taking place in our country right now is that of energized and emboldened new levels of civic participation as they directly intersect with youth culture, diverse voices and technology. Call it the next level of the disruptive "leaderful" era, an era in which everyone begins to not only recognize but also leverage one's own personal power and mindset to encourage rapid, dynamic social change. This bottom-up approach is increasingly challenging traditional forms of authority, social norms and hierarchy to try to push through to a new social model.

Media mentionsCaleb GardnerNovember 20, 2017Politics, Technology

Selfie podcast | Morning Skincare Routines + Staying Sane With Politics + Tattoos

We talk our morning skincare rituals, and interview Obama’s former social media manager about keep the peace when our politics collide. Caleb Gardner of the digital innovation firm 18 Coffees gives us some insight for staying sane in the midst of our current climate. Plus, to tattoo or not to tattoo? Kristen regrets not having any, and Sarah regrets the ones she has.

Listen on Life LIstened →

Podcast, InterviewsCaleb GardnerNovember 8, 2017Politics, Podcast

Hit 'like' for propaganda

Just three years after Iran’s crackdown on the Internet, in 2012, the country’s supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined Instagram, a service technically banned by the state. @khamenei_ir has 4643 posts, 1.6 million followers and follows just 12 accounts on the popular photo sharing site owned by Facebook. Ayatollah Khamenei’s account is a far cry from the typical Instagram fare. Here you won’t find artistic portraits of a plate of chelo kebab or candid shots of the Ayatollah cuddling kittens. Instead, the page is filled with propaganda including videos of his speeches, some over a minute long. A feat that left many users wondering how the Supreme Leader managed to beat Instagram’s non-negotiable 15-second cut-off. It was a technical glitch, said Instagram.

Media mentionsCaleb GardnerSeptember 13, 2017Politics

ET Brand Equity | "Trust isn't built in real-time," says Obama's former digital strategist

Caleb Gardner’s About page begins with “I used to work for Barack Obama” in big, bold red letters. To be more precise, he was the lead strategist of the former US President’s digital program, the largest of its kind in the political sphere. We caught up with Gardner, who now runs a digital strategy and innovation collective called 18 Coffees, and asked him to give us his insider tips, dos and 'don't even think about it' when it comes to handling social media for politicians, presidents and PMs.

InterviewsCaleb GardnerSeptember 13, 2017Barack Obama, Social media, Politics

The Daily Northwestern | President Obama’s former aide discusses importance of exploring opposing viewpoints online

President Barack Obama’s former digital director Caleb Gardner spoke to more than 30 people Friday about the importance of exploring opposing viewpoints on social media.

Gardner, who is now a digital marketer at global management consulting firm Bain & Company, said students should read news sources that may clash with their own views, mentioning Facebook and its newsfeed algorithm, which sorts through content and ranks stories in order of importance to best engage users.

SpeakingCaleb GardnerOctober 16, 2016Social media, Politics

BarackObama.com | Training organizers in the digital age

With this in mind, OFA’s digital team is joining forces with the training team to lead this first four-week program. The OFA digital team regularly reaches an audience of tens of millions on social media and by email, and has valuable experience with the challenges and opportunities associated with digital organizing. Digital Director Caleb Gardner kicked off the series with the first online class: Digital Organizing 101.

SpeakingCaleb GardnerJuly 17, 2015Politics, Social impact, Barack Obama

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