As America waves bye bye to Bush and welcomes Democrat Barack Obama into the White House, we reflect on how this Presidential election has been different from others.

Certainly more money and time were spent on the campaign trail than ever before, and we saw the oldest Presidential candidate in Republican John McCain standing shoulder to shoulder with Sarah Palin, the first woman to stand as running mate. But what got us most intrigued is how the Obama camp used digital media to interact with and engage voters.

Automated landline calls, known as robo-calls, have been a standard way to canvas voters in the States for a while now, but their impact on tempting the electorate to the polls is debatable. While McCain stuck to this arguably antiquated method of communication, Obama took the power of text and used it to his advantage.

Over the 21 months of campaigning, millions of supporters signed up to receive text alerts reminding them to register to vote, to remember to go to the polling station (apparently many simply forget!) and to encourage their friends and families to do the same.

But Obama's greatest SMS coup was when he signed up hundreds of thousands of mobile numbers by telling people that if they texted the campaign, then he would text them back as soon as he had made his choice for Vice President.

Not everyone was a fan of Obama using text, but as a simple and cost effective marketing tool it clearly galvanized the people. In comparison McCain failed to use an SMS campaign, so could this have contributed to his failure to lay claim to the Oval Office?

Another vital part of the Obama campaign was his online precinct captain training tool, which monitored and supported canvassers across America. Also in the Democrat digital arsenal was a bespoke social networking site called My.BarackObama, which Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes helped advise on. With endless videos of Barack speeches and TV adverts posted on YouTube this was definitely a campaign that understood the power of digital communication.

This heralds an exciting opportunity for politics to embrace internet and mobile to get people excited about the future of government. We're certainly interested to see if British politicians take a leaf out of Barack's book.

Image courtesy of transplanted mountaineer.