From the Obama campaign to the World Economic Forum, Rahaf Harfoush, strategist, author and speaker, is using new media to change the world.

An African proverb holds that it takes a village to raise a child. In the case of 26-year-old Rahaf Harfoush, it has taken a digital tribe.

"One of the reasons I love technology so much is that it has exposed me to a tribal network of people I've known for years," says the new-media strategist, author, and speaker. "Some I've met in person, others I've just met online. They have formed this net of support around me and have had the most influence on my life," she declares. "When I was writing my book and would go through writer's block, they would rally around me. I could not have achieved anything without all of these people backing me up."

She may have grown up digital, but Harfoush also combines impressive intellect with superb communication skills.

Her techno-tribe expanded to unexpected proportions when she joined then-Senator Barack Obama's social media team, which was instrumental in helping him attain the highest office in the United States. The Obama campaign turned to social networking to raise money, organize locally, and get out the votes to help defeat the Clinton juggernaut and then John McCain and the Republicans. In the process, the world of politics changed forever.

Educated at Obama University

Harfoush graduated in 2006 from the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business with an honors degree in business administration. One of her first jobs was working as a research coordinator for thought leader and author Don Tapscott for the book Wikinomics. She later served as freelance consultant and writer for Tapscott's Grown Up Digital. Other books she has helped write include Everything I Needed to Know About Business... I Learned from a Canadian by Leonard Brody and David Raffa.

While working on Grown Up Digital, Harfoush got to know Chris Hughes, one of Facebook's co-founders, and director of online organizing for the Obama campaign. "MyBO," Obama's official social network, was Hughes' brainchild, and creating a sense of community was essential to its success. "I was so blown away by what he was creating, I begged him to let me visit and experience it firsthand," Harfoush explains. Hughes did one better. He invited her to join his team.

She couldn't turn down the offer. Within two days, the self-proclaimed computer nerd was heading south to Chicago from her home in Toronto. Says Harfoush: "I found an apartment on Craigslist and rented a car. My boyfriend drove me down, and I spent three months working seven days a week, up to 12 hours a day, and it was just the most amazing experience."

She shares details in her book, Yes We Did! An Inside Look at How Social
Media Built the Obama Brand, which gives readers front-row seats to an experience that changed both politics and branding forever.

By the time Obama's campaign was over, volunteers had created more than two million profiles on MyBO, planned 200,000 offline events, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blogs, and raised $30 million on 70,000 personal fundraising pages. The campaign used everything from YouTube, to Facebook, to text messages, to the iPhone, to the billion e-mails sent out, covering every base. Harfoush points out that social media is a means to an end—a tool to enable strategy.

"Social media tools must be tied into a strategic marketing or communications plan with clearly defined goals, objectives, and milestones," insists Harfoush. "It's like the Wild West these days with companies doing a million social media things without planning or thinking or analyzing how this can add value. They feel like they have to be in the space instead of actually evaluating why they are there, who they are trying to target, and for what reason." She adds that one of the most common mistakes businesses make is that they think they need to be doing every new thing. It's all about balance.

Currently the associate director of digital interaction for the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Harfoush is helping develop its online community platform. "The forum is primarily known for its meetings, and yet there is a huge body of amazing work that they do that a lot of people are unaware of," she notes. "Social media is one of the ways we can showcase lesser-known aspects of our business."

Expanding Conferences via Twitter

Popular on the speaking circuit, Harfoush uses technology to engage her audience. Speaking at the conference of one of the leading worldwide integrated telecommunications operators, Fundacion Telefonica, in Madrid, she encouraged questions via Twitter.

"The discussion left the confines of that room. I love talking to people, and this was a way to talk to even more," says Harfoush. "This format also makes people feel more comfortable. There were about 400 in the room and it can be intimidating to stand up and ask a question. Many are more comfortable sending a question via iPhone or BlackBerry."

One of the benefits of social media is it allows a conversation to continue beyond the end of a conference. After the Fundacion Telefonica conference, Harfoush continued to tweet back and forth with several people whom she now follows and vice versa.

She cautions, "Using Twitter during a session depends on the speaker's comfort level regarding the subject at hand. It's not an off-the-shelf solution that an organizer should randomly plug into a meeting."

One of Harfoush's biggest complaints about conferences is meeting many fascinating people and losing touch with them afterward, but "that's where social media comes into play," she notes. "By implementing Google and LinkedIn groups, you can stay connected when you get home."

Online communities created around an event tend to have short lifecycles, Harfoush admits: "If you want a longer lifecycle, create a broader focus on some of the major issues you want to address."

"Want to increase the number of early registrants?" she adds. "Get people to your site using Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook," she advises. "Link initiatives to something that adds value to your business that you can measure."

Social media need not be intimidating. "It's not some sort of voodoo magic trick. It's just a way for people to do what they've been doing for hundreds of years: to talk to each other, share ideas, gossip, work together, bicker. Behind every keyboard is somebody who wants to be heard, to be validated," Harfoush observes. "It has allowed us to expand our networks. I can have interesting conversations with people around the world. I love my digital tribe."

During this year's Oscars, Harfoush had her Twitter feed and Facebook page open and was having a party of sorts. "What was supposed to be an individual event, me at home watching the Oscars, became a communal event. We were all laughing, joking, and sharing."

Born in Damascus, Syria, Harfoush, with her parents and two sisters, moved to Toronto in 1989, and she considers Canada home. Olympics fever struck Vancouver this February, and the hottest ticket in the history of Canadian sports was for the men's gold medal ice hockey game between Canada and the U.S.

Harfoush has her own golden ticket—one that allows her to connect with her tribe any time of the day or night. "I felt like I was watching the hockey game with a bunch of my friends," she shares. It didn't matter that she was in Egypt at the time.

Originally published May 1, 2010

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