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Cat Brooks Video For Oakland Mayoral Election Race Goes Viral, Could Change Outcome

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Cat Brooks officially made the jump from Oakland activist to Oakland politician about eight hours ago, when she and her team released a video about why she’s running for Mayor of Oakland.

Frankly, I’ve seen a lot of Oakland election videos by campaigners over the decades, but Cat Brooks’ video is, by far, the best one. It not only effectively blends Cat Brooks the activist with Cat Brooks the politician, but it manages to fit in some of the most important moments in Oakland’s 21st Century history: most notably the Oscar Grant murder.

Finally, the message of the video asks the viewer to become what Cat Brooks was, an activist. Basically, Ms. Brooks is shedding her skin and showing off her new one. (And I know Cat will disagree with that, saying “Zennie, the video says I’m not putting this bullhorn down..” and I get that, but – as one who’s worked for or helped or advised several Mayors of Oakland since 1993 – being Mayor of Oakland is a World unto itself.)

Iit’s a great start for Brooks, the video, even if it’s only on Facebook. What the facination is with using just Facebook for a political campaign is not known to me; this video should be everywhere: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Dailymotion, and so on.

So, I’m not ready to call this a full game-changer until it is truly well-distributed across platforms. The problem with this approach, is it just speaks to one part of a base of supporters, rather than reach new ones.

Using just Facebook in a run for an office as important at Mayor of Oakland or the Oakland City Council misses the mark, especially when it takes no money at all to just re-upload the video to the other platforms. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvmvfThtGQI

If the reason for using just Facebook came from a political consultant, my suggestion is you fire your political consultant.

UPDATE: Cat Brooks and her political consultant informed me via Facebook and Twitter that there was a Twitter and YouTube version of the video. Brooks said it was on “all platforms.”

Let me clear up something. First, I received no email or press release on the video effort. Second, I did look for the YouTube version of the video, which did not appear at the time. Third, I figured if I was wrong, I would be corrected by someone…

Then, I saw this tweet…

And this tweet from Tasion Kwamilele, with the video …

Thanks, Tasion!

So, now I can say Cat Brooks really upped her social media game!

Here’s the video:

Oakland Elections Candidates Use Only Facebook, Which Is A Mistake

And, in fairness to the other candidates who have sent videos, here are the one’s that I’ve received to date. All of them are on Facebook, only.

First, from Nikki Bas, who’s running for the District Two Oakland City Council Seat against Abel Guillen….

Second, from Charlie Michelson, who’s running for the District Four Oakland City Council Seat that Annie Campbell Washington is vacating (Mr. Michelson will be my guest on Zennie62 on YouTube Live, tonight, October 5th, 8 PM PST)….

And there will be more videos from more candidates in the Oakland Elections as the days progress. What matters is message and distribution. Right now, Cat Brook’s message kicks butt, even if the distribution needs work. That said, it’s so good, the lack of cross platform sharing problem will take care of itself over time.

I mean, I’m blogging about it, right?

Stay tuned.