Archive for July, 2006
Wow, I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this one before — a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times is looking for an internal campaign source by running a Google ad tied to searches for the name “Katherine Harris” (i.e., the former Florida elections official, current congressmember and senatorial candidate). We must presume that she thinks that Harris’s campaign staff members are so disgruntled that she can catch one of them through an online ad. Ouch, that one’s gotta hurt! Thanks to Salon for the initial hit.
– cpd
July 31st, 2006
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PR guy David Meerman Scott has an excellent (and free) publication on his site about using press releases to reach customers (and by extension, potential campaign supporters) directly. Some quick points:
- A release sent out through a newswire (PR Newswire, US Newswire, etc) spreads throughout the online world and is reprinted and republished extensively.
- A release whose title and content are written with web searchers in mind has a big advantage and can help steer readers/potential supporters interested in your subject to your site, where you can capture them. Too many press releases are filled with jargon, gobbledy-gook and vapor.
I write about this subject in the e.politics section on spreading the word about your site or campaign, but he goes into much more detail. Well worth reading! (Thanks to the Miami Herald for sending me to it in the first place.)
– cpd
July 31st, 2006
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- Les Blogs Herald France’s Newest Inalienable Right — The French are crazy about blogs, spending more time on them than Americans, British or Germans. Money quote — “You cannot be elected president of France without a blog.”
- MySpace Blurs Line Between Friends And Flacks — Advertisers are taking advantage of MySpace to create ads that don’t look like ads. Promotional tactics include profiles for fake people who love a product and for movie characters.
- The Politics of Science — A pro-stem-cell-research group called the Campaign to Defend the Constitution is spending $250,000 for ads in the New York Times print version and $100,000 for online ads, though the article doesn’t specify where the online ads will run. (BTW, nice campaign name, guys. Next up: “Campaign for Butterflies, Puppies and Nice Warm Hugs”)
– cpd
July 31st, 2006
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M&R Strategic Services has a report out on how to contact new members of your activist list. The results surprised me, but the authors have actual real-live numbers to back them up — and we all know that Math Never Lies.
M&R’s Eve Fox says:
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July 28th, 2006
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The progressive blogosphere’s first attack ad? PoliticsOnline has the story.
(By the way, if you don’t subscribe to PoliticsOnline’s weekly PoliTicker e-newsletter, you’re missing out on a great resource.)
– cpd
July 28th, 2006
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If you’re in the DC area, here are two upcoming events of interest: my old friend Hank Dearden’s regular Second Tuesdays New Media Cocktails and Networking Night on August 8th and Alan Rosenblat’s next Internet Advocacy Roundtable on August 17th. Their invitations follow….
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July 27th, 2006
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Two LA Times reporters appeared on WAMU radio’s Diane Rehm show today to talk about GOP long-term plans for political dominance. They spent a lot of time talking about microtargeting, particularly for direct mail, a skill at which the Republicans have excelled over the past few election cycles. Well worth listening to for anyone who does political communications — the audio links are to the right of the segment description.
For more, see the e.politics section on political microtargeting.
– cpd
July 26th, 2006
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Continuing today’s video theme, an article about YouTube video clips of the war in Lebanon in today’s Washington Post got me thinking: how soon before an online video changes American (or world) opinion in some fundamental way?
Think about the televising of the 1960 presidential debate, which quite likely shifted the election to Kennedy, or news coverage of the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam, which turned American opinion against the war for the first time. When will online video have similarly transformative moment? Not yet, but maybe sooner than we think.
I’d argue that now-ubiquitous digital cameras have had such a singular instance already — the Abu Ghraib scandal had the visceral effect it did because soldiers’ digital photos of their mistreatment of prisoners, which they spread amongst themselves via cd and (I believe) email, made the issue searingly real in a way that a dry text description could not. Video’s next?
– cpd
July 25th, 2006
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A Micropersuasion post about digital editing made me wonder — will political campaigns try to use anonymous online videos as a dirty trick? I.e., using easily-available editing software to put their opponent in a compromising or unflattering position, posting the video on YouTube or some other video hosting site, and then spreading the word behind-the-scenes.
Campaigns have already been accused of digitally manipulating photos, for instance to make a crowd at a friendly event seem larger than it actually was, and over the years political operatives have tried just about every dirty trick imaginable, from push-polling to outright voter intimidation. So why not a video-driven whisper campaign? It’s unethical, of course, but the bigger dissuader may be the consequences of getting caught and exposed in the press.
– cpd
July 25th, 2006
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At a meeting a few weeks ago, Alex Treadway of National Journal’s Policy Council mentioned using the “3-30-3-30″ rule when communicating with Congress. It sounded like an excellent model, so I asked him to go into some detail for e.politics.
I wish I could say that I invented the term but I did not. Here’s the background:
Over the first year of the Policy Council, we began working with many associations and corporations to build microsites that put their best foot forward in terms of their advocacy messaging to Congress. In a few meetings, I began to hear people refer to a “3-30-3-30 rule” in reference to how they provide advocacy information online. We then began verifying it with congressional staffers, both informally and through some of our surveying. Here’s the basic idea:
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July 24th, 2006
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Mark Z. Barabak has a good overview article about political campaigns’ use of new technology in the LA Times (requires registration), focusing on podcasting and blogs but with some information about wireless/mobile technology and cable tv. The story’s hook: “Politicians and their promoters are facing the same problem as Hollywood and the makers of toothpaste: How do you sell your product to an increasingly fragmented audience?” Some quick highlights:
- Cable tv companies may soon be able to deliver ads targeted to a particular household — marketers have been able to slice and dice direct mail recipient lists like this for years, but it’s new to television
- Campaigns are waking up to the promise of social media and other Web 2.0 technologies to turn casual site visitors into evangelists
- Over 50,000 people are already subscribing to GOP video podcasts, even with little promoting
Well worth reading, and suggested by a loyal reader (thanks, Dad!).
– cpd
July 23rd, 2006
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