Archive for September, 2006
From Deborah Netburn at the LA Times:
Savvy Web publicists, such as those for the ABC show “Lost,” have been adept at using promotional materials that spill out beyond the edges of the show, creating mysteries embedded online or in the real world for fans to chase after.
Sometimes, however, a publicity machine can be too clever for its own good, as was the case this fall when the PR department at Fox hoped to court this community with press materials for the new hour-long thriller, “Vanished.” So carefully embedded in the documents were the clues, that few even realized they were there, and a great viral mystery was not only left unsolved, but a slumbering world remained unaware that the trail even existed.
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September 30th, 2006
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Adam Sichko of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a good piece on candidates’ use of MySpace, Facebook and social media in races in Missouri, Illinois and Ohio, focusing on Missouri. Some details: Missouri Senator Jim Talent has a Facebook profile, his opponent Claire McCaskill has a supporter-created Facebook profile rather than a campaign-created one, and both make good use of video on their own campaign sites. None of the major-party Missouri congressional candidates has a campaign social networking profile at all, but the article looks in a little detail at an Ohio congressman’s and a Missouri state senatorial candidate’s social media outreach.
The article makes the appropriate points about social networking sites’ potential for reaching new supporters, YouTube’s ability to make your gaffes last forever (hello, macaca) and the difficulty of maintaining message control when supporters are creating content. Nice quote from Julie Barko Germany, Person to Person to Person editor and IPDI deputy director.
– cpd
September 29th, 2006
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Micropersuasion reports that search engine marketing company Spannerworks has put out a PDF guide to social media, covering blogs, podcasts, social networks, content communities and Second Life. It’s more of a quick overview than an in-depth examination, but it’s still a good resource. Man, they’ll let anybody publish an eBook these days.
– cpd
September 28th, 2006
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New reader Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg of Future Majority writes in with a couple of good suggestions. First, campaign sites should always have some sort of action available for volunteers to take, so that you don’t miss out on a chance to catch potential activists when they stop by.
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September 28th, 2006
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Following up on last week’s articles on blod ads and spreading ideas in the blogosphere, IDI’s Blogger Relations blog takes a step back and reminds us to do our homework before we dive in. Next, the article asserts a basic philosophical approach: to work with bloggers, it’s often essential for your campaign or organization to join the conversation directly. IDI then follows with more tips for getting the most out of your campaign.
I’d basically agree, but caution as before that if your campaign, organization or company is going to have a blog, you must have something substantive to say and you must say it in an authentic voice. Todd Zeigler’s Biving’s Report article on campaign sites makes similar points.
– cpd
September 28th, 2006
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The Bivings Report has great list of tips for building campaign sites beyond the usual cookiecutter waving-flag-and-smiling-candidate layout. Some suggestions: give visitors stuff to do besides just give you money, create a site design that says something about the candidate, recognize your best volunteers, provide users with a behind-the-scenes look at your campaign, and create a community around your site. More suggestions and more details in the full article. Thanks to reader Ha-Hoa Dang for the tip.
– cpd
September 27th, 2006
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Chris Cillizza and Jim VandeHei have a great article in today’s Post, “In Ohio, a Battle of Databases,” that looks in detail at how campaigns work with data behind the scenes to find voters, hit them with targeted messages and ultimately get them to the polls. Though the Republicans have a finely tuned turnout machine, an Ohio Democratic challenger has learned from 2004 and is racing to catch up. One section out of many worth reading:
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September 26th, 2006
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“Online Politics 101: The Tools and Tactics of Online Political Advocacy” gathers the e.politics how-to articles into one conveniently packaged (and free) publication.
Each chapter contains a link to the live version on epolitics.com with updates and related materials.
- Download the PDF [2.4 megs] — right click and “save as” to grab your own copy. You can’t hardly beat the price.
- Or, follow the links to the right to browse by chapter.
- Press release
September 26th, 2006
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- Few Watch Drug PSAs On YouTube. The Office of National Drug Control Policy finds that viral marketing is hard if your audience doesn’t want to take its medicine. Political advertisers take note — YouTubers will watch what THEY want to watch, not necessarily what you WANT them to watch.
- More Americans Turn To The Internet For News About Politics. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, “on a typical day in August, 26 million Americans were using the internet for news or information about politics and the upcoming mid-term elections.”
- Search Shows Your Political Thoughts. A look at using the search terms entered at the major search engines to track hot political issues. Product marketers have been using this tactic for quite some time.
– cpd
September 25th, 2006
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From their site: “Idealware provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits, centralized into a website. Through product comparisons, recommendations, case studies, and software news, Idealware allows nonprofits to make the software decisions that will help them be more effective.”
Current articles/upcoming seminars include: Getting Started with Online Donations, Choosing a Blogging Tool, and Comparing Open Source CMSes: Joomla, Drupal and Plone. I think we might all learn something before it’s done. Thanks to M&R’s Eve Fox for the tip.
– cpd
September 25th, 2006
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Following up on Wednesday’s post on blogger relations and blog advertising, Justin Abbott from Blogads itself has written in with more about designing effective blog advertising campaigns.
One of our advertisers, Brian Clark, wrote an awesome (illustrated!) article with a lot of best/worst practices: How to Write a Killer BlogAd
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September 22nd, 2006
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From the New Politics Institute, the first of four recommendation papers/manifestos intended for progressive campaigns. This installment covers advertising on cable tv, which the Institute argues is cheaper, better targeted and more likely to reach influentials with the right messages than advertising over traditional broadcast networks. The report is available as an HTML presentation and PDF, and the page also links to a video clip from July’s NPI presentation. For more on cable, see this post about Wall Street Journal coverage of the topic and the e.politics section on microtargeting.
– cpd
September 21st, 2006
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A conversation yesterday on the Progressive Exchange email list was both a pleasure to read and the source of some expert advice on the best ways to boost a campaign or issue’s profile in the blogosphere. A list member got things started by asking about tactics for getting blog exposure and the topic of blog ads came up quickly. With the permission of the participants, I’ve reprinted the discussion that followed:
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September 20th, 2006
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Just read Seth Stevenson’s Slate review of the book What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails and How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds. Sounds like an welcome take on what works in advertising, focusing on numbers instead of the usual anecodotes.
Two quick takeaways that are immediately relevant to online politics: first, an ad message seen three times in three different media is much more effective than one seen three times in a single medium. So, an ad seen in print, online and tv is generally going to work better than one just seen on tv or online. Once again, integration is key!. Also, the book apparently claims that the numbers show that online advertising is much more effective than generally realized. I think I’m going to have to go pick up a copy.
– cpd
September 19th, 2006
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PoliticsTV has a quick but good interview with a couple of speakers from last month’s New Organizing Institute training in DC. For one thing, it looks at nurturing “supervolunteers” — the 5% of your activist list that can turn around and produce more than half of your total volunteer work if you support and guide them properly. Also, it talks about the importance of integrating online strategy and field strategy and discusses tools such as downloadable “walk kits” customized for each volunteer’s own neighborhood that will become available over the next couple of years. It’s definitely worth the five minutes of watching time.
– cpd
September 18th, 2006
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I’ve just finished the first new section of Online Politics 101 since e.politics launched two months ago — how to use online video and animation for political organizing. It covers the basics of using video on your own site, using YouTube and other video-sharing sites to reach new supporters, and video as a social media tool. Next up: online advertising. Coming soon: take the 101 content with you when you leave.
– cpd
September 17th, 2006
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