Posts filed under 'Email Lists'
- Update: The Obama Camp Dials It Forward. Post-primary conference call plays it subtle, while all is well in ClintonLand.
- McCain Launches Spanish-Language Website. Wonder how the Minutemen (no, not THE Minutemen) will feel about THAT one?
- Bury bad news with online press releases. Somebody forward this to Hillary Clinton. C.f. Craigslist Ad Of The Day.
- The critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin. From gin to sitcoms to lolcats, via Henry Copeland.
- Bunches o’ Studies and Stats on Nonprofit Marketing.
- How-To: 10 Tips for Launching a Solid Podcast.
- Two new guides to presidential online advertising from Clickz, Online Presidential Display Ads Leading to the 2008 Primaries and All Primaries Are Local: 2008 Presidential Campaigns Buy Local Online.
- The Tale of the E-mail. Hillary and Barack’s constrasting post-Indiana/NC notes. C.f. She’s Still In, And She’s Still In To Win.
- Pew Study Confirms Cell Phones Rule.
- Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth.
- Right now, I’m watching the President of the Utah State Senate on my desktop. Julie, you had me at “desktop.”
- Google Reader is becoming more of a social networking application.
- Twitter Post Rescues Jailed Journalist, but Egyptians ignore Facebook call.
- How the White House lost 5 million e-mails.
- Jailed Chinese Journalist Shi Tao’s Poem Follows Olympic Torch’s Route Online.
- Matt Stoller on how liberals rule the web, and The Baltimore Sun on how Matt and friends raised 400K for Donna Edwards. Via tPrez.
- Phantom Obama Vote Appears on NJ Voting Machine.
- Web Ads from Left and Right Advocacy Groups Signal More to Come.
- Media criticism in context: “Yes, it would be nice if the press spent less time on inanities and more time on how candidates planned to actually run the country. But this view of the media is just too simplistic.” Via Salon.
- North Carolina Radio Host Reports Anti-Obama Chain E-Mail Distortion As Fact. C.f. Pennebaker: Clip Doctored, about the Mickey Kantor video distortion. (also via tPrez).
- Union-organizing emails get employees of a social networking site fired! Sent around by Michael Whitney.
- Clinton’s and McCain’s Gasoline Tax Holiday Reimagined as a Phishing Scam.
- National Intelligence Agency Breaks Out RSS Feed.
- 6% are Natural Born Clickers.
- Twitter frenzy! Using Twitter for Your Organization, Use TwitterFone For Easy Voice-To-Text On Twitter, and Political Junkies Congregate and Comment on Election Results Through Twitter. Plus, 5 Tips to Grow Your Twitter Presence and The Bivings Group Does Twitter.
- Yes, a Montana cattle ranch is using banner ads combined with search ads to sell their premium beef via the internet.
- 10 Valuable Tips for Shooting Web Video. Via Frogloop.
- Google, YouTube and the city of New Orleans try to host their own presidential forum. Via Mike Allen.
- Video: how primary-season attacks have been amplified in the general election.
- FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret ‘National Security Letter,’ Loses.
- Harold vs. Markos. Not everyone wants a unified Dem ticket.
- META Keywords are Legally Dead.
- Be very afraid: Engineers find ‘missing link’ of electronics. Robots take next step toward world domination.
- A minute and a half with Shana Glickfield…is enough to spark any man’s dreams.
- Clone-tool war on nipples continues. Complete with tragic casualty figures.
– cpd
May 7th, 2008
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Read Scott Martin continues doing yeoman’s work over at his political Ad of the Day site, and with Indiana and North Carolina in mind, take a look at how Obama’s been pushing voter turnout. His paid search ads on “Indiana primary,” for instance, have been pushing early voting in the state, while Clinton’s are generic and point to her main website. Also, check out the display ads each is running: again, Obama’s ads are focused on helping people get to the polls, while Clinton’s are general fundraising spots. As in other examples of his online campaigning, Obama’s strategy is more focused than Clinton’s and also more of-the-moment. How much it helps, we’ll know soon.
Freed from the pressure to win votes immediately, McCain can sit back and work on differentiating himself from the Dems — well, at least from Obama. His online display ads are hitting the gas tax moratorium hard, with a petition for list-building. Thinking about the Fall? Not a luxury the Dems can afford much of, at least for another agonizing month.
– cpd
May 5th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
I hate to risk alienating my new BFF Mark Zuckerberg, but has Facebook’s moment in the sun as a hot political tool passed? And if so, what does that tell us about the future of social networking sites for online political organizing, and even about the future of Facebook itself?
We’ve now seen more than a year of intense use of social networking sites by the U.S. presidential campaigns (and even longer use by issue-advocacy groups), which gives us a solid base of information and experience to judge just how effective Facebook is as a political tool — both for organized political campaigns and advocacy groups and for individual political activists. The verdict? Facebook has not lived up to a lot of its initial political hype, and for reasons that are perfectly natural considering what kind of a site it is. The crux:
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May 4th, 2008
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- Adding Video to Turn Dead-End ‘Thank You’ Pages Into Viral Marketing Campaigns. The Obama campaign finds yet another sweet spot for online recruiting.
- The Post Is Having A Rough Day. Spam attack!
- Reluctantly, a Daily Stops Its Presses, Living Online.
- Rev. Wright Baits the Soundbiters.
- The Internet Goes Green. The growth of the envirosphere, via Micropersuasion.
- Space war would leave destructive legacy.
- McCain: It’s “clear who Hamas wants to be the next president.” Fruits of a blogger conference call.
- Google Earth Outreach Aides U.N. Track Refugees and Save Lives.
- Beyond Bittergate, Barack Yields Success to His Supporters.
- Obama’s Database Will Make Him the Power Broker. Another persistent political following! “Like Mussolini/ And Kennedy…”
- The chummy relationship of campaign professionals and journalists in Washington. Or, getting scolded for making fun of McCain on Facebook.
- Schism Grows Between Obama and Liberal Bloggers.
- Were Mesopotamians the first brand addicts?
- Subject Line, ‘From’ Address Crucial to Email Marketing.
- Who Stole the Plans for iRobot’s Battle Bots?
- YouTube vid inspires Obamacrombie t-shirts.
- Facebook as Weekly Evil.
- McCain on FriendFeed: “Considering the McCain campaign’s sometimes uneven online strategy, this is a step in the right direction.”
- Social Applications Dominate the Web.
- Gays, Lesbians More Receptive to Blog Ads than Heterosexuals.
- An overview of web mining in societal benefit areas.
- Top 10 Wireless Marketing Mistakes.
- 3 Top Tips to Improve Your Online Writing.
- Henry Copeland of Blogads: “As the social media winter looms, the winners will be the folks with strong relationships, low overheads, a strong commitment on innovation rather than coat-tail riding, and, most of all, a indelible passion for the business. We’re looking forward to seeing you after the bust.”
- Sorry Disney, But You’re Kind of a Skank Factory.
- DNC’s national cable ad buy. The RNC’s not so hot about it.
- Web Site Blames Sen. McConnell for Quorum-less FEC.
- The Twitter Disconnect. An introduction and how-to. Also, glimpse a hardcore Twitter-using life.
- Things Really Were Different Before Clinton-Obama. Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin…into the future.
- Which Government Agency Should Be Your Computer’s Firewall? HAL 9000 or black squirrels?
– cpd
April 28th, 2008
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- Espionage Against Pro-Tibet Groups, Others, Spurred Microsoft Patches.
- New Freedom, and Peril, in Online Criticism of China.
- In every measure, Obama clobbers Clinton online. Also, Barack Obama Takes Lion’s Share of Online Video Viewerships.
- Obama Uses YouTube To Lobby The Public After Losing Pennsylvania.
- Notes from the eCampaigning Forum 2008.
- Cuddle Parties: When Touchy Feely Goes Goofy.
- Why Democrats Rule the Web.
- Smug Alert in SF. Thanks, Slate
- Lost in the Smoke-Filled Room: Unexpected Talent. On the benefits of a primary process. C.f. The Primary ‘Bounce’.
- Government to Seek Terrorists in World of Warcraft: The Full Proposal.
- Welcome to the high-tech age of consumer jihadists. Suggested by Burt Edwards.
- Look Ma, I’m on CIA.gov.
- Anti-war site lets you spend $3 trillion your way.
- Obama’s GOP Shadow.
- Laughing Baby vs. the YouTube Commenters. C.f. The vile state of Internet discourse knows no borders.
- Colbert Snags Clinton, EdWORDS and Obama in One Cast.
- Fight, prefrosh, for social justice — via e-mail.
- Newspaper Ads Drive Online Research, In-Store Purchases.
- Online Advocacy — Using Petitions for List Building.
- Obama Talks About (Internet) Rumors.
- MTV News Still on the Edge of Political News. Kurt Loder rides to the rescue one last time.
- Twitter Away Your Life With Social Networking. And, Is Twittering Sustainable?
- The Twittering Class and the Primaries.
- Tips for success in a Web 2.0 world.
- Do Progressive Techies Have a Google Blind Spot?
- Drive additional web traffic with email.
- Facebook Chat — distraction or benefit?.
- Sick Profits Video Contest. User-generated content goes to the doctor.
- Despite Negative Press, Facebook Is a Powerful Agent for Social Change. But wait: 51% of Donors ‘Not At All Interested’ in Social Networks.
- The New Guards: The Players. A look at potential Republican MoveOn equivalents. C.f. MoveOn.org Asks McCain To Drop Pastor Who Blamed Victims For Katrina.
- EEN’s Avatars Campaign Brings Online Marketing to Life. Online/offline connection.
- Huckabee to follow in Robertson’s footsteps? Yet another independent audience?
- Radiohead Launches Social Network.
- Nerd alert or sublime beauty? Full Earthrise and Earthset in Hi-Def, from the Japanese Kaguya lunar orbiter. I can see my house from here! Via Space.com.
– cpd
April 24th, 2008
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Along with Dennis Johnson, Karen Jagoda and Morra Aarons-Mele, I had the pleasure of giving a presentation this morning on congressional and local online campaigns for the assembled journalists at the Knight Digital Media Center’s symposium, Election ’08: Unleashing the Cyber-watchdogs (i.e., after a week of luxuriating in the California sun, it was time to sing for my supper and justify the trip). My notes are below; if they’re too cryptic, drop me a note for details.
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April 24th, 2008
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These tips are for an Advocates for Youth/Choice USA online organizing training session on April 16, 2008, and you kids can look at them in greater depth in the relevant Online Politics 101 articles, particularly the ones covering marketing and promotion, websites, blogger relations and search engine optimization. They’re aimed at organizations and campaigns that are on the resource-poor side, since those won’t be able to do much paid promotion, but the basic ideas apply to most sites regardless of scale. See also that enduring classic from November of 2006, How to Build Traffic to a Blog: Ten Tips.
10 Ways to Build Traffic to a Website
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April 15th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
It’s always fun when dueling campaign emails arrive in the e.politics inbox only minutes apart, particularly when they’re so gently massaging the same issues-of-the-moment. Today’s edition: Obama vs. McCain. The weapons: “bitter” vs. “out of touch.” The immediate stakes: the contents of thousands of wallets. The long-term stakes: the public perception of each man, and ultimately his electoral fate. Today, Barack hit first, fast and jujitsu-style, seeking to define his San Francisco comments as a hymn of love to the great America heartland and his rivals as shady opportunists for trying to take advantage of them:
But our opponents have been spinning the media and peddling fake outrage around the clock. John McCain’s campaign, which will continue the George Bush economic policies that have devastated the middle class, called Barack out of touch and elitist. And Hillary Clinton, who is the candidate who said lobbyists represent real people, didn’t just echo the Republican candidate’s talking points: she actually used the very same words to pile on with more attacks.
Bonus points for the McCain-Clinton combo strike! Four head-spinning minutes later, John McCain went to DefCon One and dropped the E-bomb — the dreaded charge of Democratic Elitism:
If Barack Obama is the Democrat nominee in the general election, the American people will have a clear choice between two different visions - Senator Obama’s liberal, elitist philosophy and John McCain’s faith in the small town values that continue to make America great. John McCain will not forget them or write them off. Neither should Barack Obama.
Who will win this contest of wills, this battle of generational champions, this struggle for the Very Soul of Middle America? Don’t touch that dial…
– cpd
April 14th, 2008
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Hi y’all, I gave a social media marketing training in New York on Monday, and I developed something for it that you might be able to use. The training was for the web staff of the local chapters of a large national nonprofit, and we covered the basics of using tools like blogs, online video, social networking sites and email lists and discussion groups to promote their activities and help with membership and fundraising. As a takeaway (a trick I learned from Michael Bassik — if you can, leave a little something behind for the crowd), I created a cheap sheet that looks at the basic social media marketing tools, their pros and cons, and the essential considerations involved in a social media campaign. Here’s a link to the PDF; details are below.
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April 4th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
Okay, it’s not exactly a robot zombie army, but it might have a similar effect on the world of political action — an email arrived today from the Obama campaign about a training program they’re starting which aims to educate a cadre of activists in the essentials of community organizing. Using Obama’s own organizing experience as a hook, the campaign pitches the Obama Organizing Fellowships as “a program that’s going to train a new generation of leaders — not only to help us win this election, but to help strengthen our democracy in communities across the country.”
The message doesn’t say how many Fellows will be trained or where, but it does give you the opportunity to make a donation, to invite a friend to help or even to volunteer to house a Fellow. Obviously the campaign is investing in this project in order to help get Obama elected, and a Fellow’s most important job will be to help that task along (note that the program is a tool for the general election at this point, not the primaries), but after that they’ll be turned loose to wander the Earth on their own, where some will no doubt use their new-found powers for good or ill.
Seriously, with an unprecedented number of people politically activated this year, and with the campaigns as well as outside groups like my friends at the New Organizing Institute training campaign workers and volunteers in the essentials of political action online and off, I can’t help but think that we’re going to be left with a ton of new people fired up about politics and armed with the tools to put their ideas to work. Some will fail and others will lose interest, but the rest may just start to change the ways things are done locally and up the political chain. THAT would be robot-zombie-army fun to watch.
– cpd
April 3rd, 2008
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- Trust in Peers Trumps the “A-List,” Study Finds. Definite implications for political marketing.
- Act Blue’s Record Take. They’re raking it in for candidates.
- Online Call Tools and the 2008 Campaign.
- Detroit Mayor Is Charged With Eight Felonies. Much to his surprise, text messages are stored somewhere. C.f., TXTmob Subpoena Shows the Hazards of Using Technology to Protest.
- French President Caught Monitoring Blogs: Mon Dieu!
- Voter Relationship Management: The Constituent Is the Customer. A look at the available tools, from the point of view of business CRM.
- With the Internet Comes a New Political ‘Clickocracy’. Jose Antonio Vargas’s new gig, writing think pieces (nice work if you can get it).
- In 2008 campaign, the Internet packs a powerful political punch. Frank Davies overview piece.
- Kenya: What a laptop and a video camera can do.
- Calling all women who tech and talk. Regular e.pol reader Jeanette Russell says, “Hey Ladies!”
- Local bandit eludes Indian police AND Google Earth. But he still can’t get his mom elected.
- Broad Concerns About Internet Voting. Guys are worried, too.
- “Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has finally figured out how to raise funds on the Internet”. But still, a lot less than Obama.
- Chinese Authorities Place ‘Wanted’ Posters For Tibetan Rioters On Web Portals. Also, China Destroys Tibet’s Sacred Environment. When wrecking your own just isn’t enough.
- Over 1.3 Million Petition Signatures in 10 Days against Chinese actions in Tibet. China to petition-signers — um, yeah, we’ll get right on that.
- Magic Spy Smart Phone.
- Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Bets ‘Wikipedia’ Approach Will Transform Congress.
- McCain Girls Are Your New Jalopy. And more than a little hard on the ears.
- Raffle craze strikes innocent presidential candidates.
- Republican videos attack congressional democrats.
- The Press and Political New Media.
- Obama Utilizes Internet for Success.
- Cuba Lifts Restrictions On Personal Cellphones.
- Citizen Huff: How Arianna became the Matt Drudge of the Left.
- Gore Launches Ambitious Advocacy Campaign on Climate.
- Blogger’s Rights, via Burt Edwards.
- Website changes political climate. Reaching the young online.
- The Message Box: the Zone to Stay on Message. Fun with diagrams.
- Color-Coded Threat Level System In New Colors for Spring!
- Clinton’s Wiki-Warrior.
- Air America Host Suspended for Clinton Remarks. YouTube strikes again.
- Clinton Floats Delegate (Online) Petition.
- Obama inspires an online art explosion. “The Web has become a rich canvas for artists and candidates who know how to connect digitally.”
- Micha Sifry gets the Download from Joe Trippi.
- Democratic Lawmaker Vouches for Bush Administration’s Secret Plan to End Cyber War. See also DDoS Packets are Two Percent of Net Traffic, Report Says.
- Ed Markey’s Subcommittee has hearing on Virtual Worlds. He really looks stunning in that WoW Orc outfit.
- Latest sign of the impending Apocalypse: New Kids on the Block are reuniting.
- Science Link of the Day: “There you have it: the world’s most sensitive eyes allow them to be simple! And smash things! And it’s worked for 400 million years.”
– cpd
April 3rd, 2008
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Check out today’s Post for a good look at HOW Barack Obama has raised over $100 million so far this year — spoiler: it wasn’t by accident. Matthew Mosk examines how the campaign has used both Google ads and display ads in online publications ranging from Daily Kos to the Washington Times to bring supporters into the fold:
Obama’s online investment has not come cheap. In January, he spent $768,000 on Web ads, while Clinton spent $171,000 and McCain spent $151,000, campaign finance records show. In February, when Obama spent $2.6 million on ads, Clinton spent $198,000 and McCain spent $111,000.
As Zack Exley notes, the ads are tied to an often-subtle email strategy to build connections with list members over time:
“If you just look at the e-mails and the rhythm — the Obama campaign has not asked for money every time they could have,” Exley said. “They’ve tried to really show people that they’re not just after your money. They’re not treating you like an ATM.”
The result: tens of millions of dollars from small donors, people that the campaign can go back to over and over for money. The takeaways: 1) guess what, the internet can connect a candidate with motivated supporters and donors, 2) if you do it right, you can multiply those rewards with a relatively small investment of time and money. Good tactics matter!
– cpd
March 28th, 2008
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Here’s a fun new Flash-based toy from Joseph Gordon and some of my other former NET colleagues at the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy Campaign: see if you Have What It Takes to be an Ocean Survivor. Guide your tuna through an ocean full of hooks and nets while you also dig the dramatic soundtrack and exciting 3-D backdrop (with moody clouds and stab-of-sunshine lighting effects). Once you cruise to a brutally high score, you can leave it online for others to read and weep. The game does a good job of integrating the learning component, since you get a brief educational bit about each nasty tool that eventually does in your brave fish, and you’re also encouraged to sign on to an email petition (hello, list-building). Nice work all around, guys.
– cpd
March 27th, 2008
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Greetings from New Orleans and the Nonprofit Technology Conference, where e.politics is bearing up nobly under the strain of going to fantastic cities and hanging out with bright and interesting people. Rough life, I know
As a takeaway for the participants in our online advocacy panel on Friday, below are a ton of articles on various aspects of the question of spreading a message and working to change politics and policy online.
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March 20th, 2008
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Cross-posted on techPresident
Update from the Politics Online Conference: some quick numbers from Patrick Quinn of PQMedia on how candidates are expected to spend their money online in 2008. First, online spending should total roughly $73 million at all levels in the ‘08 elections. Second, email marketing is still dominates expenditures, taking up 62% of campaigns’ online spending. Web development is next on the list at 27%, with display, search and video ads taking up the remaining 11% of online budgets. For comparison, the 2004 numbers were 74% for email, 19% for web development and 7% for ads.
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March 5th, 2008
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