Politics Magazine Looks at KBH SEO Debacle

I hope if nothing else that campaigns learn from this fiasco to look before they leap and hire qualified people to execute message strategy online.

Oh, and I'm quoted near the bottom...

Social networking voice

Who is your client's social media voice? Why?

Replace "company" with "campaign" and I think you'll see that Kory Kredit at MediaPost makes a compelling argument against outsourced social networking for candidates and organizations moving message online.

Obviously necessity dictates that social media interaction be outsourced when no other resources are available, but when they are, perhaps social media advisors should be more focused on training and empowering our political clients to communicate what they know best in the social media space, while they guide them with strategy and help them evaluate results via monitoring and metrics.

Twitter overtaking FB for referring traffic

Todd Zeigler at Bivings breaking down his own anecdotal evidence for Twitter being a better traffic referrer, along with some good reasons why this would make sense, including a point that dovetails well with the Time piece "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live":

Ultimately, I think Facebook is still primarily about your friends, while Twitter is more about content discovery (and, increasingly, brands and celebrities). I have no doubt this will change as Facebook continues to grow and tweaks its model further. But for now the nature of Twitter makes it a better driver of traffic than Facebook, at least in my experience.

Does Facebook Drive as much Traffic as Twitter?

Twitter has already distinguished itself as being more relevant to its users than Facebook has, and with a fraction of the audience is driving more traffic to at least some websites. As the Time article points out, Twitter is actually enhancing the covnersation:

Websites that once saw their traffic dominated by Google search queries are seeing a growing number of new visitors coming from "passed links" at social networks like Twitter and Facebook. This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it's just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit.

What Todd refers to as "content discovery" really goes to the heart of Twitter's value: it's not about what your friends had for breakfast -- it's about what your peers think is important right now. People who get that and follow intelligently get value out of Twitter.

John Kasich's multichannel announcement

Nancy Scola at techPresident taking notice of John Kasich's campaign announcement online blitz (full disclosure, Kasich for Ohio is a client of emotive, llc):

"Announcing your candidacy through a multimedia assault has very quickly become the new normal. Today's example: John Kasich, who announced for Ohio governor yesterday via an integrated blend of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blog, and more."

Clearing the Cache: The Outside White House | techPresident

Direct Mail Does Not Work (On Me)

I've sit down to actually process snail mail, which I probably do once every other month, and one thing has become painfully clear. Organizations I care about are wasting my precious contribution dollars by sending me expensive and elaborate mail pieces designed to get more of my money.

Newsflash: I will never send you money by mail. Ever.

I could (and have) opened a mail piece, been blown away by the message, been moved to tears by the imagery, and totally agreed with everything the organization stands for and is trying to convey, and still will NEVER GIVE BY MAIL.

This should not come as a surprise. Given the socioeconomic demographic information about me plastered all over the Internet, credit bureaus, and countless "public information" depots that smart organizations match their housefiles against, the fact that I'll never send a paper check through the mail to anyone should be as plain as the nose on a direct mail vendor's face.

It's not that I don't care. I do. But I haven't physically touched a checkbook in almost a decade. I don't write checks. I barely open my snail mail, and then only if it looks like something that came from a government entity that is trying to levy some kind of fee against me. Frequently I get junk mail that tries to look like these notices. This only makes me angrier.

Second newsflash: I give online. It's easy. It's fast. It's ridiculously more secure than sending sensitive information through the United States Postal Service.

And best of all, how much does it cost my favorite organizations to proposition me for more money via my favorite means of communication? Almost nothing.

Direct mail is not dead. Far from it. They make all kinds of money. But not on me. And many others I suspect.

So, in summation: fire your direct mail firm if they are sending your fundraising pieces to me. Find one that can actually save you money by not wasting dollars propositioning people who obviously will never engage with them in that channel. Send me an email. Better yet, create something online that is so compelling that friends and peers will actually send it to me on your behalf because they recognize a) how compelling it is, and b) that I will also find it compelling. Then your communication comes to me from a trusted source with a high degree of relevancy.

Then I will give. Generously, and instantly.

Blog Outreach Strategy in 200 Characters

PdF Chat Time with Jon Henke | Personal Democracy Forum: "Jon Henke: Outreach strategy: Get to know bloggers. Be one of them. Be credible. Be interesting. Keep it short. Respect their time. Don't just ask for favors. Try to help bloggers whenever you can. And NEVER send out a press release."

Adapt Marketing Communication for Campaigns

Translate this to campaign signs and turn your supporters into photogs who can post pictures back to the candidate site that make it look like the whole state is covered in the candidate's brand:

Major Ad Campaign for Starbucks to Focus on Quality - NYTimes.com: "The idea for the Starbucks photo contest came from watching what people already do on Facebook and Twitter, said Chris Bruzzo, vice president for brand, content and online at Starbucks. Each year, people race to post the first photos of Starbucks shops decorated in red for the holidays, he said, and on Flickr, people vie to post photos that include multiple Starbucks stores in the same shot."

Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses

See, Twitter is useful, and it can make money (H/T @bivings)

"The reality is Twitter's got all sorts of business models available to it," said Todd Chaffee, general partner at Institutional Venture Partners and a Twitter investor. "We're putting together monetization framework, things like features for commercial accounts, which could be for global companies all the way down to local companies." He said the business model will be largely driven by the creativity and needs of the businesses using it.

Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses - Advertising Age - Digital

Small talk with a web designer

So true. Hat tip to Allen Fuller: Small talk with a web designer by The Anti Pimp.

In Defense of Splash Pages

Todd Zeigler at Bivings gets it right: splash pages can be annoying and technically present an extra step between users and data they are searching for, but as long as they continue to work, developers are smart to continue to use them, as long as best practices are observed: In Defense of Splash Pages

Digital Politics podcast

I was a guest on the Digital Politics: "The Art and Science of Targeting Voters" podcast yesterday, and relayed my thoughts about the recent Politics Online conference, the state of the industry, and the importance of a database centric strategy for political campaigns.

The Digital Politics podcast this week will focus on how web tools can be used more effectively to identify likely contributors, volunteers, supporters, and voters.

My guest today is Matthew Dybwad, Senior director of Internet Strategy, emotive LLC, a Virginia based Internet consulting firm. Matthew moderated a panel at the IPDI Politics Online Conference in DC this week and we will be talking about where the political insiders are seeing the most potential for the next round of online campaigns.

Best Tweet Ever

Get in your ROFL Copter. This is from Josh Trevino:

About 30 minutes ago, I posted this:

http://twitter.com/jstrevino/status/1479268821

About 10 minutes ago, I got a call from a producer at Nightline, asking for my source.
The answer? Steven Seagal's 1992 classic, "Under Siege" --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Siege

So disappointing. But now you know they're watching.

Recovery.gov - cost $84 million and no transparency

Wow. They should have called me. I'd have been happy to put up a website with no information for them for 1% of that price. In fact, they could have gotten any competent firm in town to put that together for 0.003% of that price.

Obama's stimulus-spending Web site short on details - The Back Story - Washington Times - Politics, Breaking News, US and World News

Politics Magazine | Long-Tail Nanotargeting

Here's the link to the story I mentioned on the "Using all the tools
in the box" panel.

http://politicsmagazine.com/magazine-issues/february-2009/long-tail-nanotargeting/

$28k for UGC: Do What's Right

Along with a handy bailout calculator showing your share of the bailout (no, not what you are getting, what your share of the debt it creates will be)  Right.org showcases very succinctly the folly of the impending Obama bailout.  They are also incentivizing their users to submit video asking where their own bailout is, and giving $28k (your average personal share of the bailout) away to the best video. 

Rightroots: Skipping to Web 3.0

Can the right create its own netroots? - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine

Among the excellent points made in the article are a few that bear refining. Chief among them is that trying to replicate the Obama campaign will FAIL for the Right, because the Right is not Barrack Obama. Now that the message of "running the last successful campaign again won't necessarily work" is finally sinking in, Republicans seem to want to run the last successful campaign of their opponents. Good luck.

The key, as pointed out by Beam, is to move onto the next thing, "Web 3.0" as Karl Rove has said. My opinion is that the "next thing" is facilitating centralized coordination with decentralized activism, which is a whole series of posts for another time. However, that notion follows along the other of Beam's critical points, which is that without an effort that bolsters the entire movement online, certain groups have the opportunity "mobilize online and hold the party hostage," thereby splintering the GOP.

What we need to do as a movement is not only give the tools away that will facilitate group blogging, online activism, fostering community, etc, but make those tools all work together for everyone so that efforts are not duplicate and that the movement can prosper as a whole, in spite of all of its disparate parts. Yes, we need a common narrative, yes we need an army of bloggers, yes, we need inspiring candidates, but without an easy, distributed array of communication, coordination, and activism tools, what we have are thousands of interest groups reinventing the wheel over and over again.

Episodic video: the best your brand can get

From a political perspective I think campaigns are now getting to the point where they are ready to embrace outrech efforts that go past the usual "give me money now," and "vote for me on election day." The article below is a good synopsis of the potential of episodic video content to be the best ongoing representation of a brand (or candidate) available. As production technology gets easier and easier this type of content should proliferate across campaign websites, and candidates and staff should start thinking of their campaign itinerary in terms of opportunities to record and repurpose their offline activity for online gain.

MediaPost Publications Goodbye Banners, Hello Webisodes! 01/27/2009: "Where banner ads simply flash a message, and rich-media ads only invite interaction, good content and Webisodic series hold the customers' attention for minutes at a time, lure them back for repeat exposure, and communicate much more than the often forgettable 'buy me' messaging of a traditional 30-second spot.Where banner ads simply flash a message, and rich-media ads only invite interaction, good content and Webisodic series hold the customers' attention for minutes at a time, lure them back for repeat exposure, and communicate much more than the often forgettable 'buy me' messaging of a traditional 30-second spot."

Hillary supporters: hope you are fans of [insert group here]

Hillary Clinton is renting out her list (Ben Smith's Blog: Renting out the list - Politico.com), hoping to cash in on other "aligned" groups who will pay to solicit to people who gave Clinton their email addresses when they supported her political campaign.

How many of those people do you think anticipated getting hit to participate in completely disparate organizations? How effective do you think that list is going to be the 5th time they rent it? The 10th time? I wouldn't want to be the poor liberal cause that gets stuck at the tail end of that list's usefulness. Nor would I want to be on that list, even if I were a supporter, since my reason for opting in clearly no longer exists.

This is one more reason why: a) rented email is at the very end of the list of outreach opportunities I suggest to campaigns and, b) amassing large lists for strategic campaign use is ultimately futile, once the specific issue that galvanized people to support the cause has become irrelevant.

This is a theme I've been discussing with great frequency of late in relation to the Right's need to scramble toward a model they are familiar with: listing building and rented email. My thought here: focusing on building mammoth lists for use by the entire online Right is a waste of time.

As a means for groups to try to build up their own base and/or identify online activists, a contact cultivation program that utilizes online advertising to bring users to simple online engagement devices is far more cost effective, scalable, target-able, optimize-able, (insert your favorite “able” here) and ultimately brings the organization more qualified contacts.

Not to mention the list churn issue, which will only get worse as a lists get larger, older, and more diverse.

I agree that email is the killer app, but I take issue with the idea that building and holding huge lists that can be messaged by different smaller groups will ultimately prove nearly as valuable as enabling groups to easily access and leverage the kind of tools they need to cultivate their own contact base. After all, no contact is more valuable than the contact that actually opts into your organization specifically.

If what we’re trying to do is shoot fish in a barrel, instead of trying to just make one fish barrel bigger, why not give everyone their own barrel along with all the tools they need to fill it with their own fish? Then we can focus on making it easy for barrel owners to let their fish interact smartly with one another so that all the players gain the maximum amount of benefit from the community of fish.

In other words, we give organizations the tools that they need to identify and cultivate their own supporters while at the same time ensuring that those tools also facilitate the process of leveraging those supporters across the spectrum.

File Under: All good ideas have already been thought up

While discussing the ramifications of social networking pages that have been vacated due to the death of their progenitors, it dawned on me that there could be a social network for dead people. Not an online cemetary (which has been done to death) but an actual network, ostensibly kept up by the living, perhaps on behalf of the dead. But, why bother when the dead people can do all of the networking themselves:
Social Networking for Dead People: An idea refined - The Bing Blog

Bill Clinton: Who's to blame for Bailout?

How does new media make money?

Media Future Now's event: How does the new media make money?

The overall points I took away from this event were that businesses in the new media space are better off specializing in their core competency and concentrating their business model on it, rather than trying to be generalists. Starting a new business, it is important to reach out to the current networks that either speak to your niche or contain your targets (workplace giving at corporations, Hollywood). Plan for scale and think about the long term from day one -- this will benefit your own employees and make your business more attractive to investors.

Notes: How does new media make money?

Pete Synder, New Media Strategies

Mari Kuraishi, Global Giving Foundation

Mari

• $250 Billion in philanthropy per year just from US]
• Global Giving a project of The World Bank
• Getting started
• 2000 – end of .com boom
• Turned down angel money from IFC and HP
• Business model
• Take 10% of donations


• Tapping into existing networks that focused on giving
  
• Employee giving through work\
• Driving traffic
  
• Traditional media mentions
• Paid search
• Viral
• Partnerships with aligned sites: business development
• Contributions: bundled – batches are better for developing country distributions
  
• Average varies
• $130 - $150/trans
• Use multi-channel media to encourage offline givers to move online
• Uses online A/B testing within projects showing suggested donation amounts
• Many small donors online, few big check writers = 2/3rds money coming in online
• Target 90% of total funds online
• Competition: focuses on small international projects, provides only online presence for charitable projects. Doesn’t mind competing with larger interests where they provide better value added for donors.
• Most “competitors” are collaborative with more specific foci (works with Kiva)
• Planning
  
• Daily standup meetings
• Stats are projected on a “board” for quick look status
• Viral promotion
  
• Giving competition
• Winners recruited over 1,500 donors in their own networks
• What is the urgency
• Make the process easy
• Make the process rewarding
• Future
  
• Real-time feedback using mobile and video
• Tapping into people’s online identities
  
• Plug-in the giving opportunity into pre-existing social networks
• How does the giving process fulfill donors and complete their identity?

Pete

• Started NMS from his apartment in 1999
• Got money from 3 Fs
• Turned down VCs
• Profitable in the 3rd month
• Started with 1 employee, had 3 in first year
• Now has 96
• Investors forced Pete to plan for scale and end game from day 1
• Research clients before you pitch: Monitoring online communication about clients
• Hollywood was where the “progressive” marketing people were for initial market penetration with high dollar word of mouth online intelligence campaigns
• Competing clients
  
• No competing clients in the same space: different services for players in the same market
• Takes on D’s and R’s but not when they are fighting each other
• Competitors
  
• NMS is one of the few that actually combines the online monitoring and research with the action side of WOM and buzz marketing
• Many others do one or the other
• Smaller focus is a better business plan
• Planning
  
• 3 year plan
• Annual plan
• Quarterly plan
• 3 times a week, all managers gather for “huddle meetings”
  
• 7 minutes
• Standing up
• What’s going on
• What people need help with
• Gets everyone on same page
• Retention
  
• Not focused on eternal retention
• How to make NMS the best 3 years of an employee’s career?
• “We sell fear and opportunity”
  
• Something is being said about your brand, or
• You have something that needs attention/buzz
• Start with background on what people are saying online about target brand or person
• Viral
  
• Influence the influencers to generate buzz
• Facilitated 250,000 online conversations about Ironman movie
• Future
  
• Change the way brands communicate
• 35% of corps and brands are buy into the concept
• Refining the corporate culture
  
• Grow
• Keep small company feel

Have we become complacent?

An article in Politico today lays out some interesting facts in light of the seventh anniversary of 9/11. The kicker in the story:

In 2002 and 2004, roughly 25 percent of all Americans considered terrorism and national security the country’s top problem. Today: Four percent do.
Facts worth remembering today - Jim VandeHei - Politico.com

There hasn't been a domestic terrorist attack since then, and evidently people aren't too worried that one will happen in the future. To say this is foolhardy is a ridiculous understatement.

Some may feel that replaying the news coverage from that day and indulging in remembrances is theater of the macabre, but if that's what it takes to get people to wake up to the reality that this nation needs to protect itself, so be it.

Twitter is actually useful

Real world of examples of the business use of Twitter are becoming more common (@comcastcares) and with that, Chris Brogan offers a great list of things that Twitter is useful for, how to answer critics of the medium, and what not to do:

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business chrisbrogan.com

Freedom of electricity is here! Almost...

This is a happy update to my post way back about how electricity constrains us, especially in public spaces. Now new technology will allow electrical power sources to be wireless and have effective ranges up to a few meters. The immediate practical applications are wirelessly charged laptops and computer monitors that would be powered by the desk they were sitting on.

Now all they need to do is apply this technology to all of the stationary seating at airports and we're home free!

Intel Moves to Free Gadgets of Their Recharging Cords - NYTimes.com

Obama's Wide Web

WaPo story on the Obama online operation pulls the curtain back just a bit. The thing that jumps out of this article beyond the obligatory "video is good" and "listen to people and communicate with them" is the fact that Obama as 5 times as many people working on his online presence than McCain.

The next time someone on the Right complains about how we're all behind on the net, ask them if their opponent is outstaffing them 5 to 1 in their online operation.

Not only is the size of the staff indicative of the level of commitment, but I also think it's telling that they are in-house. Outsourcing custom development and tool building is smart, but if you don't have true believers interacting with supporters through your web presence every day, no amount of money paid to a K Street firm is going to help you.

'The Right' to Accountable America: Bring it On!

Tom Matzzie, mastermind of the failed Progressive Media USA, has put together a group to threaten potential conservative donors with exposure, lawsuits, and general harassment, called Accountable America.

Of course, as you'd expect, the Right is utterly unafraid: Group Plans Campaign Against G.O.P. Donors - NYTimes.com

Chris LaCivita, proudly speaking as usual on behalf of the infamous Swift Boat Vets movement, has a great quote at the end of the article,

"They’re not going to be intimidated by some pipsqueak on the kooky left."

From my experience at DCI, I'd liken Chris to the political equivalent of Venture Bros.' Brock Samson, always willing and able to do whatever is necessary to win. I whole-heartedly agree with his assertion, but fundamentally I think it misses the real point at hand: if a donor believes enough in the political speech of a group to give their hard earned money to finance it, why wouldn't they proudly identify with that group?

If anything, I hope Accountable America does bring more transparency to political speech. I think discerning voters are well served by knowing who is behind the issue messaging they consume.

If shining the light on where messaging money comes from keeps the disingenuous away or prevents wealthy donors from pouring gas on a political fire they know to be bogus, so be it. But to think that true believers are going to cower in the face of accountability is absurd.

You know it's a movement when they have their own t-shirt

Patrick Ruffini explains how the so called "Phantom Session" of House Republicans, continuing the debate on energy after Pelosi turned out the lights, has turned into a full fledged movement: #dontgo. For the uninitiated, #dontgo is a "hashtag," a way to tag and track conversations across the user base of micro-blogging utilities like Twitter. The #dontgo meme has also spawned several sites of its own, including dontgo.us, which showcases the Twitter traffic on the subject, the Call Congress Back petition site, and now #dontgomovement, which is more of a full fledged site offering additional background, commentary, and news on the movement.

But Patrick still has the best t-shirt... #dontgo: A Turning Point for the Right The Next Right

The Boston Tweet Party

Last Friday, a revolution occurred on the floor of the House of Representatives. Didn't hear about it? It wasn't front-page news, because the MSM had already been "turned off."

Nancy Coppock at American Thinker really pulls together the events and aftermath of the Republican debate on energy after Speaker Pelosi shut down the floor of the House to go on vacation. The lights, microphones, and video cameras were turned off, but that didn't stop Republican lawmakers from debating, engaging the gallery directly, and getting their message out. If you've ever wondered about the value of emerging technology like Twitter or Qik, this is an excellent illustration of message propagation in the (forced) absence of traditional media.

American Thinker: Breaking Speaker Pelosi's News Blackout: Thanks to Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) there was one small camera recording the events. Twitter messages alerted America to the historic events. Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) named the event "The New Boston Tea Party", but that was quickly changed to "The Boston Tweet Party" by the new, tech real-time media. Messages flew across the country to anyone wanting to participate, as Culberson led the Real Time Media charge sending out live messages from the House floor...

Jon Henke: It takes real interaction to make it work

Jon makes a point at the end of this article that is both fundamental and wholly misunderstood by people who run traditional campaigns: it takes real people communicating with real people to make online communication effective. I've added the emphasis below:

Know It All - - Rebranding via Blogging: "Large organizations like to adopt best practices that can be used by anybody, but a lot of things that are effective online are not easily duplicated - the natural interaction, the person-to-person communication. Campaigns tend to want templates and data dumps. If the vision is spamming people with press releases, it will have the appearance of what works, but it won't work. People have the idea you can push a button to say 'make it viral,' but you have to provide something of value to the people you want involved - prestige, traffic, ideological progress - and in an attention economy, you have to get it to them quickly. That way, they'll push it to the audience you want to reach. That's what makes the Internet a social medium, they get value from distributing it."

This is recycling I could get into

Kegerator Door Kit: Here's how to turn any unassuming refrigerator you have laying around into a full on beer dispenser. If you've got the space, I think this might be a more economical solution to high volume cold beer distribution than an off the shelf kegerator.

"The way to soak the rich is with low tax rates"

Evidently the Bush tax cuts drew more tax money out of the rich than ever before. The WSJ says that Obama's plan to further increase taxes on the rich will actually result in them paying less tax overall, since they'll find ways to shelter themselves from reporting higher income.

Their Fair Share - WSJ.com: "The way to soak the rich is with low tax rates"

Instant user feedback, analog style

Over the 4th of July holiday I was fortunate to stay at the Hope & Glory Inn in picturesque Irvington, VA. The experience was incredible, and while I could go on in four more posts about it, the one thing that really struck me while I was there was the reaction of the Northern Neck boating community to the July 4th fireworks show put on by the Tides Inn.

We took in the fireworks with some other Hope & Glory patrons on a cruise boat. After steaming up Carter's Creek to the Tides Inn we tied up at small dock and took in the spectacle. We were of course surrounded by boats on all sides of all kinds, either tied up or anchored in the "creek."

What I noticed after the fireworks started was that after a volley of a few rockets, boats all over would sound off by blowing their horns. After a while it became clear that the more impressive volleys got more honks of the horn. The regular pace of the show lent itself to this instant feedback, with the best fireworks getting three or four quick honks.

It struck me that this was a great example of consumers giving instant feedback on a product or service, a veritable real-time focus group on fireworks displays. Instead of Gallup control groups turning a dial during a political speech we had Virginia boaters sounding off on their favorite arrangement of holiday combustibles. Crowds of course do the same thing via applause, but I think this method was made more poignant by the fact that while the people watching were dispersed over a large area, the sound of their boats' horns was singular and carried over a long distance on the water.

This type of instant feedback is something I'm sure all the major brands out there would love to have from their consumers. As technology increasingly makes instant feedback possible, corporate entities, instead of asking consumers to respond directly to them about their products, are now able to effectively monitor the consumer "honking" via distributed communication channels. A case in point is Comcast Cable, which monitors Twitter for people complaining about their service. Comcast operatives even reach out via twitter to try and learn more about issues and lend whatever information they might have to help solve problems, though in my experience the later has been somewhat limited.

The art of this monitoring is something Jon Henke and company over at New Media Strategies have honed to a science, and to think that opinions that you as a consumer express online anywhere aren't being exhaustively tracked is niave. But it is interesting to think that at the end of the day, it's really just turning an ear toward who gets the most honks.