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Data analysis, phone apps and social media are rapidly changing political campaigns

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Political, PR, Uncategorized

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A city council candidate walks a neighborhood, looking for vote

She taps the icon. In an instant, she knows your name and much more.
Your earnings, education, religion, the groups you belong to, the magazines you buy.
Your party affiliations. Your past emails on political issues. 
Where your kids go to school and which TV shows you watch. What you paid for your home. The last time you met at the coffee shop.

The detailed digital profile makes her conversation easy, even friendly. Taxes for you. Schools next door. Law enforcement down the street.

Some houses can be skipped: no potential votes here, the phone says. That vision or a version of it is popping up in political campaigns across the country.

“It’s a completely different environment,” said Stephanie Sharp, a Johnson County officeholder and consultant who uses and sells a version of the app. “There’s a gold mine of data. … You’re not cold calling when knocking on doors anymore. You know a little bit about your relationship with someone.”

No one is throwing the yard signs away. But the big-data digital revolution rocking media, entertainment, retailing and sports is coming to politics.

The change is arriving at a blistering pace.

“Things are moving very quickly,” said Jared Suhn of Singularis, a political consulting firm. “You shouldn’t be doing one thing anymore. You should be doing 10 things to 10 different groups of people.”

The shift is built around sophisticated and relatively inexpensive hardware and software that now give campaigns rich stores of private and public information — powerful tools for identifying voters and winning elections.

“Ten years ago it was TV and mail and radio,” Suhn said. “Now, you have so much more on-the-ground canvassing going on, strategic grassroots operations, digital stuff online. … There’s a way to get your message out.”

That message is first sharpened by polling and outreach, then reshaped for easy distribution to specific voters.

“You can target people literally to the house,” longtime consultant Jeff Roe said.

Fresh digital technologies emerge in every election cycle, enabling candidates and campaigns to become even more efficient and effective. A campaign’s most important hire is no longer the paid-media guru, it’s the algorithm guy.

Kansas City-based consultant Marcus Leach said combing through digital data allows him to instantly link voters with candidates and campaigns with friends and neighbors.

“It takes only a single ‘like,’ ‘share,’ or mention on Facebook or Twitter,” he said, “and our servers will automatically data mine that person’s Facebook, LinkedIn, look for associations, look for friends.”

The digital revolution in politics is relatively well-known to consultants and campaign managers, but candidates are now catching on too.

“You have to expand your footprint. To a different universe,” said Kelly Kultala, a Democrat now running for the 3rd district House seat in Kansas.

The move to a digitized democracy began to accelerate six years ago when then-candidate Barack Obama successfully used email and a social media presence to reach younger voters and raise money.

His campaign saw the future. Voters who signed up to learn Obama’s vice presidential pick found themselves in an email database, becoming the foundation for his voter contacts for years.

By 2012, Obama’s digital targeting operation blanketed the country, identifying and turning out voters in battleground states like Ohio.

Mitt Romney was far behind.

“Marrying grassroots politics with technology and analytics, they successfully contacted, persuaded and turned out their margin of victory,” the Republican party’s own post-election study found. “There are many lessons to be learned from their efforts.”

Suhn, who works with Republicans, says the party is working hard to fix the problem. “Everybody is catching up,” he said.

That could include state-level Democrats, who’ve often grumbled that Obama’s campaign refused to share its digital secrets. The national party is now considering a major data share, Sharp said.

But the move to digitize voter contacts isn’t driven entirely by partisan politics and isn’t limited to deep data sets and microtargeting.

Even low-visibility, nonpartisan races and issue campaigns can use digital tools. They’re easy, effective — and cheap.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are free. So are Instragram, LinkedIn, and whatever other social media site pops up this afternoon.

Websites can be produced and put online for a fraction of the cost of a slick video or 30-second TV commercial.

“You can find your facts, and you can find your Q and A, and you can find your opinion online,” said Pat O’Neill, a Kansas City campaign veteran who advised a winning candidate in the recent mayoral election in Independence.

Indeed, the use of low-cost digital tools, plus big-data and microtargeting techniques, mirror the revolution in big league baseball outlined in the book “Moneyball.” As with the Oakland A’s baseball team, the goal is now to firmly identify voter “bargains” cheaply instead of wasting campaign funds on high-cost, low-efficiency mass media.

“The cost of yard signs has doubled,” Sharp said. “Have you seen the cost of postage? … Every dollar has to stretch farther.”

Big data is even affecting political TV commercials.

“You can actually run one ad to a TV in a home, and in the very next home you run a different ad — based on what their buying habits are like,” Roe said.

 


 

Not everyone thinks the trend is healthy for democracy.

Low-cost, high-impact voter outreach efforts can help underfunded candidates and neutralize the effect of high-dollar donors. That means the digital revolution could help level the political playing field for thousands of candidates and campaigns.

At the same time, though, the proliferation of communications outlets might make it impossible for voters to thoroughly scrutinize political messaging. A candidate can support lower taxes in an ad aimed at one house and more spending in an ad next door.

“It does fly under the radar,” Suhn said. “You can use that for good and for bad.”

Political reporters and ad-check groups are increasingly worried. Fact-checking TV ads and speeches are one thing, but looking at every tweet and Facebook post isn’t practical, let alone examining what a candidate says one voter at a time.

“It’s going to be a challenge for us,” said Eugene Kiely, director ofFactCheck.org. “The strategy is going to remain the same, which is try to crowdsource, get our readers to try to get this material to us.”

A candidate’s opponents will find it harder to respond to statements as well.

“There’s no way to follow it or track it,” Roe said. “It’s hard to do a truth watch on an ad targeted to a select group of people that you never see.”

Digital targeting can also lead to circular political messaging: like-minded activists talking to each other, eliminating the undecided or independent voter from the process and making compromise even more difficult.

“They’re not getting a rounded view anymore,” Sharp said. “They’re only getting the side they want to hear.”

Candidate Kultala sees the same phenomenon.

“The things you like on Facebook or the things that you follow on Twitter are things that you support or agree with,” she said.

 


 

The digital explosion won’t mean an end to negative ads on your television this fall, or blurry postcards in your mailbox. Traditional media will still consume more than half of all campaign budgets this fall, experts predict.

“We must evolve in order to keep up with the younger mindsets,” O’Neill said. “But if you forsake traditional media, you do so at your own peril.”

Indeed, much of the digital revolution is aimed at younger voters, not the entire electorate. Older voters still rely on traditional cues — newspaper and television reporting, commercials and other mass messaging techniques.

Eventually, though, today’s grainy 30-second TV ad may seem quaint.

“For so many years, we’ve just blanketed districts with mail, and hope the name sticks in their head,” Sharp said. “But that doesn’t hit people where they live. You’ve got to target the issues that get them to the polls.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/04/12/4956530/data-analysis-phone-apps-and-social.html#storylink=cpy

 

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How Social Media Is Changing Politics, From Wendy Davis To Anthony Weiner

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Political, PR, Uncategorized

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Best Practices, Community Management, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing

The Commonwealth Club and The Huffington Post San Francisco present “Commonwealth Club Thought Leaders,” an ongoing series of insights from the most interesting people in the San Francisco Bay Area. Read the summary below and watch the video above–then share your thoughts. You can view the entire interview here.

Access to and utilization of social media has increased tremendously in the past decade, and its influence in our daily lives has also affected politics in our nation. Everything from Obama’s 2008 campaign, which focused heavily on outreach through social media outlets, to the ouster of politicians’ misdeeds thanks to the omniscience of social media, the public now has a new way of participating in the political process.

This new avenue of participation was no more apparent than during one legislative session in Texas in which Wendy Davis, the pink sneaker-wearing policymaker, led a filibuster for 12 hours against a pending vote on abortion clinics. The vote would have effectively shut down most abortion clinics in Texas. Davis, a democrat who was against the legislation, filibustered the old-fashioned way by giving the legislature a 12-hour speech, taking the session past midnight. According to the rules, the session technically ended at midnight and the vote on the new law was thereby void. Despite the filibuster, the vote passed in July 2013.

However, Davis was not alone in the filibuster. Although she was the representative who stood up in front of the legislature, it was her supporters in the chambers and online who made the filibuster a success. A live stream of the legislative session allowed online viewers to see when the session ended and when the vote was cast. And in conjunction with their peers who were physically present in the chambers, the filibuster proved successful. Clay Shirky, a social media theorist and a professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program spoke at The Commonwealth Club of California and explained the idea of digital dualism and how it played a role in Texas’s legislative process. (See the video above)

Shirky points out that this phenomenon is not restricted to the United States but has been present in other political movements, such as the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement and the protests in Turkey. He says that this evolution and immersion of technology into the political process is not by design but rather, a side effect of the tools available to individuals combined with their political interest. Watch Shirky talk about Texas above; you can listen to his entire program here.

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The Forgotten Social Media Metric: You =

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in community manager, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Pinterest, PR, Twitter, YouTube

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Behavior, Community, Community Management, Engagement, Infographics, Research, Social Media, social media manager, Social Media Marketing

Social Media Managers are a weird species. If you take a look at the LinkedIn profile of any real Digital Marketer or Social Media Marketer, you’ll notice that their skills vary from Analytics, to Marketing and Promotions, to Client Relationships to severe alcoholism. And what’s even weirder – they’re actually endorsed for all of those things (especially the alcoholism).

It’s no secret that there are a vast array of skills you need to succeed in social media – and that every social media marketer and community manager is constantly working at enhacing those skills and picking up some more in the process. Makes you think we should really be getting paid more!

Looking at it from a broad perspective, the following skills are what are probably the most important “buckets” as such that community managers need to focus on:

  • Interaction & People Skills
  • Content Skills
  • Project Management Skills
  • Analytical Skills
  • Crisis Management Skills
  • Technical Skills
  • Marketing & Promotional Skills
  • Ethics

That probably covers all the aspects of community and social media management. An interesting infographic from GetSatisfaction I came across also talks about the various duties a community manager undertakes – pretty nifty I thought. Many Hats of a Community Manager

But do you as a community manager know how good you are in each of these skills? Can you honestly say that yes, you’re good at Analytics, or no you’re not good at Project Management?

Circus Social has put together a fairly in-depth quiz, a 40 question multiple choice one that asseses you on these very categories. The quiz has a massive question bank out of which you get 40 questions at random that give you real life social media situations with three options that you can choose from. On completing the quiz, you get a breakdown of your score by each category – how well you did in Analytics, how well you did in Project Management, how well you did in Ethics etc. It gives you an interesting insight into your strengths and weaknesses as a social media manager and gives you the major pain points where you need to focus to become a better and well rounded social media and community manager.

Results Breakdown of the Social Media Manager's QuizOn being graded against other social media managers – you can actually see whether you’re really lacking in a field where everyone is excelleing, or whether you’re lacking in a field in which the general expertise level of social media managers is pretty low.

Sure, you can always measure how well your community is doing or how well your Facebook page and Twitter account are doing when you track engagement and re-tweets – but could it be possible that the reason you’re not getting enough retweets or not getting enough engagement be because you’re lacking something in Project Management and need to rethink the way you execute a campaign?

Could it be that you’re lacking in Analytics – and therefore need to get better at tracking results and engagement to amplify certain parts of your content? Or could it just be that you’re lacking in Marketing and Promotions as a social media manager and need to rethink how the marketing works around your brand.

There are plenty of tools out there that let you evaluate your page performance and track mentions for your brand, but maybe it’s time that we take a look inside ourselves as social media managers and tried to find what part of our personality isn’t making our social media campaigns work.

 

Cross posted by permission Social Media Today

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Lose the Press Release and Actually Reach Your Audience Learn How

15 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, Email Marketing, PR, Uncategorized

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Blogging, Multi Media, PR, Video Promotions

Press releases have been around for over 100 years, so it’s natural that when organizations think of ways to share news, they default to a press release.

While press releases can be effective, they are not the only tool available to marketers in an age of social PR. Organizations need to look for other ways to share their their information and realize that poorly executed releases really do more harm than good.

Google announced changes to the link building scheme in July 2013 and reported that links with optimized anchor text in press releases would be in violation. That change facilitated  a larger discussion on press releases and how to do them properly, which was long overdue.  Often, press releases were being issued with little thought to the actual news value or they were being used to support SEO. The end result were a high number of releases that were simply not useful to the media.

Do You REALLY Need a Press Release?

It’s time for every organization issuing press releases to carefully assess if they are needed and consider alternatives. There are times when a press release is appropriate, such as financial news or major corporate announcements, but the majority of the time another tactic will be more effective.

The news release is simply a way to package your story and share it with the world.  Now, thanks to social media and the web, you no longer need to rely on journalists to tell your story. Instead of chasing after media hoping they will pick up your release, social PR puts you into the driver’s seat. Your organization is now the publisher and you have countless channels you can use to share stories directly with your target audience.

Here are five ways you can ditch the press release and reach your target audience:

Turn it into a Blog Post or Guest Post

When issuing a press release, the idea is to be able to share a story with media so they in turn will write a story that your customers, partners and other stakeholders will read. By turning your story into a blog post, it forces you to tell a better story with more context, doing what the journalist would have done for you. By playing publisher and sharing it on your blog (or as a guest post on a high visibility site in your industry) you are able to control the message and connect with those who are most interested in reading it.

Break News Up Into Social Updates

A press release when issued usually is posted to your site, distributed by newswire service and then shared on social media.  Go beyond the press release by taking key pieces of your story and sharing them via social media. Create tweets that share a link back to your blog post or related resources. Share updates on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ that add value to the bigger picture with your content. And remember, don’t just share things once. If you package your story the right way, it can become an evergreen piece of content you can share for months and possibly years to come.

Create a Video

Video is a highly effective way to share many stories. It can inject emotion and color into something that could otherwise be quite dull. For example, if your organization is announcing you’ve donated money to a local charity, instead of issuing a boring, factual release, why not create a video featuring stories of the organization you are helping? If you are launching a product, sharing stories of users and how this is helping their business is far more engaging than reading a product’s feature list. Videos can then be shared on your web site and via YouTube and other platforms to maximize their reach.

Use Stunning Visuals

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially on social media. It’s been proven time and time again that visual content gets more likes and shares.  A recent infographic from Infographic B2B indicated that photos are shared two times more than text only updates and our brains simply process visual content faster than text. Infographics are an ideal way to present research, share new product information or simply tell a story. Beyond the infographic, think of how you can use a picture with a text overlay to present the story visually and bring it to life.

Pitch the Media One-on-One

The goal of a press releases is to secure media coverage.  However, pumping out a release and hoping that the media see it is not strategic. If you truly have news, carefully research who covers this area, what type of stories they write, how best to contact them and create a customized story pitch just for them. Perhaps you have a customer that is using your product in an innovative way and has increased profits. A reporter covering that topic or a trade magazine may be interested in this type of story if you take the time to carefully craft the story so it is a fit for their needs and audience.  A personalized, well planned pitch sent by email will always be more effective at getting their attention than a generic press release.

Next time talk of a press release starts within your organization, carefully consider the audience and goals for sharing this particular story. Decide if your story is newsworthy and a press release is truly the right way to present this information. The options above provide some great alternatives that you can use to package a compelling story and actually reach your target audience.

 

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