Media Mumblings

Review and Reaction to Millennial Makeover – MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics by Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais

2011-06-20T14:07:00.000-07:00

Millennial Makeover was of special interest to me because it is about my so-called “Millennial Generation,” those of us born between 1982 and 2003, and how we will shape the political landscape for decades to come. The authors predict a generational shift in civic engagement attributable to “Millennials,” but also state that the Millennial generational change fits into an identified pattern with a forty year cycle. They conclude that Democrats will win more elections than Republicans in the next 40 years.

Since I am a Democrat, I like their predictions, but I was a bit skeptical from the title and the cover of the book, which featured MySpace, instead of the now worldwide phenomenon that is facebook! I was also skeptical about some of the authors’ observations, which did not strike me as groundbreaking, e.g., “'history suggests that those who find ways to integrate the new technology with existing tactics to produce multi-faceted campaigns that reach all voters will be especially successful in future elections.” With the exponential growth of online tools and social media like Twitter, Winograd and Hais’s “prescient” prediction about integrating “new technology” already seems outdated.

Two factors influencing the Millennial generation that rang especially true for me was that our generation is more likely to vote than older generations (likely because we want to be involved, and we ARE the social networking generation.) It is not surprising that the 2008 Obama campaign used these factors to great advantage in building its supporters among young adults with online social media tools.

Predictably, the Obama campaign is already back at it with the 2012 election’s earliest and foremost tool (their website), which asks simply (and appealingly) “Are you in?” I think this appeals to Millennials especially, who want to be included and increasingly connect online.

Chapter 2 explored “Idealistic and Civic Eras in American History.” This was new learning for me, and definitely a new understanding of these terms in the context of “realignments,” or “major political upheavals.” The authors state that a civic realignment is “strongly centered on cooperative efforts to resolve societal problems,” and they argue that the Millennials are moving the political landscape towards such cooperation.

This is compared to an idealistic realignment, which the authors define as “attempts to use the political process to achieve or defend deeply held personal values above all else.” Further, this chapter emphasized that such realignments occur regardless of ideological orientation, they are not driven by either Democratic or Republican ideology. Another factor that dovetails with the authors’ analysis of the Millennial generation is that “voters stay interested in civic era politics,” which rings true today.

As might be expected, a book making predictions has gotten much right, and some things wrong. It will be interesting to see if the Millennial generation (exemplified by Obama’s army of young supporters) stays involved and actually helps chart a realignment of forty years duration.

Emails from Obama Campaign ….“This Video Really Moved Me”

2011-06-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

I’ve been particularly impressed with the Obama campaign emails I’ve received this week. The first thing I think the campaign has done well is simply the tag lines of emails. For example, I received an email from Michelle Obama saying “This video really moved me.”

According to Google’s “Research Lead for Social,” people use social media because it makes news sharable among an individual’s personal network of “social ties.” Social networks matter; they function as filters, distribution channels, and curators of news. (http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2 )

Further, 75% who find news online get it either forwarded through e-mail or posts on social networking sites, and half of them (52%) forward the news through those means.

Michelle Obama is tapping into this trend, marketing content based on her personal endorsement of the material, and for me it worked.

I found myself wanting to click on this link, thinking “if Michelle Obama thought this was moving, I bet I will too.”

The content of the email message was centered on a Seattle Dad, Alex, Michelle Obama’s example of the All-American Father. This email message was very effective because it pulled at emotional strings. Further her call to action, is simply this

“I was really moved by what he had to say. Take a look, and share it with a dad you're thinking about today”

It is not until later in the email that she talks about Barak Obama as a father, and he is not the central subject of the email message. This gives users an easy way to send a sentimental appreciation of anyone father, while simultaneously giving an endorsement to the Obama campaign.

Once again, this is an example of the Obama campaign’s savvy understanding of its young supporters, and the way they use social media, as Colin Delany describes inLearning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 & Beyond.

Comparison Between Obama and Romney Campaign Websites

2011-06-15T12:30:00.001-07:00

This first important different between theses two sites is simply how they appear on an initial search screen for an online searcher. The Obama website has a template allowing the following options to appear on the very first list of sites: Contact us - Get Involved - Store - Donate Now. In contrast, Romney’s website is a standard link that takes viewers to the landing page.

For mobile phone users or for those looking to make decisions quickly about candidates, making an initial search efficient will produce the best results. For starters, Obama’s structure is making the most strategic use of those who type his name into the search window.

Another significant difference is the way these two campaigns are making use of social media. Romney’s “Connect with Mitt” section is on the bottom right hand corner of the page and requires the viewer to scroll all the way to the bottom. Within news articles and links to blogs, the Romney campaign allows you to “like” or “retweet,” but Obama’s campaign offers a more comprehensive option of sharing via social media. Also, Romney requires a viewer to create an account and sign in through his campaign before commenting, whereas anyone can join the discussion on any of Obama’s website content. Romney is using social media in a much more structured, less spontaneous, less inclusive way than Obama. Also worth pointing out is the fact the Romney’s section entitled “blog” offers no way for users to interact with the content, whether they want to leave posts, ask questions, follow an RSS feed etc…. I believe the use of social media is much more accessible and integrated on the Obama campaign website.

The Romney campaign incorporates a donation and get involved/volunteer link under the same “action” tab at the top of their page which requires a click (rather than an immediate drop-down when the curser is over the “action” tab). The campaign also has a separate “donate” tab highlighted in a red box. Here the feel is that the Romney campaign is most eager to receive support in the form of monetary donations. The Obama campaign separates just two options: “get involved” and “donate.” While this may be more difficult for some who would like to both volunteer their time and donate, the overall feel of the Obama website is that viewers are encouraged to join town hall meetings, grassroots organizing etc…-- participation is important to the campaign.

I also found it interesting that on Romney’s donation page, the donation amount is the first text to appear, credit card information is second, and personal information is last. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but the feel of Obama’s donation page is much more relaxed. The page asks for your name first and then asks for donation amount and credit card information. There are much fewer boxes to fill out and the layout of the webpage is more inviting. Lastly, on the Romney page, the tab defaults to $50 amount requiring a user to either confirm or change the amount when making a donation.

One difficult part of the Obama webpage is that the template/bar at the top does not remain consistent when a user navigates to different pages, making navigation somewhat difficult. Overall, I think the prominent “I’m in” bright red button on the Obama page invites me (not just my money) and is more effective.

Bai’s The Argument and Similarities Between the Environmental Movement and Democratic Party

2011-06-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

This post comments on The Argument: Inside the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, by Matt Bai. The Argument presents a compelling, though depressing and discouraging case that the Democratic Party comes up short when it comes to providing new ideas to tackle our many, intransigent problems. The author (who covers national politics for The New York Times Magazine) demonstrates his fundamental understanding of what our founding fathers intended, that the best ideas would emerge from thoughtful discourse and debate of many different ideas. Right now, we are in need of new ideas and in this, Bai finds the Democrats lacking. Bai says, “Seventy years ago ... visionary Democrats had distinguished their party with the force of their intellect. Now the inheritors of that party stood on the threshold of a new economic moment, when the

nation seemed likely to rise or fall on the strength of its intellectual capital, and the only thing that seemed to interest them was the machinery of politics.”

Ultimately, Bai's "Argument" is that the Democrats are not successful because instead of providing true leadership with well-thought out ideas that can solve problems, Democrats are mired in strategizing about winning elections. Instead of developing solutions, Bai says the Democratic strategy "against" Republicans was that they "were evil, arrogant and corrupt.” In Bai’s view, this is hardly the stuff to lead the country into the next century.

The book has detailed accounts about billionaires, bloggers and even MoveOn.org. But Bai does not stray from his fundamental belief, that unlike preceding political movements, the current Democratic Party does not have a good "argument," as did the New Dealers. His book

challenges the Democrats to come up with one.

To me, Bai’s take on the Democratic Party seems reminiscent of the environmental movement, as many would argue it has struggled due to its definition as a “special interest.” This topic is well explored by Schellenberger, M. & Nordhaus, T. (2004). The Death of Environmentalism: Global Warming Politics in a Post-Environmental World.

The Democratic Party covers so many special interest groups that its vision has become fragmented and disjointed. In fact in both cases (the environmental movement and the Democratic Party),the way the “problem” has been perceived has led to narrow policy options that, in the end, are not viable and do not propel the Party or the environmental movement forward.

Through this lens , Bai’s argument notwithstanding, a diversity of mid range solutions relatable to many of the fragmented groups within the Democratic Party will likely be more effective than a top down, “silver bullet” approach.

Monitoring and Measuring Tools

2011-06-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

In any online advocacy campaign, monitoring the campaign’s reach and effectiveness is critical in order to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Discussed below are the pros and cons of five tools that measure a campaign’s impact.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics has become an industry standard for monitoring and measuring web traffic. Though designed for business (as opposed to advocacy) use, Google Analytics is an excellent tool that shows how people find your site, how many people navigate through your site, and their actions and conversion rate once on your site. With this data, an online campaign can make informed choices about how to improve web layout and where to place “calls to action.” For example, Google Analytics can supply the data on how many people are viewing your landing page and how many people subsequently leave after clicking through to different pages.

Google Analytics provides excellent demographic data easily viewable and navigable through pie charts and graphs, making it easy to see and evaluate larger trends about where and when people have visited/used an organization’s site. This program is highly useful for organizations that are using online ads and buying keywords to attract people to their site – useful for campaigns as well as businesses. Google Analytics allows you to track data by keyword and allows you to view the number of clicks, the cost, the cost per click, revenue per click, return on investment and margin. Further, Google Analytics allows an organization to superimpose these statistics on each page of the site making it very easy to see which layouts, calls to action, and also keywords/ads are effective and those which should be reconsidered.

One problem with the program, and especially its application for smaller businesses or campaigns, is that Google Analytics provides no data in real time data; data accumulates only every hour. Google Analytics is focused on providing users with historical trend data, but lacks the capability to do so in current time. This could be a major barrier for advocacy campaigns. For example, on the days leading up to, or even on the day of an event, real-time data would be most helpful if a campaign is trying to track registrations at specific locations. Real-time data would facilitate changing strategies, particularly via social media, if people are not signing up at expected rates.

A second problem is that Google Analytics is designed to track demographic data about your site, but does not provide data about single users’ actions on your site. For smaller campaigns, it is thus difficult to identify particularities or a specific understanding of users’ personal experience with your site.

Finally, particularly important to advocacy campaigns is the reported concern that by using Google Analytics, you have provided Google with analytic information about your campaign that could possibly become available to others, including competing campaigns.

Bit.ly

Bit.ly is an excellent tool used to shorten, share, organize, and collect web links. Bit.ly claims to be “reinventing how people discover and share content on the web” (www.bit.ly). Bit.ly can be accessed on their website, through browser extensions, mobile devices and through many third party tools.

For online advocacy campaigns, having a shortened URL is paramount. Condensing cumbersome URLs into a more user friendly and easily transferrable format is a huge asset for organizing and mobilization by online campaigns.

Bit.ly’s shortened links also allow an organization to analyze data and traffic in real time - each link has its own unique statistics page. Organizations can track a link’s usage by simply adding a “+” to that URL to be redirected to a page with the link’s statistics. This feature allows a campaign to measure not only its own effectiveness, but also that of competing campaigns. Every bit.ly link’s statistics page shows the number of clicks in real time and other relevant data and also automatically generates a QR code for that link.

Bit.ly has a very mobile-friendly website. In addition, they have launched a new platform - bit.ly mobile site (bit.ly, j.mp) which has useful features for mobile devices, including the ability to access links even when not connected to the internet (i.e. 100% of browsing history is cached on your phone). If you want to shorten a link while not connected to the internet, the link can be saved for later and will be shortened when the connection is restored. The ease of use on mobile phones will make bit.ly a prime component of campaigns, as the use of mobile devices for advocacy purposes and for mobilizing becomes increasingly prevalent.

“Bit.ly pro” allows organizations to customize their shortened URLs to increase brand awareness. This offers possibilities for organizations that would like to promote their brand name through social media or on Twitter, without having to include a large URL. An example is pep.si@bit.ly.com.

Bit.ly makes it easy to integrate an organization’s account with other social media and third party applications. Bit.ly services are integrated into several third-party tools such as Tweetdeck, MapQuest, and Google Chrome. Not only does this partnering make it very easy for organizations to use Bit.ly’s services, this partnering can be very useful for online campaigns, particularly for event organizing. For example, organizations can share a shortened bit.ly link on their social media channels that will go directly to a Mapquest page for directions to that day’s event.

For online campaigns bit.ly facilitates monitoring who is clicking on your links in real time. Bit.ly’s sidebar allows an organization to see updated click stats, stats for all clicks to the same long link, and also who has used this link on Twitter, FriendFeed and blog comments.

While Bit.ly allows you to see who has accessed and who is talking about your link in real-time, it provides no information about what people are doing while on your site. Bit.ly is much more concerned with what type of medium (i.e. laptop, smartphone, etc) people are using to access your site, and how they were referred to your site (i.e., through direct, through mobile device, through Twitter, or through bit.ly).

Information or stats about what the user is doing while on your page or how long they stay there is not provided. In the future, it is possible that Bit.ly will make data available through Google Analytics, which would greatly improve its usefulness for determining effective strategies for online campaigns.

Incorporating this tool in to an online campaign would greatly facilitate sharing and also allow an organization to better identify how viewers find out about their page, but is less helpful when it comes to tracking keywords or analytics related to a viewer’s activity once on your page.

Wefollow.com

Wefollow is a user generated Twitter directory allowing users to tweet to @wefollow hashtags representing the categories under which they would like to be listed. Wefollow then organizes users based upon those hashtags. This tool can therefore be a way for an online campaign to promote itself under different hashtags, as well a way to find people who might be “influencers” who already identify themselves under certain hashtags.

Wefollow sorts organization according to hashtag, by either “most influential” or by “number of followers.” For a campaign, this may be a good initial tool to use to find out who is already interested in the campaign’s issue and who the influencers are under a particular hashtag.

One problem with Wefollow is that only organizations with extremely high influence are likely to be listed. If you are not a similarly reputable organization or have a similarly large following, identifying influencers is not likely to be useful unless they are able to be influenced themselves.

Wefollow also identifies users who have recently acquired new followers. This feature allows a campaign to track what organizations/persons are becoming more popular or influential, based upon the rate of acquisition of new followers.

While Wefollow does not offer many features unique from other Twitter directories, it has overcome the problem of acquiring users and has achieved a certain critical mass. There has been a buy-in of notables, including CNN, Time Magazine and celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher. Consequently, while the majority of certain hashtag users may seem fairly obvious, Wefollow will likely offer some information that would have otherwise been inaccessible.

The Wefollow tool makes it hard to customize a list of people who are likely to be very interested in a specific advocacy campaign without a lot of digging into each individual’s Twitter history- this is time consuming, and I imagine there are other tools that do this more efficiently.

Wefollow allows five hashtags and a location/city hashtag per person, making it somewhat difficult to single out a specific audience, unless you are already keenly aware of the social media use and hashtags being used for your issue.

One problem with the way Wefollow organizes this site is that the user has no understanding of how the “most influential” column is interpreted. This is important information to know when identifying who might be the best influencers for your online advocacy campaign.

It is also important for an online campaign to know how often these lists are updated, and this information is not accessible to users.

While Wefollow identifies itself as a user generated Twitter directory, some entries have been added manually, ostensibly The New York Times, making it difficult to single out niche audiences or less “mainstream” users. There are obvious benefits to reaching farther down the hashtag list and developing followers organically, followers who might be more receptive to your campaign message than are the top-of –the-list influencers.

In summary, it seems unlikely that Wefollow would add significant value for online organizing campaigns.

Addictomatic.com

Addictomatic is a news aggregator that also monitors social media and can “instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on any topic.” This site allows you to type in a topic or search term and automatically customizes a page for you, pulling from Google blog search, Flicker, Bing News, Youtube, Twitter search, truveo video search, wikio, twingly blog search, blinkx mainstream vid news, friendfeed, ask.com news, yahoo web search….. and many, many more.

This tool is great for organizations who are trying to identify their web presence, see what people are saying about them through diverse social networks, news services blogs and microblogs and covers a wide variety of types of information.

Addictomatic is also a way to identify more broadly what people are saying about a wider topic in general. Campaigns could use this to identify the hot topic of the moment, what people are interested in, or where there is a lack of information and tailor their campaign messaging to fill this void.

What differentiates Addictomatic from other news aggregators is its screen presentation. It allows you to simultaneously view the keyword search presence in multiple different boxes that are comparable. This allows organizations to assess how well they are doing providing information to mainstream news outlets as well as via social media. It also allows users to evaluate immediately the relevance and popularity of your search query online, as well as identify those smaller outlets mentions for your keyword query. Also important for campaigns and online organizing, Addictomatic will allow organizations to customize their homepage searching and prioritizing those outlets in which the organization is most interested (i.e., Google blog search etc…)

For online campaigns and organizing, this tool is easy to use and will be especially helpful for monitoring their online presence, particularly for organizations new to campaign monitoring. Most importantly, it will save organizations a significant amount of time in gathering info, making assessments, and revising strategies to be more effective.

This site could be improved in the follow way: when you click on any of the search inquiries, you are directed away from Addictomatic to that sight, making it difficult for viewers to navigate back to Addictomatic unless they open a new tab for their search.

SocialMention.com

SocialMention is described, grandiosely, as “a social media search platform that aggregates user generated content from across the universe into a single stream of information.”

Like Addictomatic, this tool is great for organizations tracking their web presence on social media. It is extremely comprehensive, offering snapshot views of who is talking about an issue, and where. Importantly, SocialMention also rates these comments as “neutral,” “positive,” or “negative.” In addition, SocialMention also gives organizations percentages of the (i) strength, i.e., the likelihood that your keyword/ search terms are being discussed, (ii) passion, i.e., the likelihood that people will continue to talk about this issue, (iii) reach - the number of unique authors is divided by the total mentions, and (iv) sentiment – the ratio of mentions that are generally positive to those that are generally negative - of their social media presence.

SocialMention tracks what people are saying about your organization/ your product in real time in roughly 80-100 social media networks. This tool can be useful for organizations that have been working specifically on their online presence on a handful of sites or tools, as SocialMention allows a user to customize search queries to particular social media outlets.

While having a computed rate of “passion” and “sentiment” is obviously an imperfect measure, SocialMention.com provides your organization a snapshot view of how people are talking about your organization/ issue. By providing an overview of “social mentions,” the site is able to tease out whether, collectively, the mentions are positive or negative. Using this tool is a much more efficient and comprehensive way to ascertain “positivity or negativity” than is possible through subjective, human means. This overview allows online advocacy campaigns to view what they are doing well, and where there is room for improvement. For example, seeing a lesser percentage of retweets of your material, or finding that the “passion” for your information is low even if your online presence is high, indicates that your efforts might not be very effective. From this data, the online advocacy campaign can conclude that the campaign should focus more on engagement rather than dissemination of information.

While these snapshot percentages are telling, they are calculated using the past 24 hours of web data. For this reason, the percentages might be most beneficial for an organization looking to monitor an upcoming campaign or large event. Such percentages would be less effective for an organization trying to get a larger view of how their organization has been discussed and represented through social media across a larger time frame.

Consequently, SocialMention would be most effective for looking for social media conversations that are tied to a particular time period, debut or opening for a campaign. Nevertheless, SocialMention allows a campaign to receive daily updates on search terms or key words, thereby easily allowing a campaign to track its influence over time.

I believe this tool could be improved by allowing the users to customize the time frame for their search query. This would allow organizations to compare times where they were extremely effective with times they have been less effective, and understand the reasons for the difference.

Conclusion:

Online advocacy campaigns need to stay current with up to the minute feedback on the effectiveness of their campaign. The five online tools discussed above have varying abilities to measure that effectiveness. Some, like Bit.ly and Wefollow are more useful in extending the reach of the campaign message, although Bit.ly does offer a statistics page. Google Analytics is impressive in the data collected, but can't deliver in real-time. Addictomatic and SocialMention both offer some measurement of a campaign's effectiveness, but clearly could be improved upon. Aggregating information from many tools, drawing the best from each seems the most effective plan for a campaign.

Reaction and Review of Ben Rigby’s “Mobilizing Generation 2.0” and Ari Melber’s Year One of Organizing for America”

2011-06-13T14:02:00.000-07:00

This post responds to: Rigby, Ben. 2008. Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A, Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0. San Francisco CA: Jossey-Bass, and Melber, Ari. 2010. techPresident.com. “Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age."
(http://techpresident.com/ofayear1)

Rigby’s book offers an excellent overview of the ways organizations can make use of web 2.0 tools for online campaigns and organizing. By keeping his descriptions basic, Rigby makes accessible to any reader many online tools and how they can be applied for successful advocacy and organization. It seems to me that many terms, e.g., “social networking,” or “wikis” have become buzz words. Many organizations feel compelled to use these without first having a practical understanding of how “wikis” might assist them in what they are trying to accomplish. Rigby’s book can help in this regard.

Rigby provides a good understanding of each of the technologies he explores, as well as useful definitions for terms associated with each tool. As stated above, his “run-through” can be a bit elementary, but in the end, I found his assessment of each technology included compelling examples of how each could be used. For example, in his discussion about blogs, Rigby explained that there are there are 5 ways to use a blog: announce, react immediately, convey, involve, close the feedback look. Often times, organizations use blogs exclusively to announce and react immediately, and also to convey, but I found the idea of “closing the feedback loop” particularly interesting.

As an example, Rigby explains the success of Amnesty International’s blog. “Amnesty’s blog both asks for participation and shows results from past involvement, a method of engagement often called ‘closing the feedback loop.’ The loop begins when a supporter takes action and closes when the organization shows the results of that action.” (pg 21)

Organizations starting the implementation of basic web 2.0 tools will have their view of the purposes and possibilities of such tools expanded by a careful read of Rigby’s book.

Ari Melber discusses an interesting paradox in his report “Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age.” He explains that the Obama presidential campaign successfully created a new “governance organizing model” which successfully mobilized and sustained a new group of “super activists” after his election campaign and during his first year as president – but what has happened to them since?

The Obama campaign’s huge success at organizing and mobilizing volunteers was also discussed by Delany in his e.politics articles on “Learning from Obama.” What is so compelling about Melber’s article is his observation that, even with this “super activism” and new kind of support between election cycles, the Organizing for America (OFA) efforts don’t seem to be making a difference on Capitol Hill. Congressional staffers do not believe that OFA is changing Representatives’ or Senators’ votes. Melber writes that this may be attributed, in part, to the fact that OFA programs are “not targeting Congress effectively, or providing sufficiently diverse engagement opportunities for OFA members” (70).

Melber suggests two strategies for improving effectiveness in the future:

With White House backing, OFA could explore legislative strategies that are more targeted or confrontational; or organize OFA members around a range of policies; or prioritize issues to “change how Washington works” such as political and campaign finance reform. OFA could also empower members to set more local and legislative strategy, and make OFA a platform to democratize the DNC’s committee and superdelegate structure.”

My reactions are, if the campaign is suffering from not targeting Congress effectively, I wonder how the concepts of nanotargeting and targeted online ads will play into the future of this governance model? This question Melber highlights is important to explore. While it is clear the Obama campaign made extremely effective use web 2.0 tools to organize and mobilize, how can they use these same tools to target, more effectively, members of Congress and hold them accountable going forward?

Should ROI be linked to social media use, or are there larger, non-monetary measures to be considered?

2011-06-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

This post responds to Rosenblatt, Alan. 2010. Rules of Social Media Engagement. http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/10/20/rules-of-social-media-engagement.html and

Rosenblatt, Alan. 2010. Measuring the Impact of Your Social Media Program. http://www.frogloop.com/care2blog/2010/10/19/measuring-the-impact-of-your-social-media-program.html

These articles examine ways in which organizations can measure the “influence” of their social media efforts and raise some basic questions. Is it possible to measure “influence,” and if so, how and to what extent? If these measurements can be accomplished, how can they be standardized for use amongst a myriad of organizations employing a diverse range of social media strategies?

Rosenblatt encourages organizations to measure the influence of the social media through three categories: Reach, Engagement, Driving web traffic home.

Rosenblatt begins his analysis by stating that “[T]he need to assess their return on investment (ROI) is critical.” But when analysis of social media’s effectiveness and measures of its “influence” and “reach” may not be truly quantifiable, it may be a stretch to say ROI can be correlated to social media efforts.

Rosenblatt explains the fundamental problem with identifying the efficacy of reach and “potential reach,” as “causality:” we can count TV watchers, but “we don’t know how many viewers actually saw your ad,” and we don’t know if the ad caused them to buy the product.

I wonder if including “reach” in this list of measurements is appropriate? Perhaps a more concentrated effort or analysis of “engagement” and “driving web traffic home” would be more effective in measuring the success of social media. In fact, for organizations looking for quantifiable ways to measure their social media efforts, I wonder if including reach as a measure of influence decreases the credibility of a given analysis?

I believe reach is a less successful (and less valuable) measure than actually focusing on analyzing your fans and followers, for example, on Twitter and the number and time spent on your site, which can truly be measured with concrete data and statistics. As Rosenblatt says, measuring the quality of your audience allows you to “better target them for engagement.” My preference would be less emphasis on reach and more in depth analysis of the tools and tactics organizations could use for tracking social media engagement and driving web traffic home.

An example of a more effective tool examined by Rosenblatt is:

“MyTweeple allows you to download your entire Twitter list (followers and followed) to a spreadsheet, along with all their profile information. This allows you to sort and identify who among your list of followers are influencers and, who among them follow you back.”

Yes assessing ROI is critical, but I don’t believe that this is the only way for organizations to evaluate the “value” in social media. I don’t believe reach and engagement can be measured in monetary terms, and I don’t think that they necessarily should be.

In the end, I believe that evaluating social media solely on a monetary basis as justification for its use may be missing larger reasons for its use, e.g. engagement and public participation.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Promotes Video Contest Using Facebook

2011-06-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) is using their Facebook page to ask users to vote for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation “Like my Community” project, hosted by Liberty Mutual Baltimore.

Here is what CBF says on their Facebook wall about this new campaign:

Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Maryland native and CBF long-time supporter Craig Mosier reflects on why the Chesapeake Bay is so important to him and future generations. Hear his story, and learn why he thinks it’s important for you to vote for CBF Liberty Mutual Baltimore. We could win $30,000 in support of our Baltimore Harbor Education Program…but only with your vote!

http://cbf.typepad.com/chesapeake_bay_foundation/2011/06/vote-now-for-cbf-on-facebook.html

I thought this was a good use of social media asking for a call to action on the part of Facebook fans, but there are also ways I believe it could be improved.

The original wall post links to an article where Craig Mosier talks about the Bay’s personal relevance to him and his family. This is a great way to make the campaign appeal to a local audience, but I felt there was little relevance to the actual voting campaign being hosted by Liberty Mutual.

In the original Facebook post, CBF writes that this contest would be in support of the Baltimore Harbor Education Program- thus I’d like more explanation of what this entails, how the money would be used, and why they need this money.

This campaign could potentially use a title, which increases awareness about the CBF’s Baltimore Harbor Education Program. On Liberty Mutual’s video voting contest page, CBF does not even mention what they will be using this money for if they win the contest.

One limiting factor is that votes can only be cast on Facebook. Considering the more adult demographics of the CBF population, would it be wise for the CBF to allow viewers to cast votes through other mediums besides Facebook?

Well planned and executed by the CBF is the distribution of this information through endorsements on their social media channels as well as a concerted effort to raise video campaign issue salience by increasing its visibility on the CBF homepage and other parts of the CBF website. Yet, while the “Like my Community” Liberty Mutual project appears on the CBF homepage, it is not consistently listed across their webpage in their “connect” or “act” sections of the CBF website.

Another improvement would be to redirect viewers to the CBF website campaign homepage for more information about the project in CBF social media channels.

This should be the second URL listed after the URL / call to action directing the public to vote for the Liberty Mutual project because it is the only place where the public can find more information about how this campaign is planning on using the money.

It will be interesting to see if CBF continues to promote this campaign throughout the summer through their social media channels, since anyone can vote daily on Facebook.

Further ideas for promoting this campaign this summer are:

- include this in “action” emails that are sent out

- write a blog about the Baltimore Harbor Education program

- create a Facebook event or group of dedicated voters for the rest of the summer

- use the blog or Facebook comments to ask supporters for their own testimonial of the importance of the Bay

- host a contest encouraging supporters to submit a video demonstrating the importance of the bay, which could be used for similar future campaigns.

Organizing Volunteers Using the Internet: Obama’s 2008 Campaign Best Practices

2011-06-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

This post responds to: Delany, Colin. 2010. ePolitics.com. “Using the Internet to Win in 2010.” (http://www.epolitics.com/winning-in-2010/) and Delany, Colin. 2009. ePoltics.com. “Learning From Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 & Beyond.” (http://www.epolitics.com/learning-from-obama/)

These articles address the compelling ways the Obama campaign made supporters feel valued. Specifically, the campaign sought volunteers’ support through non-monetary engagement and let them know how their efforts fit into the larger election framework.

Obama’s strategists knew how to use volunteers to the campaign’s advantage. “[T]he Obama solution: borrow their brains, and use technology to make it possible.” The Obama campaign shrewdly gave volunteers true prestige in the organization. Delaney explores how the Obama campaign made supporters feel like part of the organization, gave them real weight in decision making (not true .. just actions), and used them more than just as donors.

The campaign provided resources and let volunteers do the work. Again, technology was key, encouraging volunteers to show their support through their Facebook pages. In addition, the campaign provided talking points and “walk lists” so volunteers could campaign in their local neighborhoods. These walk lists were supplemented with an iphone app which volunteers could use to find the nearest house to visit and download talking points.

It’s clear the campaign’s use of its volunteers and of technology will be the model for future, successful advocacy campaigns. With the rise of mobile, location based services and other web tools and resources, the wider public truly can have an influence in their local communities and sometimes even on a national scale. It will be the task of organizations to design successful strategies taking “electronically-enabled” volunteers into account.

My questions: will organizations be comfortable letting their supporters have so much control? How will campaigns monitor and assure sound quality? How will campaigns maintain credibility with increased fracturing of who the message is coming from and with increased proliferation in the message being delivered?

Further, I believe a critical step that must be paired with successful grassroots organizing is a crisis communication plan for messages gone awry.

Delaney attributes to the campaign’s mobilizing success to the use and proliferation of campaign video, an additional aspect of the Obama campaign of which I was previously unaware.

The Obama campaign seems to be using video in the same way we have addressed the concept of the “long tail” as it applies to ads and nanotargeting, as discussed by Josh Kolter. The campaign produced a slew of video content that appealed to different niche audiences, and the public added its own video content. Here the idea is: the more content the better. When your “shelf” is limitless, there is no end to the content you should provide.

“But even the ones that WEREN’T viewed by millions mattered: the internet is an endless sea of niches, and not only was it impossible for he campaign to target every possible interest or audience, they didn’t need to — their supporters were busy doing it for them, and in their own (authentic) voices.”

Delaney discusses another interesting concept, the efficacy of the strategy targeting the opposition with ads, not “pro – Obama” support ads. As Kolter explained : “there used to be one ad that would imply a candidate was unfit. Now there are many smaller ads that imply unfit but do not say so directly. Future campaigns may explore such niche adds further.

In sum, aided by technology, the Obama campaign turned volunteer mobilization into a science.

Do Location Based Services Add Value for the Public in Political Campaigns?

2011-06-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

This post responds to two readings: Harbath, Katie. 2010. Trend To Watch In 2012 – The Rise Of Mobile,

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/trend-watch-2012-%E2%80%93-rise-mobile

Melber, Ari. 2010. techPresident.com. “Year One of Organizing for

America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age."

(http://techpresident.com/ofayear1)

Both articles highlight the unique dimensions that mobile devices add to advocacy campaigns, as well as the compelling reasons for the persistence of mobile-based strategies in future political campaigns. But what exactly will such strategies look like? And how do mobile-based strategies tie into the broader trends of emerging new media, and the associated implications for its consumers?

Two trends in the new media seem compelling: (i) ubiquitous access (web mobility) is currently, and significantly, influencing the future of the web, and (ii) real-time technology is ever increasing mobile connectivity and the consumer’s appetite for “instant” news.

In the 2012 Presidential Campaign, however, it will be interesting to see how each political party/candidate uses mobile devices. Will campaigns try to hyper-personalize news information and help readers contextualize new information? Or will they simply continue to use mobile devices as a means to disseminate and replicate the same bits of information (i.e. available via other mediums), but just to a larger (and in some ways, select) audience? Will it be a combination of the two?

In my view, both of these articles focused largely on what mobile campaigns will offer to the campaign at-large, but neglected to offer attention and analysis as to how mobile devices will be useful for the consumer in obtaining political knowledge. In other words, to what extent have political campaigns considered the consumer’s needs in developing their mobile strategies?

Are location based services really a trend to watch? Will these services add value and be useful to consumers during the next political campaign?

The articles do consider how location based services will be useful for campaigns. For example: “Mobile can even be important for local races as efforts like Facebook places, Foursquare and Gowalla take off because it will offer new methods for candidates to introduce themselves to voters in very specific areas and eventually turn them into supporters and donors.” But has the same thought gone into why these location based services will be useful and desirable for the public?

Have campaigns given enough thought to the barriers surrounding location based news? What factors will cause the public to want to participate? The shipment of Smartphones will exceed the shipment of PCs in 2012. And while this may mean that reading patters and how people see news will change, it does not necessarily drive an increase in location based services. To be effective, campaigns will need to consider the consumer side of the equation. Campaigns will have to offer something that consumers (i) want to receive, (iii) that is easily accessible, and (ii) that will incite participation and action.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Call to Action: Are Members Treated like “Partners” or “Donors”?

2011-06-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

This week I received an email from Chesapeake Bay Foundation entitled “BREAKING NEWS: CBF and Partners Take Legal Action to Defend the Bay.” This email was sent out to members on an email list, each of whom specifically indicated or signed up for news alerts related to Chesapeake Bay Foundation activities and news alerts.

In the context of a “call to action,” consider the following statements from the email:

“This morning, CBF's Vice President for Litigation Jon Mueller and I announced that CBF is filing a formal legal intervention in federal court to stop lobbyists for major agricultural industries from derailing the unprecedented federal–state cooperative effort to reduce pollution throughout the Bay region.

In this legal action, CBF is part of a coalition that includes Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, Defenders of Wildlife, the Jefferson County (WV) County Public Service District, the Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy (MD), and the National Wildlife Federation.

We have taken this action in response to the agricultural lobbyists' recent legal challenge of EPA's authority to issue a Bay pollution budget, known legally as a Total Daily Maximum Load (or TMDL). This opposition to the TMDL has been joined by other state and national agribusinesses, including The Fertilizer Institute, the National Pork Producers Council, the U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, and the National Turkey Federation.

We find the opposition incomprehensible, indefensible, and unwarranted, and so we felt we had no choice but to fight fire with fire.”

While the lobbyists’ legal challenge is likely to be upsetting to the CBF’s e-mail list, the email is not written in a way that compels action or motivates readers to feel invested in the issue. Readers are more concerned about how this legal action will affect them personally or how it overturns existing legislation than they are with which organizations are affected through these partnerships.

In the title, the email says “Partners Take Legal Action to Defend the Bay.” I would argue that people on this email list already consider themselves “partners” of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, so why not make them feel included in this action as well? Yet, the email gives readers little opportunity to get involved. In fact, the first “call to action” is in a PS line at the bottom of the email. It reads:

“P.S. I don't need to tell you that legal actions are expensive. We estimate this one action could cost tens of thousands of dollars, at least. Please send your much-needed donation today—every single one counts—to help us defray the cost of this litigation, which agricultural lobbyists have forced us into.”

There are no additional ways for the public to be involved. This would be a prime opportunity for the CBF to start a letter writing-campaigning, or a petition to Congress through other public mediums like their Facebook wall.

In addition, there are no future ways that the CBF asks for support other than for a donation in the “PS” of their email. The Foundation is involved in many activities, and I think CBF should include links allowing volunteers to show their support in a number of ways, not just through a monetary donation.

Further, CBF has several social media channels, but this email does not mention where viewers can access those channels. I believe a productive addition to this email would be “want to join the conversation? Share you thoughts? Follow us on Facebook, Twitter…..”

It would also be wise for CBF to make this appeal to local watershed residents. How will this new legal action affect them personally ? Why would residents want to get involved and “defend this Bay through legal action.” In my view, this email misses a lot by not responding to the “so what” factor. The email reinforces the notion that in many organizations, the public is considered when it comes to donations, but the public is not considered, or even consulted, when it comes to the organization’s actions.

It seems that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation would benefit from thinking of their members as participants or consultants, not simply as “donors.” In so doing, CBF would create a more networked, rather than hierarchical organization, that would likely be more effective.

Advocacy Email from the American Cancer Society

2011-06-01T13:54:00.000-07:00

I received an advocacy email from the American Cancer Society entitled “Thank you for helping us fight cancer.” I felt immediately drawn to the issue- appreciated, acknowledged for my efforts, included in the conversation and a participant in the fight for a cure.

This email did several things I thought were very effective. The words to catch the reader’s eye is: “forwarded to a friend” –a great way to expand your base as news gathering is becoming increasingly social; “[h]alf of Americans say they rely on the people around them to find out at least some of the news they need to know.” (http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/understanding_participatory_news_consumer)

The following is the only text that appears in the email : “Please enjoy this issue of Fighting Back to learn more about the people, programs, and services that are saving lives by helping people stay well, helping people get well, by finding cures, and by fighting back. You make a difference in the fight against cancer, so we hope you find this e-newsletter informative and inspirational. We welcome your feedback atfightingback@cancer.org.”

This short text gives the reader 5 different interactive ways to get involved and to continue to support the campaign. Again, a productive addition here would be to say we welcome your feedback and your input on at fightingback@cancer.org and or through our social media channels, on Facebook, Twitter…….

Also highly effective, on the right hand side of the email, appears a list of choices that readers can explore to show their support in a variety of ways. The list includes:

“This month, chose to create a world with more birthdays;” “American Cancer Society Programs and Services Help Cancer Patients in Need;” “Be a part of Finding Cures: Enroll in the Society’s Cancer Prevention Study- 3;” “Breast Cancer Survivor Fights Back through Volunteerism;” “Protect Your Skin on Don’t Fry Day and Every Day.”

These are highly effective “calls to action” and the cover a board spectrum of emotional appeals. The links enable readers to choose (choice is a key component) ways to participate in events, participate in research, use proactive measures to help themselves, donate money, and read empowering stories of those who have made a difference.

I believe this campaign could improve by making their email campaign more reader-friendly. The campaign also needs to plan for the possibility/likelihood that many of those reading the e-mail will do so on a mobile device. Already, this email is very slow to load due to the number of links and pictures embedded in the text. Not all of the content even loaded when I accessed this on my PC. It seems that the organization knows this is an issue because in the very beginning, there is included: “having trouble viewing? – click here for our webpage”. The campaign should think about creating this email in a way that appeals to mobile viewers, decreasing barriers for mobile device viewers. The content should be more accessible and more “reader friendly.”

Response to Clay Shirky’s "Here Comes Everybody"

2011-05-25T13:10:00.000-07:00

This post is in response to Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations.

Shirky has caused me to reexamine how I find value in social media tools. Often it is the case, and certainly it is the majority opinion where I work, that social media is best used to reach a larger audience and to increase dissemination of information. Less emphasis is placed, or even considered, as to why people are using these social tools and what they expect to gain from a particular digital interaction.

Shirky writes from a different perspective, arguing that social tools are simply supplementing preexisting social behaviors – making collective action, collaboration and cooperation increasingly possible. The primary driver of this “collectivism” is that the “costs” of finding likeminded people is less on the internet. Social media tools allow the creation of groups that might otherwise have lacked the means to collaborate.

However, Shirky argues that social networking tools are not an ‘end all-be all.’ Rather, they are a means to an end-- tools used because of preexisting social needs and desires. Yet, while these tools are built on the basis of predominant social habits, they are also transforming social structures. Further, the rate at which this transformation is occurring alters “what we do, how we do it, and who we are.”

In this vein, distinctions once clear, develop shades of gray: between bloggers and journalists, between published and non-published material, between the idea of communications media and broadcast media.

Fundamentally, social media tools are also changing behaviors: “a consumer is a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.” Nevertheless, consumers are using social tools to interact with large (and hitherto unreachable) organizations with relatively equal power dynamics. However, Shirky notes that even though there is equal access to tools, there is not “equality of participation.” Hierarchy of management is also being altered (and eroded) by lowering the cost of coordinating group action. This also leads to the flattening of organizational cultures.

Understanding how and why social tools are being used is perhaps the foundation for thinking about using these tools for strategic communications, or as Shirky explains, looking at the “promise,” then the “tool,” then the “bargain.” Shirky describes, in particular, the aspects of the “acceptable bargain,” because it requires participation by the user.

Here Comes Everybody is provocative because it identifies, describes, and attempts to explain an opening world of group formation. Nevertheless, it does not include “everybody.” Certainly, third-world citizens, elderly citizens, and those without means for a computer are not participants. Another thought prompted by Shirky’s point that social networking tools are not an “end all-be all,” is the question of benefit. Going forward, I will think more deeply about how I find value in social media tools.

What are the Ethical Considerations of Online Advertising and Nanotargeting ?

2011-05-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

For today’s class, we are reading:

- Google. 2010. The Digital Playbook: Can online ads move poll numbers? http://googlepublicsector.blogspot.com/2010/04/digital-playbook-can-online-ads-move.html

- Koster, Josh. 2009. Long-tail Nanotargeting. Campaigns & Elections. http://www.campaignsandelections.com/publications/campaign-election/2009/february-2009/long-tail-nanotargeting

- Koster, Josh. 2010. Nanotargeted Pressure. Campaigns & Elections. http://www.campaignsandelections.com/publications/campaign-election/2010/february-2010-the-case-study-issue/nanotargeted-pressure

Both Koster articles endorse digital advertising, focusing on tightly crafted messages that “nanotarget” identified niche groups. The “Long-tail” article explains the process, where niche audiences are identified not just by geographic and demographic targeting, but by keywords. The article effectively explains the “nano” strategy with examples from Al Franken’s political campaign: “Minnesotans who were searching for cheap gas or researching fuel-efficient cars saw ads about Franken’s plan to lower gas prices.”

Koster’s and Davis’ article takes this targeting a step further (and appropriately used “Pressure” in its title). Again working with a limited budget, and trying to exploit “paid media to drive earned media,” the authors discussed making “an outrageous ad with a compelling premise and run it just enough to get the press to start talking.” The campaign used Facebook to target specific CNN employees: “Hey Soledad O”Brian, why don’t you ask Lou Dobbs what it’s like to be Latino in America?”

In response to these articles, I question the ethical dimensions of this highly successful political advocacy tool of online advertising. How much data-mining is appropriate to identify audiences, whether they be “low hanging fruit” or otherwise?

If internet advocacy is pure advertising, what, if any, are fair boundaries in using internet data and reader/user habits?? It is certainly reasonable, and uniquely American, to glom onto “what works” and enterprisingly, make the most of it. However, using digitalized media to exploit audiences, (read: voters), is alarming to me.

Innovative Use of Twitter in Pepsi Commercial

2011-05-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to see Pepsi’s new ad with Sofia Vergara’s. , and its strategic use of twitter to promote their product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEFI-_Sg5G0

The add shows Vergara at the beach craving a diet Pepsi and trying to escape a large line at the cabana. In response, she tweets “At the pier… just saw #DavidBeckham!”

As a result, the large line from the cabana--mostly female-- makes a sudden dash off screen while Vergara saunters to the counter for her Pepsi. I thought this ad employed a strategic use of social media very well and clearly endorses twitter and the use of social media as a mainstream activity.

While I found the premise innovative, I also took issue with several other points:

This ad simplifies and glorifies twitter. The mass exodus of people from the cabana after Vergara’s tweets assumes that not only are they all following her but that they are all following the #DavidBeckham hash tag. Is this a realistic assumption? Probably not.

And because this ad is directed towards a largely female, presumably younger audience, who is also likely familiar with Twitter, I wonder if audience took issue with its unrealistic implementation of Twitter.

I am left in the end wondering why Pepsi is so keenly interested in leveraging the power of social media– the ad’s endorsement of Twitter is as strong as its endorsement of Pepsi.

Does it matter that their use of social media is unrealistic? I would guess not as it seems in this case it seems Pepsi is using Twitter to appeal to a younger female audience base by association to social media.

Chaos or Collaboration?

2011-05-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

This blog will track my coursework and learning for “Internet Advocacy Communication” at American University this semester. This week, we are reading and responding to the following articles: Rosenblatt, Alan. 2009. PoliticsMagazine.com. “The Dimensions of a Digitally Networked Campaign,” and Delany, Colin. 2009. ePolitics.com. “Online Politics 101.”

The idea of an expanding communications paradigm from “one-to-one” and “one–to many,” to include “many-to-many” (http://www.iata.csic.es/~bibrem/NECOBELAC/STM-report.pdf ) is expounded on in the first article, Dimensions, as a “1-D, 2-D and 3-D” paradigm.

In the 3-D example, Rosenblatt attributes incredible power to citizens and their activities. Through citizens’ collective ability to build and maintain large social networks and share their own content online, Rosenblatt argues that they are able to redirect advocacy campaigns (even very large-scale campaigns) in a different direction. Yet, at the same time, Dimensions highlights the equally debilitating aspect of individuals’ redirected internet campaigns by pointing out that often times, one does not know or understand what makes an idea “go viral or fizzle.”

Changing any of the variables of an internet advocacy campaign, i.e. messaging, timing, and context, will inevitably yield different results. When individuals become involved in an advocacy campaign and feel empowered, even compelled to act, Rosenblatt essentially concludes that the advocacy campaign becomes little more than “managing chaos.”

I wonder if “chaotic” is really the right word to describe this new communications paradigm? In this internet communication era of many-to-many, the activists or the campaign organizers cannot always be in control of their message or the direction the campaign will go, Rosenblatt’s 3-D campaign. Does that necessarily mean chaos, or does that mean progress through collaboration?

Both Rosenblatt and Colin Delany acknowledge that this new media ecosystem requires organizations/campaigns to treat their audience like “strategic partners,” and value them as assets. In commenting on Rosenblatt’s Dimensions article, Lauren Belisle echoes this strategic partner recommendation, citing a campaign example which allowed supporters to “upload video clips directly to the website, where they could share to perpetuate the message,” observing “to really know the audience is what unlocks the power in social media,” http://laurenmbelisle.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/3077798592/.

However, to what extent is this “strategic partnering” a possibility for organizations/campaigns that lose control of their online presence? Is this a viable option? And if so, what tools can be used to manage the “chaos?” How should an advocacy plan for redirected messages? Is it practicable to chart possible courses of "unintended consequences”?

I’m particularly interested in Delany’s conversation on the use, and often misuse, of online advocacy tools like Facebook and Twitter to rally support. Particularly true is his analysis that often organizations use Twitter much like an RSS feed, tweeting when new information comes

out, in addition to the use of Facebook, which he suggests is being used primarily as a “broadcast tool” and not as a platform for discussion and one-to-one, or many-to-many, engagement.

Perhaps the way to “manage the chaos” is to build “strategic partnering” into the campaign message; be watchful for wayward offshoots, and have a plan in place to mitigate unintended consequences.