The Internet and Politics

Supporting the idea that a new political communications era has arrived, Pew Internet and American Life Project's most recent report, "The Internet and Campaign 2010," finds that 56 percent of American adults used the Internet for politics in 2010, and 22 percent used social media networking sites for political purposes during the 2010 election cycle. Considering that voter turnout is often lower than 50 percent, these findings are significant.

Why are they using the internet? According to Pew, Americans appreciate the ability to find like-minded others, and find information in general. Do they still have concerns? Yes. Many Americans worry that the Internet enables extremism, and complain that there is too much information to sift through -- much of which is bad information.

Nevertheless, the study is yet another indicator of the Internet's growing impact on politics.

A Civic Makeover?

In their 2008 book “Millenial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics,” Morely Winograd and Michael D. Hais predicted an impending political realignment – a prediction that largely proved true during 2008 election cycle.

According to the authors, political realignments arise when a large, new, engaged generation comes of age, and new technologies enable major shifts in communication paradigms.

Winograd and Hais describe the newest generation to enter politics -- “Millenials” or those born between 1982-2003 -- as a civic generation. They describe Millenials as protected, revered children who were shaped by 9/11 and its aftermath. They are growing into adults who are great at solving problems, building institutions, and making community, consensus-based decisions.

Winograd and Hais belief the Millenial generation will end an era of divisive politics and ring in a new era of consensus building. The 2008 Presidential election demonstrates a number of the characteristics predicted by the authors, including large voter turnout, widespread use of new communications medium (and an expectations that candidates engage through these vehicles), and a tone of consensus and cohesion.

As the authors mention, political realignments happen over the course of several election cycles and are not immediate. I believe we have a long way to go before we can declare that we are in an era of true political consensus and cohesion – or even that we are using the communications technologies that signal the realignment. A few proof points:

• In the aftermath of President Obama’s election, forces on both sides have certainly worked to keep divisiveness and gridlock alive – from the Tea Party movement to Party Politics.
  
• Government utilization of social media (or even just basic websites!) is lacking, and President Obama himself has expressed frustration over the lack of technological freedoms to communicate with the American people.

It will be interesting to see whether, as more Millenials come of age, divisive movements diminish, and better use of social media and other new media truly does become integrated into the government and political infrastructure.

What's Next in Online Activity

Last week, Pew Internet and American Life Project posted more interesting finding, and this time provided insights into future online activity habits.

Check it out here: http://www.slideshare.net/PewInternet/information-20-and-beyond-where-are-we-where-are-we-going

Most interesting: handheld device users today are much more likely to be active online, and mobile apps are likely to be the next major wave of communication game-changers. This is because they provide the information we want most, when we want it.

Biggest surprise: Internet users who get their news online are still looking for credible sources. That's a relief, but I might need more convincing! Sometimes it seems like people will believe anything they read online...

Social Media - What's the ROI?

As more and more individuals and organizations migrate online, social media has become an increasingly critical medium and tool for any advocacy effort – whether it be pushed by a politician, non-profit organization, or corporation. However, as a relatively new communication medium, social media efforts are still sometimes difficult measure.

My instructor, Alan Rosenblatt, recently provided some insights on what to measure and how to measure it in two Frogloop articles, “Measuring the Impact of your Social Media Program,” and “Rules of Social Media Engagement.” According to Rosenblatt, the most important metrics of any social media program are reach, engagement, and driving traffic home. Here are some key considerations for each:

Reach:

• This is a measure of audience size (e.g., number of facebook fans, twitter followers, etc. – these are the potential viewers of your messages).
• Since more people will see your post than actually click, make sure it packs a punch – and include key messages.
  

Engagement:

• This is the action your audience members take in response to being reached by your messages (reach is useless if you don’t engage your audience!).
• Look for ways to encourage your audience to promote your organization –for instance by re-tweeting messages with links to your URL, commenting on facebook posts, or including you in their “#FollowFriday” recommendations on Twitter.

Driving Web Traffic Home:

• This is the number of unique website visitors or page views.
• Social media posts aren’t particularly likely to drive many users to your website – hence why it’s important to include your key message in the post – but it’s still an important measure of success.

But, all of these are intermediate measures in aiming toward more important ROI end goals, such as policy advancement, public opinion change, fundraising increase, etc. The measures above can help an organization establish correlation between social media tactics and end-goal successes, but cannot establish causality.

In Honor of April Fools Day...

Rebecca Black is a 13-year-old overnight sensation...mostly because people dislike and make fun of her song and music video, "Friday." No matter the criticism -- ever since a few well-read blogs dissed her in early March, she has been everywhere, and people now love her, from Saturday Night Live parodies to funnyordie.com features. If you search Google for "Friday," her video is the top result. Even our class favorite -- ePolitics.com -- has featured "Friday" on his site. Her 3 weeks of fame are nicely summed up in this "Betwixt the Music" interview.

While the ePolitics.com post was mainly an April Fools prank, it's no joke that Black's instant fame is a perfect illustration of the power of digital media. Like the Friday phenomenon, online and social media platforms can quickly spread the word about political issues, candidates or causes -- for better or worse. Political figures like Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnel have benefited from online exposure, while others like Rep. Bob Ethridge or ACORN have been hurt by it.

Indeed, a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project poll indicates that most Americans believe the internet plays a role in reaching political goals, such as getting elected or raising awareness about an issue.

Learning from the Obama Campaign

With the rapid evolution of the internet, each campaign season in the past two decades has adapted to a more and more significant role for the internet -- and the ability to adapt to online communication channels has often been the difference between winning and losing. President Obama's campaign in 2008 is a lesson in best practices, even three years later today.

ePolitics.com provides an excellent summary of the Obama campaign's online strategy and tactics in "Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond." The summary covers a broad spectrum of the campaign's successes, including:

• How to organize
• How to build support
• How to put supporters to work
• How to fundraise online
• What to do when the campaign is over
  

I was particularly interested in the overview of how to find and build a group of supporters -- something the Obama campaign did very well. Based on this publication, the campaign focused on:

• Collecting addresses at every in-person event
• Running online advertisements, including search engine ads
• Providing incentives for signing up (tsotchkes, like bumper stickers or pins)
• Following up with new supporters and steering them toward action
• Using the campaign's social media presence to drive sign-ups

These are lessons that many campaigns can learn from. While sometimes purchased email lists are necessary, there are several organic techniques for list-building that result in more engaged, active supporters.

The Rise of Digital Giving

Americans have a propensity for incredible generosity following major disasters. Over the past week, this has been evident in the country's response to Japan's recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 21 percent of Americans say they have made a contribution to an organization working to provide relief in Japan.

Of note, the use of digital mechanisms for giving has seen a substantial rise in this most recent wave of charitable giving. Pew found that adults under 40 were just as likely to give money via digital technologies like websites, text messages or emails as they were to give via traditional means like mail or phone.

In contrast, Pew found that only 5 percent of the same age group donated money after the 2005 tsunami in Asia, and only 20 percent of them gave through digital technologies.

This is good news for organizations looking to increase their giving, and signals the opportunity to invest in technological platforms that make giving easy.

Integrated Campaigns

Advocacy efforts increasingly require a multi-faceted, integrated approach in order to achieve success -- whether legislative, cultural, or electoral. The importance of integrated campaigns in underscored in section 1 of Tech President's Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age.

This excerpt provides an overview of Organizing for America's effort to enact comprehensive health reform. It was critical for the health reform movement to utilize traditional tactics like lobbying and events, but it was also fundamental to build and activate social capital -- which was largely accomplished through digital tools. Without this integrated approach, health reform may have succumbed to the Tea Party backlash that was unleashed during the summer 2009 August recess.

Any campaign interested in integrating efforts -- both online and offline -- should read Ben Rigby's book, "Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0." The book details what an integrated campaign is, and also provides detailed guidance on how to do it.

Live Chats with News Publications

The divide between editorial and advertising has long been staunchly guarded among media news rooms across the country. However, the line may be less clear for readers and users who interact with some media content.

Washington Post, for example, sometimes offers readers a 30 minute "Live Q&A" chat on an issue with a reporter or with an expert spokesperson of interest. These are classified as editorial content. However, organizations can also pay for Washington Post to host similar sessions with readers. These are classified as advertisements.

Perhaps the line has always been blurry for readers. After all, the paid live chat sessions are similar in nature to advertorials. But I've observed that the blurry paid content is increasingly moving online, where it can sometimes be harder for readers/users to tell the difference.

Mobile Advocacy Strategies

This week's readings (Using Mobile Phones in Advocacy Campaigns and Trend to Watch in 2012: The Rise of Mobile) focused on the use of mobile technologies in advocacy campaigns. The key take aways:

1. Mobile technology has a few important benefits as an advocacy tool:

• It is widespread
• It is easily accessible/relatively inexpensive for users
  
• It is easy to use
• It is fast
  
• It is increasingly nimble and can be used in a number of creative ways
  

2. Those who think mobile technology is just about texting are missing the boat. Mobile advocacy strategies can include:

• Text messaging
• Voice
  
• Mobile applications
• Mobile advertising
• Optimizing websites to be viewable and usable for mobile users

3. The rationale for using mobile technology is the same as the rationale for using any other communication platform: it is a preferred form of communication for many audiences. For certain populations -- such as many in the developing world -- cell phones are easy to obtain and cheaper than a land line, and may serve as the primary connection to the internet. Mobile technology is increasingly important to engaging key constituencies and reaching key audiences.

Seeking Health Information from Peers - In Person and Online

Since last week's post, Pew Internet and American Life health expert Susannah Fox released a new report on America's habits in seeking health care, support and advice.

Not surprisingly, the report found that most Americans, especially those with rare diseases, turn to their peers for health support and advice. The advent of social media and online channels of communication has increased their networks of peer support -- and has helped Americans build online communities of individuals with similar issues or helpful information.

Online channels provide an outlet to easily find and connect with those with the same or similar conditions as well as health care professionals and disease experts. This connection can be an invaluable tool for patients with chronic or rare diseases.

My grandmother struggled with Parkinson's Disease for more than 25 years, and one of her greatest resources was her community of peers who were fighting against the same illness. She eventually became the president of the support group, which was a constant source of information, guidance and support to help her maintain the highest quality of life possible. Today, I wonder what her support group would look like. It might take an online form via facebook or another social network -- at least as a way to track members and reach new people.

While some express concern that seeking health information or advice online can steer patients toward self-diagnosis or poor health outcomes, I would contend that the increased information sharing and networking provides, on balance, substantial health benefits to those who seek out health information and support online.

How to Maximize and Measure Social Advocacy

In this week's readings (Measuring the Impact of Your Social Media Program, and Rules of Social Media Engagement), our professor, Alan Rosenblatt, explained some key ways to maximize and then measure the influence of a campaign that uses social media for advocacy purposes -- what Dr. Rosenblatt calls "social advocacy." These are summarized below.

Reach
A social advocacy campaign should focus on reaching as many people as possible -- or maximizing impressions. How many people did you get your message in front of? Not everyone in your audience will read or engage with your message, but knowing how many people were exposed to it is still an important measure to understand. The more people you reach, the more likely you are to drive up the number of people who engage with your social advocacy program.

Helpful tools for measuring reach include hashtags, and tracking followers or fans.

Engagement
The number of people who engage with your campaign will always be smaller than the number of people you reach -- but engagement is usually the whole goal of social advocacy. For instance, a social advocacy program may aim to engage supporters in re-tweeting the message, posting it on their facebook wall, or sending a message to a policymaker.

Tools to measure engagement include tracing retweets, followers, mentions, comments, etc. Interesting tip: data from a facebook page can be downloaded into excel for easier analysis. I never knew that!

Driving Web Traffic Home
While visits to your website are not as central to social advocacy as engagement, they can still be an important way to get your message out. You can drive traffic to your website by linking to it in social advocacy efforts. On Twitter, it's important to keep the URL short using tools like bit.ly in order to use most of your 140 maximum characters for the message.

For links to the resources, tools and services available to measure some of this difficult-to-find information, like how often you are retweeted, check out these articles. They will be very helpful to anyone trying to maximize and measure their social advocacy impact.

Media Advocacy

Issue advocates and political operatives routinely compete for the attention of their target audiences in order to build support for their causes. Such support is often built through "media advocacy." According to David Simpson, media advocacy is "the process of disseminating policy-related information through the communications media, especially where the aim is to effect action, a change of policy, or to alter the public's view of an issues."

Harry Weisbren's Huffington Post guest-article nicely sums up the promise of media advocacy. He notes that traditional news media -- print, broadcast and radio news -- can be a tremendous asset in getting a message out through a (usually) credible source. The downside of these is that the advocacy organization's message will be edited based on the slant or view of the news outlet.

This is one reason why social media has become so prevalent in media advocacy -- organizations can deliver an unedited message, exactly the way they want to present it.

Regardless of the effective use of these media advocacy tools, it is critical for any advocate to convey a clear argument or message. In Matt Bai's book, "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," we see how the struggle to articulate a clear argument has hampered the Democratic Party for years.

I recall John Kerry's 2004 loss well. I was a coordinated campaign field organizer in Oregon, eager for the promise of a new presidency, and I'd been so certain of a win. Certain that America couldn't reelect George W. Bush. I heard the announcement that Ohio had been called for Bush while on my way to the "victory" party, where half the crowd was in tears. I remember my boss saying, "I sure feel bad for George Soros right now!" Indeed. Despite the money that went into ACT, MoveOn, and Democratic Party efforts to defeat Bush, there was still a critical missing piece: an argument.

To sum up: there are a variety of important media advocacy tools that organizations and causes can pursue to get a message out -- and with the advent of social media, media advocacy is easier than ever. The first step, however, is to know what you're going to say.

Health Care's Digital Opportunity

The internet has fundamentally changed the way Americans receive and share information. As a health communication professional, I have always had a particular interest in the way this impacts health care. The Pew Internet & American Life Project sheds light on this in its various studies of the Internet and health care.

According to Pew, 79 percent of American adults are online, and 6 in 10 American adults go online wirelessly each day. Thus, online and mobile tools are a huge -- and relatively untapped -- resource for improving health and health care quality.

Pew's Associate Director of Internet Strategy, Susannah Fox, outlined the very tangible improvements that digital tools can make in health care in her September 2010 Pew presentation to the Mayo Clinic -- itself a leader in online health information sharing.

Pew found, for example, that mobile tools can drastically increase treatment adherence among teens with chronic illnesses. Mobile technology was used to monitor their health behaviors, and intervene via text message as appropriate. Medication adherence is a significant challenge among all chronically ill patients, and this is one illustration of how health care practitioners can harness new technologies to improve adherence in order to better manage these diseases.

Fox's presentation underscores a key principle of communications today: it is critically important to reach audiences where they are today. As Fox noted in her presentation, if you're not online, or you're not mobile, you're not reaching some of your audiences.

Beyond just implementing digital medical records (which is another critical tool to improve the quality and efficiency of American health care) there is a tremendous opportunity to implement online and mobile tools to remind patients to take their medications via text message, answer questions via mobile applications, or connect patients with similar conditions.

Unfortunately, most physicians are far from adopting such advanced online tools in clinical practice. In fact, physician use of the Internet to search for health information is only 86 percent, and 70 percent of physicians spend less than 3 minutes per day researching a patient scenario online, according to a study by Google.

Digital tools to improve health care represent a huge missed opportunity to date.

Clay Shirky on Collective Action

In his book, "Here Comes Everybody," Clay Shirky provides an overview of the impact of social media on society. Illuminated through examples -- some trivial and some profound -- Shirky shows readers that social media is transforming society because it changes the way in which we interact and communicate with one another and with groups.

Shirky writes:

"The centrality of group effort to human life means that anything that changes the way groups function will have profound ramifications for everything from commerce and government to media and religion."

Social media is one such innovation that has changed the way groups function. Fundamental to his argument, Shirky highlights the impact of social media tools on collective organizing. The costs of organizing groups to take collective action have essentially vanished.

Using a variety of tools from websites to blogs to social media networks, individuals can organize themselves into a group -- rather than being organized by a group. For example, by simply self-identifying as a supporter of a cause on a social network like facebook, individuals can opt-in, receive alerts, and show up for the rally (or whatever the action might be).

This shift is continuing to evolve -- and it is forcing politics to evolve along with it.

Social Search

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of its new Google Social Search functionalities. Social search has actually been around since 2009, according to Washington Post, but if you are like me you never noticed it before. The new features are hard to miss. Now, when searching for information on Google, the top results will be sites you've visited in the past (with the date of your last visit), and will include the relevant tweets, posts, etc. from those in your social network.

As a society, we have come to rely more and more on our friends' and acquaintances' suggestions in order to make our own decisions. It's only natural to use our friends' posts to help us filter information we find through search engines.

I predict (though not surprisingly) that this will have a very real impact on politics - especially political campaigns. As voters search for information about candidates, they will be influenced by the tweets, posts and preferences of the people within their social networks. They will be less exposed to opposing points of view, and will naturally gravitate toward the information that fits their existing point of view on candidates or issues.

As with past developments that allow us to connect with others online, social search will be yet another tool to help groups organize, and influence public discourse. Of course...until Google Social Search links with facebook, its influence on me personally will be pretty minimal.

A shift for online news sources?

Politico came into the office today, to present their latest product, PoliticoPro, which launched this week.

I'm intrigued by the product because it would provide more depth of news coverage for my primary issue area -- health policy (they also offer it for energy and tech -- and may expand in the future). They've hired talented reporters and promise the convenience of mobile viewing.

However...a subscription is $1,000 per person ($2500 for the first one within an organization).

I appreciate the fact that if they're going to invest in in-depth, niche coverage, they need a source of funding to pay for it. But it also worries me to see a shift in online news sources, where the best content is "behind the curtain" of an expensive subscription.

I have become so accustomed to finding the information I need online for free. But I wonder if we're on the verge of news's equivalent of the shift from Napster to iTunes.

How to Use Facebook Ads

I've known for a long time that facebook is capable of some serious micro-targeting. At times, I've found myself to be a "victim" of this brilliant tool. When I was single, I had to ignore the perpetual online dating ads, and now that I'm engaged I am constantly targeted to click for wedding planners, fad diets and dream dresses. I have also been on the other side, employing targeted facebook ads based on political leanings to further clients' advocacy goals. But, I've never actually administered an ad on my own. So this week's assignment was quite intriguing.

For class this week, we were assigned to find out more about facebook ads by experimenting with the tools ourselves. I have a strong interest in health policy, and I'm a native Oregonian. So, I created an ad targeting Oregon small business owners between 30-65, to educate them about the benefits of health reform. I borrowed content from the Organizing for America site (thanks, President Obama!) and created a facebook ad that would link directly to the pertinent information.

Here's how it turned out:



I knew facebook ads were inexpensive. For just $50/day, I could reach a few thousand of my target audience with ads designed just for them. The biggest surprise to me was how simple it is to do this! Facebook is so well-designed, all you have to do is play around with drop down menus and characteristics until you land on an appropriate profile for targets that falls within the budget. Easy. Even my mother could probably figure it out.

Who's behind that online ad? And who sees it?

Online campaigns in general can make it hard to tell who is behind a movement. A small, scrappy organization can do powerful things online, or a large corporation can fund a grassroots front group.

Micro-targeted ads take these questions to a whole new level.

As we learned in our reading, campaigns can successfully (and cheaply!) trick major news organizations like CNN (or whoever/whatever the target might be) into believing they have a major PR nightmare on their hands, when in fact a few ads were simply targeted to that precise group. Further, source amnesia allows players to make statements without really being accountable for any negative repercussions. All of this can be used for good -- or bad. It is amazing how much content is out there for which viewers really are not aware of the source, or do not realize they are being very specifically targeted. We no longer see the same ads as our neighbors, necessarily.

I predict that, after awhile, people will catch on. Advertising in all mediums will always carry significant influence, but once people gain a real awareness of the the fact they are being targeted, they might be a bit less susceptible to the influence of online ads.

The Basics

This week’s readings covered the fundamentals of an online campaign and serve as a good foundation for anyone getting into digital communication.

Dr. Rosenblatt’s overview of the “The Dimensions of a Digitally Networked Campaign” describes the three dimensions of online strategy:
• 1-Dimensional: tightly controlled messages and information, pushed out from an organization to audiences
• 2-Dimensional: two-way transactions between an organization and audiences
• 3-Dimensional: community based communication involving the organization, its audiences, and their audiences and communities, with little or no message control

Colin Delaney’s “Online Politics 101” teaches us how to translate the above strategic approaches into action through tactical execution. While Delaney strays a bit too often into inside jokes and anecdotes, he also presents a straightforward and comprehensive overview of the most important tenets and tools of online advocacy.

One important take-away from both of these readings is to make online outreach a positive, easy experience for your audience. For example, we are reminded to:
• Respect our audience’s communication preferences, whether email, facebook, twitter, text messages
• Make sure action is easy – “just one click away”
• Be easy to find
• Be navigable
• Present information logically and succinctly

Far too many organizations still forget the importance of these principles. A cluttered, hard-to-navigate website can send a message that an organization doesn’t care whether users find the information they need. Political campaign emails too frequently place the “act now” button at the bottom of a long diatribe that explains why we should care about their cause. The bottom line is, to be successful online, keep it short and sweet, and think about how to make action easy for your audience.

Kenneth Cole and the Risk of the "Human Voice" Online

Kenneth Cole's tweet heard around the world is a terrific, terrifying example of online tactics gone wrong. If you don't know about it already, just google "Kenneth Cole Tweet," or read this Washington Post commentary with a little more info on the Twitter fall out. The gist -- Kenneth Cole's twitter feed made a joke about the revolution in Egypt for the sake of sales...yuck.

When you think about it, this is an example of a company that was trying use online channels, hashtags, and the human voice (this time, really, really bad humor) to interact with consumers (and sell products). Generally, this is all good stuff that they could have learned from the Cluetrain Manifesto. And with their "human voice," Kenneth Cole made a very human mistake -- they told a joke that was not funny, not even a little bit. But when you are a big company, and the comment is made online, you can never get it back (thank you, screen shots).

In reality, the tweet was probably posted by a lowly junior staffer who was just trying to be creative, and get the company into a "trending topic." I feel truly sorry for this person -- they probably need a new job right about now.

These blunders happen in politics all the time. Rep. Bartlett's apologizy to BP instantly exploded on every online channel. ACORN was permanently damaged after being caught helping an undercover "prostitute" evade taxes on videos that were posted to YouTube. Rangel was rude to a well-known reporter. The point is -- in the age of the internet these mistakes are very easily publicized.

It's also sometimes a lot harder to be forgiven. In my opinion, you have to do more than say your mistake was "poorly timed" in your apology. Try again, Kenneth Cole.

Digital Political Strategy

Welcome to my blog! After a month-long break from class, it's time to go "back to school." I'm looking forward to my Digital Political Strategy class.

Online strategy has been a part of my professional career ever since I entered the full-time workforce in 2004, but has never been my primary focus. Perhaps that's why this is my first personal blog. Given that online strategy -- political or otherwise -- is increasingly important to effective communications, I'm glad to be using this blog to reflect on what I learn in class.