Reading Log: What Would the Millennials Do?

Millennial Makeover

In the 2007 book "Millennial Makeover," Morley Winograd & Michael Hais hypothesized that the 2008 election would be unprecedented (in terms of online fundraising, youth participation, etc). Most publishers thought the authors were overestimating the role of young voters in 2008, but Winograd & Hais ultimately scored a publishing deal on the heels of Super Tuesday and their hypothesis - as we now know - was right.

Winograd & Hais explained the long-time political realignment model: politics is cyclical, not linear. At any given time, one political party dominates the political process - sets the tone and public policy agenda - and sees a "makeover" every 40 or so years. History has shown that in the periods of political stability, there is little variability in party identification or other voting coalitions. Winograd & Hais posit that two things need to be present to trigger political realignment:

1. The advent of a large and dynamic generation of young Americans (large enough to electorally overwhelm other existing generations).
2. A new communication technology paradigm (in the 1930's, this was the radio; in the 1960's, television; now in the 21st century, it's internet-based technology).

These two conditions are present in modern day politics and have helped define the Millennial Generation. Winograd & Hais explain that Millennials are civic-minded, group-oriented and problem solvers. In 2004, Howard Dean helped demonstrate the power of the internet, but in 2008 the Millennials put the internet (and social networking) at the center of the campaign.

Andrew Rasiej Video

Rasiej claims that the multi-dimensional social networking tools have developed a new kind of governance. Internet users are essentially competing with government and taking the lead in solving problems that need to be solved (e.g. online resource for reporting pot-holes, looking up times for public transportation). Like-minded individuals are finding solutions where government has lagged. These tools transcend geographical boundaries. Rasiej predicts that social networking tools encourage international diplomacy and have the potential to translate into civilian action, absent of political leaders.

Thom Yorke: Campaign Manager

John Ensign could have used the words from Radiohead’s “Creep” during his press conference yesterday announcing his resignation, “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here?” Even so, Capitol Momentum Blog gives a more appropriate and thought-provoking use for Radiohead in political campaigns. In a recent post, Capitol Momentum outlined four ways that advocacy organizations could learn from Radiohead.

1. Reach supporters in the way that they want to be reached. Radiohead released their most recent album, The King of Limbs, by making it available for download (or just a one-time listen) on Slate.com, RollingStone.com, and YouTube. If someone bought it in-stores, they also received a newspaper about the band. Everything from Radiohead’s website, Facebook and Twitter account to their email and in-store promotions was up-to-date and fresh. Radiohead integrated (remember that word?) their offline and online promotions in a way that many advocacy organizations could model a campaign off of.

2. Don’t empower, enable! We learned about the importance of translating online support into offline action by making your audience your messenger. Radiohead encouraged their fans to film concerts and then used the footage, edited it and redistributed it. Radiohead fans were the ones that encouraged other fans to listen and participate.

3. Content is key. For Radiohead, disseminating quality content means making quality music. Not everyone loves Radiohead’s music just like not everyone will support your advocacy campaign. Providing supporters with updated and engaging content will keep people coming back for more if they can rely on your organization to provide them with reliable information in a timely and innovative manner.

4. Earn media. When Radiohead made their 2007 album, In Rainbows, available for download at any “you-name-it” price, 1.2 million people downloaded it in the first day. That summer, all proceeds from their one-time concert went to the Haiti earthquake relief effort. Capitol Momentum notes that their recent multi-media push is unlike any in history. Radiohead’s promotional efforts have garnered a significant amount of mainstream media coverage. The best thing about earned-media is that it’s free. For advocacy organizations, following steps 1-3 (integrate, enable, quality content) gets them to step 4 (earned-media).

Capitol Momentum’s full article can be seen here.

BackType It Up

For this week’s assignment, I played around with BackType – a monitoring site that provides companies, organizations and campaigns with a variety of analytics to better understand their social impact. Without an account (and hefty payment), the analysis is limited, but I was able to squeeze out a couple cool graphs with the freebee trial offer. Here is a comparison graph of Planned Parenthood and National Right to Life. I wanted to see if NRL was as active in the Twitterverse because of the latest budget battle. It doesn’t seem like NRL has done much…

Also: just for fun, I compared the influence index for fake Rahm and real Rahm – unsurprisingly, fake Rahm beat out real Rahm by a score of 59% to 47%.

MY Index Is Higher Than YOUR Index

The 6th Floor Blog commissioned Twitalyzer to find the most influential people on Twitter. According to Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, the simple practice of counting followers says very little about a person’s influence. Williams explains, “someone with millions of followers may no longer post messages frequently, while someone followed my mere tens of thousands may be a prolific poster whose messages are amplified by others.”

Twitalyzer uses an Influence Index, which is determined by the number of times a person is mentioned by someone else + how often that person’s messages are retweeted. The results are pretty interesting. As you can see from the Twitalyzer’s results, there is a big difference between those that have a lot of followers versus those that are the most influential. Snoop Dog is slightly more influential than President Obama even though Obama has 4.5 million more followers.

You can see more results, like “who’s more influential” matchups (Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich; LeBron James or Shaquille O’Neal) at The 6th Floor Blog here.

DIY D.C. Redistricting

Last week, the U.S. Census released the latest population numbers for D.C. According to D.C. law, each Ward needs to have a population that is within 5% of the average Ward population. Currently, Ward 2 is too big and Wards 7 and 8 are too small. Greater Greater Washington created a fun, interactive game (anyone can play!) to draw new Wards. Here is my attempt at redistricting D.C.

YOU can redraw D.C.'s Wards too. Greater Greater Washington's game is here.

Don't Empower, Enable!

Turning Your Audience Into Your Messenger
An important step in turning an online campaign into community development (action) is the need for campaigns to recognize their place in the three-dimensional world. Campaigns use the Internet (and its tools) to communicate to their audience, but the most critical part comes after that. They also need to use the tools to enable their audience to communicate with each other beyond the campaign. If an audience can find a reason to believe they have a personal stake in your issue, then they are more likely to become the messengers of YOUR message. As Dr. Rosenblatt said in the NCRC annual conference, “Online advocacy is not about telling people what to do and making them go do it, it’s about making them strategic partners in what you’re trying to do. And the social media, the social websites, the social networking, all these new tools that are available, they put those tools in the hands of the people you’re trying to become partners with to start doing your work for you – actually, our work, together – as they start to spread into their own personal networks.”

Building Social Capital
After Obama was inaugurated, his Obama for America Campaign turned into Organizing for America. The report, “Year One of Organizing for America: The Permanent Field Campaign in a Digital Age,” provides an internal evaluation of the unprecedented “governance organizing” model that was established once candidate Obama became President Obama. OFA underscores the need to build (and maintain) relationships and understand the value of social capital.

"For grassroots organizing online, effective campaigns tend to create social capital online, convert it to tangible action offline, and then run structured programs to maintain that capital. In a 2008 article about social capital and netroots activism, for example, political scientist Diana Cohen stresses that a key ingredient in the online “social capital framework” is “maintenance” – essentially an ongoing program to “maintain the capital so it does not deplete.” And while there is a broader debate among scholars and practitioners about whether email and Internet politics advances broader civic participation, an issue beyond the scope of this report, it is clear that in the case of the Obama campaign, new media organizing drove effective political action (fundraising, volunteering, voter registration, and event attendance)."

An Evolution of Integration: Rock The Vote
In “Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web 2.0,” Ben Rigby begins his book with an overview of Rock The Vote. In its 20-year history, RTV has adapted to the ever-changing political landscape by incorporating new technologies as a means to engage youth voters. In its early years (1990-1996), RTV helped pass the Motor Voter bill through a campaign of PSAs and postcards to Congress. Between 1996-2002, RTV created the first online voter registration and ultimately registered more than 200,000 new voters during the 2002 midterm election cycle. In 2004, RTV began using Web 2.0 tools to spearheaded GOTV efforts. This set the stage for a record-breaking 2006 election: more than two million more 18-29 year olds voted than in the pervious midterm election. The life cycle of RTV exemplifies the power of integrating online campaigns with offline campaigns. Their online efforts translated into offline action.

Photo credit: icrossing.com

NYT: Will That Be Cash or Credit?

The advent of online media has forced content producers to consider the best way to integrate this “new” information channel into their business models. Content creators have grappled with the choice of charging content consumers with information that has otherwise (until now) been free. Consider the recent decision by New York Times to begin charging their readers to access online content. NYT’s subscribers have always paid for a hard copy of the newspaper to arrive at their doorstep; it would make sense, then, for NYT to charge online readers for the online version of the newspaper. Although NYT is not the first newspaper to charge for online access, other major newspapers will evaluate the success (or failure) of NYT’s paywall when considering their own online content as a possible source for secondary revenue.

A recent Washington Post article highlights newspaper analyst Ken Doctor’s concerns over newspapers transitioning to a paywall system. Doctor is concerned that the fees are too high and readers – especially the younger demographic who has grown up with relatively full and free access to the Internet – will not be willing to pay and newspapers will lose readership. A national Pew Internet survey of 755 adult Internet users helps shed some light on Doctor’s concern. Findings show that Internet users between ages 30-49 are more likely to pay for online content than their younger or older counterparts; however, among those that pay for news (18%), there is not an obvious age gap.

The full Pew Internet report can be found here.

Rosie 2.0

In light of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, Fast Company magazine featured their annual list of most influential women in technology. This year, they selected five women in six categories (entrepreneurs, advocates, gamers, media, brainiacs and executives). With this week’s topic in mind, I want to highlight some of the women whose work relates to mobile advocacy.

Cher Wang (Executive)
Cher Wang is the founder and chairman of High Tech Computers (HTC) who specialize in manufacturing smartphones. HTC manufactures one out of every six smartphones in the American market today. Wang’s company is currently working on 4-G phones for Verizon and T-Mobile. Google and Microsoft rely on HTC’s services as they look to the future of their smartphone production, as HTC was the first company to offer the Android.

Limor Fried (Entrepreneur)
Limor Fried capitalized on her background in electrical engineering and computer science to successful build her company, Adafruit Industries. Adafruit makes DIY “hardware hacking” gadgets. One of Fried’s early pet projects was developing a device to disable all nearby cell phones (illegal, but amazing!). Fast Company magazine proclaimed her a DIY goddess who aims to make electrical engineering “exciting, cool, and fun.”

Katrin Vercias (Advocate)
Mobile phones have “leap-frogged” computers in many parts of the world as a means for advocacy organizations to connect with those they are trying to help. Vercias created MobileActive.org, an offline and online meeting place for people from all over the world – who are working within the mobile advocacy space – to connect and compare notes on their projects. This process of sharing information, Vercias says, has facilitated creative progress. Fast Company magazine quotes Vercias on the power of mobile advocacy: “…because it is so ubiquitous, [mobile technology] is having an impact that is as significant as the invention of the alphabet.”

See the full list of Fast Company magazine’s influential women here.

Photo credit to Fast Company magazine

Reading Log: Mobile Advocacy - There's An App For That

MobileActive.org published a strategy guide for using mobile phones in advocacy campaigns. A few case studies (Greenpeace, SEIU and others) exemplify the necessary guidelines for advocacy campaigns to keep in mind when developing their mobile strategies. The guide outlines six basic steps:

1. Set goals
2. Hire a snazzy vendor
3. Outline a marketing plan that determines who you want to reach, how you want to reach them, and how the mobile marketing plan can complement other marketing plans within the campaign.
4. Craft messages
5. Beef up your database and implement the plan(s)
6. Evaluate the successes/missteps and learn for the future

In "Trend to Watch 2012 - The Rise of Mobile," Katie Harbath urges campaign strategists to stop thinking of mobile campaigns exclusively in terms of text messaging. Mobile strategy now includes web browsing and apps. Harbath used her experience working for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in the 2010 election as a way to try out various mobile strategies. Her innovation paid off and yielded some useful data as the NRSC looks to 2012. The NRSC spent 13% of their online ad budget on mobile ads, but the mobile ads they ran on Election Day were particularly successful. Harbath estimated that more voters would use their mobile devices than computers to do last minute Election Day research (candidate information, finding their polling places, etc). She was right. More than two-thirds (67%) of the clicks received from their ‘polling place ads’ came from mobile devices. Harbath ultimately determines that while 2012 will not be the peak of mobile strategy, it will serve as a critical opportunity for campaigns to try out various mobile strategies to see what works and what doesn’t.

Rick Perry Thinks He's the King of Twitter #whodoyouthinkyouare

We learned this week how advocacy campaigns use social networking tools to engage policymakers and influence change. So what does it mean when a policymaker uses the networking tool, but plays by his own rules?

Texas Governor Rick Perry (or as Texans fondly refer to him, Governor Good Hair) recently blocked a group of seemingly pesky Texas journalists from accessing his Twitter account. To the Twitterverse, this was an amateur move. The blocked journalists quickly caught on when their colleagues (as well as Perry’s 38,000 followers) still had access to the governor’s tweets. Not to mention, Perry’s tweets are public domain.

Twitter is a tool that thrives on the openness of information sharing and interaction. Perry’s resistance to the fundamental elements of Twitter is obviously not ideal for the concerned citizens, members of the press, advocacy organizations and others who rely on Twitter to reach the governor. Perry’s defiance does, however, expose the power of the tool. Maybe Perry had something to hide, at least from selected members of the Texas media. Instead of leaving the journalists in the dark as he had hoped, Perry’s plan backfired. @GovernorPerry was flooded with complaints about his lack of transparency and failed attempt at media censorship. The same social networking tool that Perry used to communicate with his base turned into a platform for anti-Perry rhetoric. Perry might have undermined his own online agenda, but his actions reinforced the powerful influence that social networking tools can have over policymakers.

Reading Log: Measure for Measure

In his blog posts, “Measuring the Impact of Your Social Media Program” and “Rules of Social Media Engagement”, Dr. Alan Rosenblatt emphasizes the need for advocacy organizations to measure the influence of their social media campaigns. Dr. Rosenblatt provides suggestions to measure reach, engagement and website traffic.

Measuring Reach
Reach is a campaign’s target audience that can potentially be exposed to their message. Measuring reach can’t tell a campaign if their message is working, but it can help determine if a campaign’s message is actually reaching their intended audience. The simplest way to measure reach is to count. Start by counting friends and followers, fans and unique visitors. Dr. Rosenblatt highlights MyTweeple.com, a tool that assists with exporting Twitter lists (including profiles) into a handy spreadsheet. From there, it is easy to examine Twitter lists and identify (and quantify) followers.

Measuring Engagement
An advocacy campaign can have a million followers on Twitter, but that number is irrelevant if the campaign doesn’t have a way to effectively engage their followers. Interaction is at the heart of social media, so the success of an online campaign relies heavily on campaigns interacting with their target audience. Websites such as SocialMention.com and SmallAct.com’s Thrive can easily measure the success of online interaction by providing retweet data.

Measuring Website Traffic
People that casually graze the web are unlikely to click on the links embedded throughout content on a website. This is one of the reasons why a campaign’s message must be incorporated throughout their site (and not just embedded in the links), so the visitor sees it regardless of what part of the website they visit. Measuring clicks within the content can still be useful, however, and easy to do with URL shortening websites like Bit.ly. These sites provide beaucoups of data for evaluating click-through frequencies.

In his video on CSPAN, Dr. Rosenblatt underscores the importance of measuring the influence of social media campaigns. Knowing what works and what doesn't helps campaigns get to know their audience. Understanding an audience brings campaigns one step closer to the ultimate goal - a successful campaign. Dr. Rosenblatt says, "Don't always think in terms of how many people are in your audience, think about who is in your audience. Because having a hundred very influential people in your audience is much better than having ten thousand people in your audience who don't give a rat's ass about what you're talking about. Think in terms of quality of followers - not quantity - and the quality will follow from that."

The Role of Blogs in Media Advocacy

Photo credit: BuffaloBeast.com

In this week’s discussions and readings on media advocacy, we learn that an organization’s message is nothing without a platform to disseminate the message; the media helps to shepherd the message from a source to its audience. With the rise of the internet and social media, advocacy organizations hope that their audience will utilize tools such as Facebook or Twitter to accelerate the spread of their message.

With this in mind, consider recent events in Wisconsin. Earlier this month, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced his intention to diminish the power state employees by eliminating their collective bargaining rights. State unions staged large demonstrations in Madison to protest the governor's plans. Amid the protests, the governor received a phone call from a man he believed to be his friend and advisor, David Koch. But the guy on the other end of the line wasn’t actually David Koch; he was Ian Murphy, gonzo journalist and editor-in-chief of BuffaloBeast.com - a satirical blog based in New York and self-proclaimed as "the world's only website." Murphy impersonated Koch well enough to gain access to the governor and record their conversation. Let’s just say that the conversation wasn’t pretty. At one point, Murphy (as Koch) says, “…once you crush these bastards, I’ll fly you out to Cali and show you a really good time.” Governor Walker agrees to the idea, saying that that would be outstanding.

That prank phone call could become a turning point in this battle. Walker lost control of the media's framing of the issue. While the media continued reporting on Walker's policy position, coverage now included personal statements from Walker's unflattering conversation with Murphy. Mainstream media outlets throughout Wisconsin and the country reported on the prank phone call. The transcript and video were available through not only Wisconsin's major newspapers and blogs, but nationwide newspapers as well, particularly after Murphy's site crashed after receiving too many hits. The story broke four days ago and since then, Murphy's post has hundreds of comments on the post and they're still coming.

Advocacy campaigns use the media to help advance their message. Murphy's story provides an example for how mainstream media advocacy is not exclusive to corporations, advocacy organizations, or political campaigns. One person's agenda has the potential to carry the same weight as a large organization. Because of Murphy's post and the ensuing media coverage, many people in Wisconsin have a new perspective on Governor Walker and his position on this issue. Murphy's story has the potential to help influence the outcome of this heated union debate.

Update: I just read this post from e.politics that emphasizes the compelling nature of multimedia content (in this particular case, audio). Multimedia has a long history of impacting politics, from JFK's first televised debate to the 2006 U.S. Senatorial campaign in Virginia. In that case, Senator George Allen was caught on camera using a racial slur to describe his opponent's staffer. The video went viral and Allen was ultimately defeated by Jim Webb.

"Weapons of Mass Mobilization"

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Clay Shirky predicts that the ease of forming groups will continue to improve collective action. This video from Aljazeera gives an overview of how social media served as the collaborative channel in the recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and now Bahrain. Shirky actually sits on the panel that is featured in this video, and while his time is limited, it is interesting to hear his perspective on recent events. Shirky continues to posit that the success and failures of collective action cannot be properly measured from a slice in time, but that we’ll have to wait well into the future to determine their true impact. The panel reaches a consensus in acknowledging that while revolutions are inherently contagious, it was the combination of a desire for justice to prevail and new media tools that contributed to the series of uprisings.

When asked specifically about the role that the Internet would play in the future of these countries, Shirky claimed that after meeting with Tunisian officials he believes that the future government institutions would work toward creating a more tolerant environment toward social media tools. Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! underscored the important role that journalists will play in facilitating the transition from a people’s uprising to a Democratic revolution by continuing to hold the government(s) accountable.

Reading Log: Clay Shirky

Clay Shirky’s, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations” sets the foundation for understanding sociology in the digital world, and provides evidence for just how powerful groups can be when they change their behavior and adapt new technologies.

Even though Shirky’s book was published in 2008, many of the elements still ring true today – three years later – on the verge of another major national election. In light of recent events in Egypt, Shirky’s book poignantly describes what can happen in a society when information sharing leads to conversation, collaboration, and ultimately culminates in the form of collective action.

Shirky explains group dynamics in a primitive form, analogous to a beehive:

When we change the way we communicate, we change society. The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life. Though the hive is not part of any individual bee, it is part of the colony, both shaped by and shaping the lives of its inhabitants. The hive is a social device, a piece of bee information technology that provides a platform, literally, for the communication and coordination that keeps the colony viable. Individual bees can’t be understood separately from the colony or from their shared, co-created environment. So it is with human networks; bees make hives, we make mobile phones.

In his TED talk, Shirky emphasizes that new technologies don’t infiltrate societies at their inception, but rather when people’s comfort with a technology almost reaches the point of boredom. It is THEN that innovation happens. Shirky claims that the intensity of innovation capabilities we are currently experiencing is the most explosive it has ever been. According to Shirky, the medium in this present environment is unique in that it allows groups to talk to each other, whereas previous media (printing press, telegraph/telephone, recorded sound/picture, and broadcast) only allowed for either conversation or message dissemination, but not both. This is an important distinction between past and present media for three reasons: (1) groups can now converse, share, collaborate all at the same time; (2) the Internet has become the platform for all of the old communication media – we can send emails, talk on the phone, watch movies, record movies, read books – and furthermore, the source of information is also a place for discussion; (3) the consumers of information are now producing the information.

In short, Shirky says that we are in a world where media is “global, social, ubiquitous and cheap.”

Two Rhams Walk Into a Bar...

This article from the New York Times addresses the growing trend of fake Twitter accounts; most of them are created to poke fun at their real-life doppelganger, but they are simultaneously serving a real and serious purpose.

The article links to the fake account of Rahm Emanuel, who tweets about his life on the campaign trail in Chicago. His tweets are filled with profanity and hilarious happenings (like making m***** f****** snow angels); but probably the most humorous aspect of the fake Twitter accounts is how dangerously close they tread to the real life person. In the case of Rahm Emanuel, it’s no secret that his reputation inside the Beltway imitates that of a cussing pitbull (without the lipstick). The fake Rahm is addressing the same political issues as the real Rahm - but with a parodic flare - and provides the real Rahm with a much-needed ego check. (Speaking of pitbulls with lipstick, Sarah Palin has a few fake Twitter accounts too.)

The NYT article focuses on the anonymity of these accounts, and how it has become a favorite pastime of Washington’s political insiders to crack who is behind the curtain. There is a broader message gleaned from these fake Twitter accounts, however, at least in the realm of online politics. In electoral campaigns, these fake Twitter accounts have the potential to serve as third-party validators (or message disseminators). During a campaign, the fake Twitter account can be an outlet for opponents to distribute negative messages; alternatively, they can serve as a platform for candidates (through a phony twin) to respond to negative messages, or possible hot water in general, in a humorous and satiric way. It is yet to be determined if a real candidate is actually witty enough to pull one of these off intentionally without being outed. Until then, we'll continue to laugh at the professional phonies.

Do It Yourself Facebook Ad

A friend of mine, who recently lost her mom to breast cancer, signed up to walk the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For the Cure that will take place in the fall. Despite the fact that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation is a pretty well known organization, and probably has their own potential Facebook ad campaign planned, I haven’t seen any ads targeted at me. We all know that there are a lot of people on Facebook, but before this activity, I had a difficult time grasping how many people there actually are. And I only targeted within the U.S.! The first step was to assign a URL for people to jump to if they click on your ad, give the ad a title and description, and upload a picture. The first picture I tried to use was of a woman’s face with a pink ribbon painted on her cheek. It was too detailed and the tiny frame couldn’t really do the picture justice so I switched to a more common logo.

Next came the targeting. I couldn’t believe the seemingly endless possibilities there are to target people: likes and interests (which is what I used, as you can see below), age, sex, sexual preference, date, time, birthdays – the list goes on. I also realized that you can target people using the groups that YOU belong to. I thought this could come in handy for groups on Facebook that want to advertise an upcoming event such as a happy hour or lecture.

After you’ve decided on the ad’s appearance and who you want to see the ad, the next step is to set up the budget. The default is $50.00 per day, which I kept because I pretended to be operating on the budget of a very large foundation.

Overall, this was a very informative and entertaining activity. I could not believe how user-friendly the process was and how many possibilities there are for trimming the cost and tailoring the ad to only reach the people you want to reach. Facebook also allows you to evaluate the success of your ad and opt to make changes to your ad buy.

Reading Log: Put Your Money Where Your Mouse Clicks

After reading some of the case studies from this week’s theme of online advertising, it’s hard not to accuse any candidate that doesn’t allocate a decent amount of funds/energy/time/strategy to online advertising of being foolish. Aside from online ads yielding a high return on their investment, advertising online allows for some pretty incredible micro-targeting opportunities.

Josh Koster used Senator Al Franken’s campaign as an example of successful long-tail nanotargeting, which is the process of using campaign messages and finding the right niches to execute those messages. Koster explains that this process is two-fold: the use of persuasion and the use of acquisition. These two strategies are pretty much how they sound. Persuasion involves finding your niche market, and hitting them with your best persuasive message in “their” space (in the case of the Franken campaign, people that used the Internet to research gas stations with cheap prices or fuel efficient cars saw Franken ads about his position on energy efficiency). Secondly, acquisition uses online ads as a way to implement a call to action strategy (again, in the case of the Franken campaign, they recruited interns using Facebook ads). In another case study, Koster, alongside Tyler Davis, described how nanotargeting directly contributed to the demise of Lou Dobbs’ tenure on CNN. Koster and Davis’ consulting company, hired by clients supporting immigration reform, put pressure on the network for supporting Dobbs’ xenophobic rhetoric in the immigration debate by reaching out to CNN employees through Facebook’s capability to target advertisements based on workplace disclosure.

Online advertising isn’t reserved for the high-profile candidates and nationwide campaigns. As Kate Kaye from ClickZ underscores in her article about the January 2010 special election for Virginia State Senate, the affordability and practicality of online advertising is redefining the way that third-party groups support candidates, particularly in down-ballot races. Resources that might have been spent on traditional advertising like television and print are now being allocated for advertising online. Another advantage for down-ballot races is Google’s Mobile Ads that allow campaigns to advertise on mobile devices. CNN’s Eric Kuhn points out that this is especially useful for Election Day campaigning if voters are standing in line, phones in hand, possibly doing last minute research of barely-known candidates who may not have been able to hand them a piece of Election Day lit.

Source amnesia was not a term I had seen or heard before, but Julian Sanchez explores how political campaigns can exploit this psychological condition. According to Koster, voters remember the information, but cannot recall where got the information. This is an interesting dynamic for any political campaign, as it can be useful for some slick maneuvering by the opposition to plant negative messages without being held completely accountable. Of course, there is also a positive angle, if you’re the side doing the planting!

As if the articles and case studies weren’t enough to convince stubborn offline politicos to wake up to the world of online advertising, Google’s Public Sector Blog covered a report (another product of Josh Koster) providing evidence for the effectiveness of online advertising. By conducting a survey before and after an online-only advertising campaign, researchers were able to gauge the impact of the ads, as well as ad recall. Unsurprisingly, the online ad campaign worked like a charm and now they have the survey data to prove it.

I Guess This Town Is Big Enough For the Two Of Us

I heard on NPR’s All Things Considered that President Obama is no longer king among the who’s who of online campaigning. A new report from Pew Internet claims that Republicans, Tea-Partiers and others have filled the gap. Democrats (circa 2008 election) used to have a clear advantage over Republicans in the online arena, but the Pew study claims that there has been a power shift and the former disparity has been wiped out and replaced with a level playing field. There are probably many reasons for this, but NPR points out two: (1) back when President Obama was Candidate Obama, he was utilizing tools that the rest of “us” had yet to completely get on board with. Now that more people are online and becoming increasingly comfortable using social networking sites and the like, it’s not a surprise that campaigns from every side are reaching their base using the same tactics; (2) apparently being President is boring. A lot of the information that comes out of the White House is “real stuff” and isn’t all about rallying the troops. This is admirable, but President Obama has lost some of the online community.

With this report in mind, I decided to do a little case study. I picked a race from The Fix’s 10 best races of 2011 (Indianapolis Mayor: Greg Ballard, Republican incumbent versus Melina Kennedy, Democrat) and decided to compare the website home pages of the Democratic and Republican candidates. Here are the two screen shots:

I realize that this is the most basic of comparisons and definitely not scientific, but I think it gives us a good idea about what is becoming the norm. Colin Delany’s Online Politics 101 outlines some of the must-haves for campaign websites, so I kept those in mind when reviewing. Each website easily fulfills its duty of being the campaign’s online headquarters. Links to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc. are easily found on the homepage; however, the websites were missing an RSS feed, which as Delany points out, is extremely easy to set up and must be included.

Bottom line: I agree that Republicans et al have closed the online gap, but I think it’s more likely a function of more and more people getting on board than it is about President Obama’s failure to maintain his online prestige.