If you’re a regular visitor, you’re probably well aware of the controversy surrounding Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and his “Lawful Access” Bill, otherwise known as Bill C-30 or the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. Along with protests from a wide range of groups, a Twitter account dedicated to embarrassing Toews, @Vikileaks30, (were there 29 others?) popped up around the same time.

To hear the mainstream media tell it, you’d think the Vikileaks account was the social media volley at government ever in this country: “For the first time, the power of social media has caught a Canadian government in its cross-hairs”, CTV’s Craig Oliver writes breathlessly. Except the last time it happened – in 2010 – when Prime Minister Harper prorouged Parliament.

Clearly Mr. Oliver should come visit here more often. Back in 2010, it was Facebook. This time folks are speaking out on Twitter. While protest via social medis is certainly not new, the Vikileaks business has added a new side to online public discourse. The whole messy affair has brought a number of issues to the forefront, which can serve both as a lesson and a warning:

Twitter Is The New Brown Envelope

The medium might have changed, but the method is as old as time. Before, political operatives would slip a salacious piece of information under the door or a reporter or place a well-timed phone call. Later, people published anonymous websites attacking opponents. Then bloggers offered critiques behind usernames; then came YouTube videos and now Twitter.

Twitter is an excellent vehicle to spread these kinds of messages. Why? Twitter is a “target-rich environment”: the mainstream media in North America are heavy users, as are the political and pundit class. You can now drop a political hand grenade and the impact will be felt almost immediately. Further, unlike brown envelopes of the past, a reporter and their editors are no longer gatekeepers, deciding whether to run with the story or not. Twitter users decide whether to pick it up a yarn or ignore it.

Zero Barriers To Entry

Now anyone with Internet access can become a key figure in a story. The chap/gal behind the Vikileaks account only had to do some digging through some publicly available court records, which any motivated individual could do. That was the hard part. Getting it distributed was the easiest part of the whole affair.

This is good and bad. It is good because it makes the entire system much more accountable. No longer do you need a relationship with the media to impact a story – just a Twitter account. Of course, we now see that there is also no editorial filter on these kinds of platforms, so the attacks can easily become bitter and personal. And make no mistake: they will happen more frequently.

Getting Personal Is A Losing Strategy

Speaking of personal, Vikileaks is a cautionary tale: getting personal is not a wise strategy. While the purpose of the Vikileaks account was to turn the tables on the same Minister who is requesting incredibly broad access to the online history of the Canadian public, it was a stupid move to publish details of Toews’ divorce. What would have been much more clever (although I certainly don’t endorse such a tactic) would have been to publish Toews’ phone records, Internet history off his laptop or even the Minister’s Amazon purchases.

Instead, Vikileaks (and now Anonymous) have decided to focus on Toews himself. This only serves to focus the discussion away from the legislation and onto the spokesperson. In their latest attack, Anonymous seems to be picking up where Vikileaks left off, with the threat to “expose” Minister Toews’ and to publish the “skeletons in his closet”. By focusing on Toews’ personal life, rather than the legislation at hand, they are making Toews a sympathetic figure. There is now more talk about the antics of opponents than about the legislation itself.

Action Not Talk

In the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the US, the legislation remained front and centre. Rather than engaging in personality politics, opponents kept the focus on the changes Congress were debating. They also leveraged technology to allow supporters of their position to contact elected officials directly. A significant volume of activity was generated, with individuals calling, e-mailing, writing, texting and visiting their elected representatives.

The opposition to Bill C-30 would be well advised to take a page from the SOPA playbook and concentrate their efforts on getting opponents to directly contact MPs in Ottawa. They seem to have generated some solid numbers with a petition, but that pales in comparison to MPs getting phone calls or visits from the constituents that elected them. Petitions are easy to complete and easy to ignore.

At the very least, the Vikileaks matter has shown that the political landscape online is a nasty and unpredictable place. But it also shows that just like offline campaigns, message discipline is important and valuable. Focus should remain on how changes to policy will affect the individual, while offering those people the chance to voice their opposition quickly and directly.

Right now, the debate has become a sideshow, with personal attacks, threats and dirty tricks being the focus on discussion rather than the content of the legislation. Was that the intent of Vikileaks? If so, mission accomplished.

But it won’t help you win the larger war.

This being Valentine’s Day and all, I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss why exactly I love what we do here at Grassroots Online. It might seem obvious that everyone in this industry would love everything about social media, but that isn’t always the case.

In fact, as anyone who has incorporated online engagement into their organization, business or campaign can attest, social media can be quite frustrating. Like healthy living advice or fitness, everyone has all the answers and everyone offers different (and often conflicting) advice). And if you aren’t Coke or Lady Gaga, you realize very quickly that true engagement is a lot more difficult than it may seem at first.

But there is a lot to love about social media. Those who are interested in creating an excellent customer experience welcome the opportunity to have a true conversation with their users, visitors and clients. Technology now give the opportunity to easily and broadly share all kinds of interesting content – which would have been almost impossible even ten or even five years ago.

The Internet is also the great equalizer in many ways – everyone has virtually the same tools to communicate with their community and their world. This has given rise to individuals impacting our collective world – for good and for bad – in a substantive way, just through uploading a video, taking a picture or operating a blog.

But the one thing above all else that I love about the tech industry and social media is represented in the picture at the top of this post. This was taken by Mike McCue, the CEO of one of my favorite apps: Flipboard. The snapshot is one that Mike took when Flipboard’s new iPhone app was successfully launched.

In my mind, the pic represents the sheer excitement, innovation and creativity that surrounds the start-up culture of the contemporary tech industry. While those traits aren’t exclusive to start-ups, that spirit certainly permeates the sector, right down to the fibre.

Many of the platforms, apps and websites so ever-present in our daily lives started out as a mere idea. Something a Mark Zuckerberg or a Larry Page dreamed of and when about to create. And it started from nothing: just a few remarkable people with a vision and the drive to make it real.

While we here at Grassroots Online can not (yet) take credit for building anything as substantial as Facebook, we have been fortunate enough to build and deploy some interesting and unique technologies that have help our clients achieve their goals. And I can tell you there is nothing quite like launching your product (website, app, service) into the world after weeks or months working on that project.

And there are so many new and exciting technologies emerging from the sector, almost on a daily basis. And much of that technology has the potential to change the world for the better – giving people everything from access to an education to government services to better health care. The Internet and all of its parts are an important part of our drive towards higher progress. It has already and will continue to fundamentally alter (and disrupt) the world as we know it.

To play a small part in that is one of the most exciting things I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in. Every time I look at that moment in time captured by Mike and the Flipboard team I am reminded of the energy, creativity and potential technology offers.

And that is why I love technology and social media.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Read Write Web, a regular read here at Grassroots Online, has an interesting article on a new poll from Pew Research Center that tells us that voters still are not getting their election information from social media sources:

“[T]he poll found that few of us are relying on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for election information. While 25% say they regularly learn something about the election from the Internet, tha’s almost unchanged from 2008, when 24% said they regularly got election information from the Internet.”

According to Pew, voters in the US are still getting their information on campaign issues, debates and updates primarily from cable news programs and their local news. Assuming that these trends generally hold true for both the US and Canada, what does this mean for the social media practitioner in the political arena? A few things:

Good News: Internet Is A Growing As A Source

The one bright spot out of all of this is that more people than ever are getting their information on upcoming elections from the Internet. In fact, according to the Pew poll, those numbers are up from 9% in 2000 to 25% in 2012. While it still ranks behind news programming, it’s not that far behind (25% vs 32%).

Further, while voters may not use social media as a main source of information (more on that below), they are online – which gives your campaign an opportunity to reach out them via AdWords and other online advertising platforms to drive them to your microsite, Facebook page, etc. The fact that they are already at a computer means they are accessible. Important note: more people (33%) in the 30-49 demo uses the Internet as a source than the 18-29 bracket (29%).

Bad News: Social Media Is A Tiny Subsection

Of course, the bad news is that social media sources such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are the destination for a very small subset of potential voters (6%, 2% and 3% respectively). What that means is that very few undecided voters are visiting your social media assets organically. That is just a reality your campaign needs to come to grips with: only a small fraction of your total potential supporters are coming to your sites to be sold on why they should vote for you.

That being said, between the big three, over 11% of the population are using social media channels to gather information on campaigns: as much as Sunday morning talk shows like Meet The Press or CTV’s Question Period. This number will only grow over time. But your content should reflect the reality that right now, most people visiting your social media accounts are already supporting you.

The Newscast Is Still The Audience

This will come as a welcome affirmation from political communicators, but it may be surprising that a social media guy is saying this: the newscast is still a vital platform to reach voters. Pretty much everyone polled by Pew indicated that they get their election information from television. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for your online campaign – it just means your designs need to take that into account.

What I mean by that is when you are designing a microsite, an online video, a marketing campaign or any other social media initiative, one of the (many) questions you have to ask yourself is: how will this play on TV? You need to make it as easy as possible to translate offline viewers into online visitors. Sure, design should still largely be based on how your online audience interacts with your content via their browser (and increasing on their smartphone) but don’t discount the value in working to find ways to engage the much wider TV audience.

Think Of Twitter As An Incubator

I believe that social media cannot and should not stand alone in any campaign. It must work in tangent with other departments to ensure maximum impact and reach. This is not a zero sum game. The research from Pew drives this point home. Traditional media is still a huge factor in reaching potential voters. Both social media and traditional media need to be integrated across the board to capture as big of an audience as you can.

A great example of working together is using Twitter to help shape the news that ultimately end up on television. In the US, we already know that the Presidental campaigns are using Twitter to directly engage reporters and help shape stories as they are written. This, of course, is not an entirely new phenomenon. A report from our friends at Navigator Ltd on the recent Ontario election illustrates that Twitter is largely a conversation between campaign, reporters and pundits. But it is crucial to understand the important role Twitter plays throughout the news cycle.

Further, it would be folly to underestimate how many stories, issues or reports initially began with social media and grew into a larger story covered by the mainstream press. Social media can be and often is an excellent incubator for specific issues or initiatives. The idea is to make an effort to aim for the wider television audience. There are some concepts that translate well and others that don’t.

So yes, I admit that television is still the big game in town. But that does not mean that social media is any less important. If anything, the Pew data tells us that the Internet is a legitimate source of election information and reminds us how important it is to ensure social media factors into your earned media strategy, just as earned media should factor into your social media strategy.

Last week at a conference in Munich, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey confirmed what many have been saying for quite some time: Twitter is more valuable for monitoring and collecting information than a social conversation platform:

“We definitely see social as just one part of what people do on Twitter,” Dorsey said. “We think of it as an information utility and a communications network.”

On a weekly basis, I run into Twitter skeptics who still view Twitter as a microblogging tool that people use to post updates about mundane aspects of their lives. Part of that may be due to the fact that Twitter did largely start out that way. In fact, Twitter even initially asked the question: “What are you doing?” as the universal prompt on how to use the service. And millions of users responded in kind with tweets on the coffee they just purchased.

But as Twitter has evolved, so has its utility. I often counsel clients – especially those in the political and advocacy realm – that it is one of the most powerful real-time (and free) monitoring tools available. Depending on how your organization uses their Twitter account and the bevy of Twitter management tools out there, it can place a thumb directly on the pulse of your target community.

A contemporary example is how the current candidates for the GOP presidential nomination are using Twitter to monitor public discourse, opponents, as well as instant reaction during live events from the public and the media alike. They are using Twitter to shape news stories virtually as they are written. There is no longer a news “cycle”; events and reaction to those events are now instantaneous.

But before you can use Twitter effectively, if it important to shift how you view the platform. It is important that your entire approach – how you set up your account, who you follow, what software you use, your notification set up – is adjusted to reflect this reality.

At the same time, it is important to remember that Twitter is still a two-way platform. Your organization (and you) still have a role to play in terms of what you add to the at-large Twitter community and your target audience. You must ask yourself:

What kind of information do we want to put out on Twitter?

How does that help to achieve our internal goals and strategies?

Who is the voice that speaks on behalf of our organization?

Do we have the resources to monitor and respond to the conversation?

Who is responsible? What are their responsibilities?

In many cases, Twitter has such a small barrier to entry – all it takes is an e-mail address to set up an account and get started – that little forethought is given to how the account will be managed. So, if you are going to jump into the Twitterverse, it is important to define what you plan to get out of such an effort and how it aligns with your wider organizational objectives. You truly get out what you put in.

Twitter offers a river of information and insight on any number of topics. But to truly take advantage, you must recognize that Twitter has changed.

At the risk of offending many of my friends, colleagues and even clients, I’d like to go on a bit of a rant. Please stop auto-posting your thoughts, comments and links to all of your social media accounts. Please. Stop it now.

I know how hard it is to manage and maintain all of you various social media accounts. Heck, when things start getting extremely busy around here, regular posting becomes irregular pretty darn quick. And I know that tools like Hootsuite or even Twitter itself makes it so damn easy to update everything all in one place. So simple it takes almost no effort at all.

But as Hunter S Thompson said, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right”. So, if you are currently using Twitter to post to your Facebook, LinkedIn and Facebook Page simultaneously, I’m going to try and make the argument for WHY you should update your social accounts individually wherever possible.

It Is Annoying

The first and probably least rational argument is my lead argument, to stay with my “rant” approach on this topic. As in life, our personal, business, political and many other sides to our social media lives often overlap. If you’re anything like me, you have many of the same contacts on each of your social network accounts.

And when you autopost to each and every account, your contacts get to see the same content over and over. And over again. It’s like you keep repeating yourself with the same story everywhere you go. And I haven’t even started about how annoying it is to see hashtags, @ mentions and Twitter links on Facebook when you’re supposedly “sharing your content.” Too bad I can’t see any of it without leaving Facebook. But I’ll continue that on Reason #3.

Different Accounts Have Different Audiences

This may seem to go against my first argument, but in fact it doesn’t. Yes, there may be the same people within your network engaging you on each of your accounts, but I assert that different people come to those social networks for different reasons. The audience on LinkedIn is different than the community on Facebook. You have different followers on Twitter than you do on, say, Tumblr.

In addition, the method of communicating is different for each: some allow you to utilize content such as videos, @’s or links. Some have character limits, while others do not. Why would you post the same content the same way on each account? I can tell you that the content I post on my LinkedIn account, for example, is tailored to a business community. Sure, I sometimes cross-post, but that is intentional. For everything I share, I try to tailor to the audience at hand wherever possible.

Your Engagement Will Suffer

Remember how I mentioned that your Twitter posts don’t really translate all that well on other mediums? Well, there’s an even more important reason not to use Twitter or Twitter-centric software like Hootsuite to post to other accounts. Most people like to “try before they buy” before clicking on a link. With ow.ly, bit.ly or t.co URL shortener services, your users don’t get a preview of what you’re linking to.

That is going to decrease your engagement level. In fact, that is the #1 reason why I don’t use Hootsuite, which is otherwise an excellent social media dashboard. Why would anyone click on a link without knowing what it is or where it leads to? This is even more important for Facebook Page admins who rely on regular engagement to keep their content in front of users. I talk about that here.

Further, if you are autoposting to save time, do you then have the time to respond to those who engage you on each of your accounts? Notifications can help with this, but I see a marked difference in the engagement level of those who post original content for a particular network versus those who send out one post for all at once. Often, I’m not sure they even see my response.

You Look Lazy

Now, if the other points don’t grab you, let me take this one for a spin. At the very least, you should try to at least appear that you are making an effort. If not, why would anyone take time out of their day to make the effort with you, if you won’t?

Time and again, research shows us that you get out of your efforts what you put into them – that holds true for personal (offline) relationships, client relationships. Heck, even going to the gym. So, don’t be surprised if the relationships you create on your social networks truly are “weak ties”, as Malcolm Gladwell coined the term.

A future post will cover the workflow I created to make it possible to post to various social accounts without it taking up all of my day. But I hope this at least give your pause when your social media dashboard of choice integrates Google+, Pinterest and a host of other new hot social networks you signed up for.

If you have any kind of a presence on Facebook, you likely have a Facebook Page rather than a Facebook profile. It is our view around these parts that it is important to go where the fish are – and there are lots of fish on Facebook.  But any Facebook Page administrator will tell you that creating a page is easy – making it successful is hard.

One reason for that is Facebook itself.   If you’ve been administering a Facebook Page for a while, you probably have heard of EdgeRank.  What is EdgeRank? It is the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine what content shows up in your news feed.  Here’s a quick primer.  The bottom line: just because someone has liked your Page, does’t necessarily mean they will see your content.

And this is an important point to understand.  Edgerank functions so that the more your fans interact with your Page, the more they are likely to see your last post, photo, question or video.  If they don’t, Facebook will not show it in their news feeds.  Fair?  Maybe not.  But that is how Edgerank works.

That’s why you can’t stop at acquiring likes – you need to have a plan to regularly interact with your Facebook community.  It really is a case of “use it or lose it”.  It doesn’t matter how many likes you have, it is how active your fans are.  To illustrate, Net Conservative has an excellent analysis of Barack Obama’s Facebook Page, which shows that while he is way ahead in the “like” count, activity on the Page is far behind some of the GOP Presidential candidates.

But where do you start?  The first thing you need to do is find out where you stand.  You should already be familiar with Facebook Insights, but if not, click here to go to your dashboard.  That will tell you how your users are interacting with your Page.

Another helpful tool is Edgerank Checker, which has some solid resources for free members, but provide comprehensive reports on the best time to post, the content that gets the most fan reactions (comments, likes, shares, etc), with a pro account.   This way you will know where you stand.

The most important thing is to recognize what works for your Page and your audience.  There are literally hundreds of posts on how to improve your Page’s Edgerank, but it really boils down to knowing your audience and understanding what they respond to the best.  That can be done by reviewing insights by determine what type of content got the biggest response and when they are likely to interact with the content.  And every Page – including yours – is different.

Buddy Media recently published an excellent study that provides some excellent data on Facebook activity and how you may use that in your industry to increase community interaction.

Just remember, even for big brands, getting seen by Facebook fans is a tough hill to climb.  But putting effort into your content and measuring what works will mean more people will see your content and (hopefully) share it and even take action.

I read in the Globe and Mail recently about a Pew Research study which confirms what most folks in the online advocacy and marketing works already know – many people go online mostly for fun:

On any given day, 53% of all the young adults ages 18-29 go online for no particular reason except to have fun or to pass the time. Some 58% of all adults (or 74% of all online adults) say they use the internet this way. And a third of all adults (34%) say they used the internet that way “yesterday” – or the day before Pew Internet reached them for the survey. Both figures are higher than in 2009 when we last asked this question and vastly higher than in the middle of the last decade.

That’s right – most people are surfing the web to laugh, watch videos, read and otherwise be entertained (not unlike TV viewers). They want to get away from their hectic lives and take a break.

We who are active participants in the political world are already a statistical deviation. Some research has shown that only 6% of Canadians are as politically involved as those who run as candidates and manage or volunteer for those campaigns. The bottom line is: few people approach politics as you do.

That’s why it is important to try and approach any online advocacy or political campaign with these stats firmly in mind. Your average target voter is engrossed in their own life and is often accessing their various social networks to take a break. When you’re pitching them for your cause or candidate, that context suddenly becomes very important.

If your campaign is going to move beyond your core group of supporters, it is important not to approach potential supporters and/or your target audience in a heavy-handed manner. Using humour, gamification and other techniques are just some of the way campaigns have been trying to bridge that gap.

Unfortunately, this often is squarely at odds with traditional political communications, whose hallmark is direct and repetitive. I myself have had many a heated conversation with the good folk in the comm department about retooling the messaging for a wider online audience and trying to find a way to make the message more interesting (aka accessible).

Often to no avail.

But research like the Pew study shows that right from the start, political communicators are at a disadvantage. As I often say, it’s arguably easy to be a Lady Gaga or a Coca Cola (not to take away from either, who are experts in marketing their brand). But truth be told, their job is made easier as this is a product people want and enjoy. Politics is neither. I think the Chartered Accountants of Canada are welcomed more enthusiastically by average voters online than political campaigns are.

Where possible, it is important to tailor your message to your audience. One of the ways to ensure your message engages and reaches as many potential supporters is to understand the environment your communicating in. Just know you’re up against Farmville, FailBlog and TMZ in the pursuit of the public’s attention. And they have a much easier sell.

Humans by nature are inherently competitive.   At some level, we all love to play, compete and win.    If you need proof, the top professional sports leagues in North America (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS) brought in just under $200B USD in revenue last year – which is greater than the GDP of the Philippines.  We sure do love our sports.

So it may not surprise you to learn that the concept of “gamification” is a big trend in social media right now.  If you do a quick Google search on the topic, you’ll find dozens of articles, blog posts and white papers on gamification and how it can increase the level of online engagement amongst a target community.

But what exactly constitutes “gamification”?  Does your campaign need to develop a political version of Farmville?  No.  In the strictest sense, it is “integrating game dynamics into your site, service, community, content or campaign, in order to drive participation”.  It means finding a compelling way to turn basic activities into a competition – either as individual challenges or pitted against other users.

The above definition also includes the term “game dynamics”.  Game dynamics are essentially the intrinsic, emotional responses that make games compelling:  status; reward; achievement; competition; and altruism.  These are the intangible elements that prompt your audience to participate and compete.

Another common term when discussing gamification is “game mechanics”.  Game dynamics and game mechanics are often used interchangeably, but they are quite different.  Game mechanics are the tools and systems used to enable game mechanics: awards; points; badges; leaderboards; prizes; and challenges.   Combining these concepts and applying them to your operations is “gamification”.

Using gaming dynamics has been around the marketing world for some time.  How long have you had your Air Miles card?  Or a Petro Points membership?  At their essence, these programs use gaming dynamics to make a fairly routine event (flying to Wichita, pumping gas, purchasing groceries) into a contest to collect points and earn rewards and prizes.

Gamification is now taking the online and social media world by storm.  Successful companies like Foursquare, whose entire premise is based on users collecting badges and earning points for checking into specific locations, has over 10 million users and is valued at $600M USD.  Meleno Park, California-based Badgeville creates loyalty programs for customers using badges, points and other gaming mechanics and just secured another $12 million in investment capital this summer.

Badges are big business.

Why?   As social networking becomes an important element of a comprehensive online presence, brands, organizations and their marketing teams are looking for new and compelling way to keep their target audience engaged.  It’s no longer about passive consumption – reading posts, watching videos, clicking on links to other pages on the site – it is about turning visitors into active participants.

And it isn’t just to entertain their audience.  Businesses and organizations employing gamification want visitors to take specific action.  They want to lead them somewhere or do something; but with the immense competition for attention on the Internet, it is getting more and more difficult to capture a person’s attention.  It is even more difficult to maintain it.

Gaming dynamics takes our intrinsic competitive nature and uses it to entertain, inform or compel the target audience to take action.  And by using gaming mechanics – badges, points, challenges – the organization relies less on altruistic motivations (a worthy cause, a rational argument).

Political campaigns provide a natural environment to incorporate gamification techniques.  For starters, the end goals are always well defined: to win that election, to elect that person, to raise this amount of money, to raise awareness on a particular issue.

In fact, it could be argued that the political world – which doesn’t offer a tangible product or service – needs gamification more than the world of business.    Gamification creates concrete and more immediate rewards for campaign volunteers, who would otherwise be engaged for generally altruistic (although not completely selfless) reasons.

And given campaigns are often a series of tasks that can be easily quantified (posting a comment, installing X number of signs, donating X amount of money), gamification is a natural fit.  My own recent experience with gamification proves this is indeed the case.

In the recent Ontario election, I was responsible for online activism for the Ontario PC Party.  One of the concepts our team developed was a Facebook application where users could earn points and badges for campaigning both online (posting a pre-written, election related status update to their Facebook or Twitter profile) and offline (earning points for participating in a canvassing blitz).

The idea was to encourage supporters – especially new ones – to become engaged in the campaign at the most basic level.  We weren’t asking them to come down to the campaign office for five hours, we were asking them to watch a video or like a candidate’s Facebook Page.   As they took more actions, they had more opportunities to increase the depth of their participation.

The numbers alone show the potential of such a concept: over approximately five months, over 2,600 individuals used the application to earn a total of 400,000 points.  It was a fierce competition on the app leaderboard, where the users occupying the top spots changed often.

And the badges were a valued commodity.  One colleague relayed a direct quote to me from an older relative who was using the application: “I don’t know what it is about those badges, but I want them!”   The support team would hear about any technical glitches that resulted in a user not getting their badge almost immediately.

As campaigns struggle to find volunteers committed to assisting the campaign on a regular basis, it is incumbent on them to find new ways to engage supporters in a manner that reflects current societal trends.  At the same time, a strong online presence is becoming an important element to a successful political movement.

Gamification can satisfy both these realities.  Gaming is everywhere you look online.  A round of Angry Birds is available merely by reaching for your phone. At the same time, with so much competition for people’s time, campaigns need every incentive they can muster to get someone involved.

The best campaigns know that it is crucial to “feed and water” volunteers.  It is important to show them you appreciate all that they do and all that they give – money and time.  Actively employing game dynamics provides the opportunity to not only engage volunteers in a fun and interesting way, but to also provide rewards for taking that action; which in turn allows your message to be spread widely.

Winston Churchill once said: “Politics is not a game.  It is an earnest business.”

Now it can be both.

One thing I often notice when spending time reading articles from social media “influencers” is the sheer volume of content they produce on a daily basis. Frankly, it can be rather intimidating for those new marketing or communicating via social media.

“I simply don’t have the time to do that” is the comment I hear often by friends, colleagues and clients who are making an initial foray into social media and are taken aback by the seemingly endless volume of posts, tweets, photos and videos being produced these online celebrities.

But I’m here to tell you they are the deviation, not you. Looking at the stats, the average user on Facebook, Twitter, etc produces far less content than these power users. Here are just a few of those stats for you to chew on:

• The average Twitter user tweets less than once a day (.47 to be exact).  By contrast, social media luminary Chris Brogan tweets an average of  49.9 times a day.  Maclean’s reporter Kady O’Malley tweets 40.2 times a day;
• Only 15% of Facebook users update their status once a day.  56% of users update it once a week;
• Less than a quarter of Facebook pages (23%) have more than 1,000 “likes”.  Only 4% have more than 10,000;

What do you take away from all of this?

Firstly, don’t feel intimidated by the “gurus” that seemingly live on Twitter and post to their Google+ account 12 times a day. It is much more about quality of your content rather than the quantity. Post when you have something to say. Share content that you believe is valuable to your customers or your audience. Don’t be pressured to post garbage simply to fill a quota.

Second, it takes only a little extra focus to rise above the average. Set a schedule for writing a blog post, tweeting or posting to Facebook. And make sure you stick to it. I have certainly been guilty of neglecting my blog and Facebook profile when things get busy with clients (and life). But if you set a time to write content in advance, it will be much easier to fit it into your schedule. It will quickly become a habit.

Finding a pace and routine that works for you and your business will ensure your audience gets added value by connecting with your brand or organization online. That in turn will keep you top of mind when the time comes to think about a sale, a contract or a similar opportunity. That is where the true value – and your hard work – becomes apparent.

I am a life-long fan of hip-hop music, so I’m always pleased when my musical tastes intersect with my professional life. I attended the Watch The Throne tour last night at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, where hip-hop stars Kanye West and Jay-Z put on a great show in front of a sold out crowd.

Watching a legend like Jay-Z perform on stage, whose career has spanned almost 20 years (which is almost unheard of for a musical genre that heavily favours new sounds and emerging talent,while virtually ignoring more seasoned artists), was quite a sight. What struck me was his presence – the way he controlled the stage and was incredibly comfortable performing in front of so many people. I have seen him perform many times and I always impressed by the consistency and quality he bring to each show.

But what made me think of what lessons he can offer to you as someone promoting themselves or a product using social media was how Jay-Z has shaped his image over the years. For the uninitiated, Jay went from a petty drug dealer in his youth to a respected rapper to a multimillionaire business mogul in less than two decades. Quite a success story.

There are a few lessons from his rise that are important for you to keep in mind when promoting yourself online:

1. Have A Core Quality Product

While Jay-Z may own basketball teams and write book, at his core he is an excellent rapper: “best rapper alive” as he is fond of saying. And his peers acknowledge this. So while he may delve into a number of other ventures and projects, he know that first and foremost, he is a rapper.

It is important to identify, focus on and promote your core service offerings at all times, ensuring that your primary service never degrades in terms of quality. At the same time, just like Jay-Z’s delivery and sound as, it needs to evolve over time, while never losing its initial value. If people come for your widgets, make sure those widgets never disappoint – no matter how your brand evolves.

2. Always Be Authentic

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of posts from social media gurus telling you to remain transparent and authentic in how you present yourself in a social media environment. Jay-Z is a perfect example of how that can pay off. In the pursuit of appealing to a wider audience, there is immense pressure on rappers, artists, actors, business and brands to become what others feel the public wants. As Jay-Z is quick to remind us, “I ain’t crossover I brought the suburbs to the hood”.

Jay knew that his core product had a high value. He knew that if he presented it to an audience, he knew they would respond positively. He refused to change who he was based on the opinions/advice of others. But that takes confidence: in your product, your abilities, your plan.

But it has been proven time and again: whether you’re Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga or Jay-Z, if you’ve done your research and are confident of who you are, people naturally respond to that authenticity. Jay-Z doesn’t spend any time in the projects he raps about. But he never forgets that is what made him who he is, that is what people come to see and that is what he delivers.

3. Ensure Brand Consistency

Building on top of that, whenever I look at anything Jay-Z is involved with, I am always impressed that he never strays from his core brand: a man with humble beginnings from Brooklyn, New York who always has a pulse on the latest trends. Even in his early days, Jay-Z always represented what was hot in the streets and brought that to a wider audience. He was and is known as a tastemaker who is intuitively at the front of many popular waves.

But he always does so through the lens of his brand – a NY rapper from the hood with swagger to spare. He adopts trends and concepts and filters them through a gritty, urban culture, while putting his unique stamp on it. From websites to book covers, his brand reflects that consistency.

In the ever-changing world of social media, which is often at the forefront of popular culture, it is important whatever product you create and promote has that same rigid consistency. Decide what your brand means and how you want others to view it. Then maintain the discipline to ensure that same consistency over everything you publish and affiliate your brand with online.

Jay-Z realized early on that a successful career meant moving beyond merely being a rapper. But he also knew that in order to maintain any success he achieved, he would still need to remain one of the best to hold a mic. Holding that wider view, while being confident and consistent on who you are and how you present yourself is an approach that will serve you well in the online environment.