The New Media Congress

Google Seeks Relevance With Political New Media Strategists

2012-01-02T12:37:00.002-05:00

Facebook has been the shiny toy for political new media strategists, but Google has unveiled a new site and ad servicing option that could shake the balance.

Mailing List Subscription Ads

Google is testing ads that can sign you up for a mailing list with one click. If you're already signed in to gmail, the email field will be pre-populated, of course. Honda is is one of the pilot marketers:

The ability to gain subscribers right from an ad will be most appealing to savvy political consultants looking to expand their recurring audience.

Google Politics & Elections

Google has created a Google News-like page dedicated to Politics and Elections. This is a hub for the freshest articles, trends and issues on the candidates' plate. They're pushing the P&E Google+ page pretty hard, too.

Bieber's Superpower: Owning Twitter Search Results

2011-10-15T17:08:00.001-04:00

As if he didn't get enough exposure on twitter, all geolocation searches are returning Justin Bieber tweets, no matter what part of the world you are searching in.

A search using geolocation operators and no keywords will show all tweets in the region you specify. For example, near:20001 within:6mi will more or less return all tweets in the District of Columbia.

Right now though, any location search returns a Bieber tweet as the "top tweet". He likely has the most popular tweet at any given time since he is the most popular person on the site. Still, he shouldn't show up in a Washington, DC search.

He's everywhere.

After trying several ZIP codes from the nation's capital to to 90210, I looked at Bieber's profile. This is where the problem became clear:

The World, man

Twitter has long had issues with bad geolocating of tweets, mainly because users put odd things in their location like "packing!", "traveling", and "nunya bidness". Twitter still tries to assign each of those locations to a spot on the globe.

To reconcile bio information with a specific latitude and longitude, twitter uses Yahoo!'s Where on Earth ID API. By using "The World" as his location, Biebs has tricked twitter into resolving his location to the parent of all WOEID children, "The Earth".

So if you want your tweets to show up in more searches, change your location to "The World". Hopefully this gets fixed soon--I don't like his new haircut any more than the old one.

Make Your Facebook Photos Stand Out

2011-09-07T01:35:00.001-04:00

Photography may not count as "new media", but staffers taking shots, processing, and posting them online is a fairly new practice.

So how do you take the best shot with your digital or smartphone, and fine tune it and post on Facebook for popular consumption? Welcome to New Media Photography 101.

Allow Facebook Tagging

The default setting for pages on Facebook is to disallow fans to tag themselves in your photos. You'll want to change this, as photo tags offer some of the most viral visibility: when you are tagged in a photo, all of your friends see that news feed story. If you take a photo with a constituent or a town hall, you should encourage them to tag themselves from your page.

To change this setting from your page, go to "Edit Page -> Apps -> Photos -> Go to [photos] App" where you find this dialog:

Now your fans can tag themselves and their friends in your pictures, adding a human element and earning more exposure. You're ready to start taking pictures!

Take a picture

There are a million models of camera, so I'll give just one best practice applicable to almost all of them:

Hold the button. Keeping the shutter button depressed for a few seconds gives a camera time to adjust white balance and focus before snapping the shot. If you click and release, your picture may have funky colors or motion blur.

Once your pictures are taken, please don't just upload them straight to Facebook. No one will look at them and you're pretty much wasting your time and mine.

Editing Photographs

The Microsoft office image viewer isn't bad at color-correction, but I'm excited about an online photo editor called Picnik.

Picnik is an in-the-cloud photo editing site (software?) that was recently bought by Google. Without having to download anything or even register an account, many easy-to-use, yet powerful photo editing tools are at your disposal.

While there are many tools in Picnik, if you're just starting out, trying using the "Auto-fix" feature. This is the Picnik version of "I'm Feeling Lucky" on Google. Google removed that button, so now I'm feeling old.

Under the "basic edits" menu, select "exposure". Exposure, Highlights, Shadows, Contrast: these four settings can bring almost any dull picture to life. Each tool has a handy question mark icon beside it which offers a description of how and when to it.

Below you can see a touch-up I did of a photo on the Facebook page of Senator Olympia Snowe by playing with the exposure settings. Click to see the full-sized results.

In the photo below, I took a well-composed shot from Senator Dick Lugar and made it better by applying contrast while increasing color saturation and sharpness.

In the final and "advanced" example, I enhanced a photograph of Congresswoman Karen Bass. This powerful visual was done using the "focal b&w and "focal soften" tools under the "effects" menu.

Every picture should be a work of art that pops. If it's not worth editing, it's not worth uploading. Peek through the rest of Picnik's features to touch-up tools like red-eye removal, teeth whitener, and blemish fixer.

Does Sarah Palin have Superpowers on Facebook?

2011-09-06T23:33:00.000-04:00

Looking at Sarah Palin's Facebook page, I noticed something strange: eleven of my friends "Like" her. That's 2.4%.

Not as horrific but even weirder: once I liked the page, I was still unable to comment on or like her posts. Huh?

This feature is outside the realm of "normal" facebook functionality. On pages I administer, I can ban someone from liking the page, but I can't simply disable their ability to interact.

Do Palin and her Facebook Administrators have some secret ability to censor we, the people?

Facebook recently made a change to the way fan pages for Prescription drugs operate: they made the drug companies allow comments, where before they could disable user interaction, effectively turning the page into a one-way communication.

In my situation, I can see that other people are allowed to like and comment, but not me. Sarah, you're like a drug.

Here's a screenshot of her wall to demonstrate. See how there are no "like" or "comment" buttons? Only the option to "Share" remains.

Facebook should not be giving anyone special permissions to censor their page, least of all politicians.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Facebook Privacy Cha-Cha

2011-09-05T00:55:00.002-04:00

Is It Your Friends' Business Who You Share With?

In a recent sharing privacy update, Facebook simplified sharing controls. If you already utilized friend lists and custom sharing, functionality didn't actually change much, they just made the process more transparent. One significant change: you can now change the privacy of a post after posting; that's a good step.

However, there is one glaring un-private aspect of the changes: your friends can now see who you're sharing with.

Each post gets an icon underneath: a silhouette, a globe, or a gear. The silhouette signifies a post shared to friends only, the globe is for "public", and the gear is a "custom" post visible only by certain friends and/or friends of friends.

The Gear icon indicates a "custom" share visible to select friends or "friends of friends" only

And this isn't the only offense in the update...

Previously when posting from the web, we had the option to "make this my default setting". All future posts from apps and the mobile site adhered to this setting. Now, once you change the setting on a single post, all future posts default to that setting, and mobile posts revert to "friends".

If you had your web posts set to "friends except family", the next time you "FML" from your phone, aunt Edna is going to see it.

In terms of privacy, this is one step forward, two steps back. No one should know how much you are restricting your posts or who can view them. They definitely shouldn't be changing the way default posts work. Please stop the Facebook cha-cha.

Jon Huntsman's QR Codes

2011-09-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

If you ever wanted a $7.50 beer-can coozie, now is your chance.

Jon Huntsman has been promoting his campaign store "The H Goods". Looking through the selection, I noticed his shirts have prominent QR codes on the back.

One flaw in the QR-code shirt: who wants to be a walking, scannable billboard? I'd be kind of self-conscious with a giant hieroglyph on my back. Not to mention it's a weirdo-magnet, giving them license to take pictures of my behind.

Two: it's hard to scan a moving target. Of the 3 shirts on the site, only the one pictured above was un-wrinkled enough to scan. QR codes work best when flat and black & white, not black on red.

Three, and the biggest offense: Scanning the code simply sends you to jon2012.com. No special content, no acknowledgement, no tracking codes, just a redirect to a mobile site that—unfortunately—fails to load.

Marketers seem to think just putting a QR code somewhere means people will scan it. Wrong. The novelty of taking your phone out to scan something wears off after about the third time you do it. You have to tell me why I should scan this.

A few things Jon could have done with his QR code instead:

Caption the QR code: "scan to get yours" and link to a page with them on sale.
Caption it "Join the team" and land on a text message alerts sign-up page.
Caption: "Volunteer" and instead of a link, the code opens a phone number which connects the caller to a Field Organizer who asks them to volunteer or donate.

QR codes will be used in yard signs, shirts, tv commercials and bumper stickers this year. Don't be the candidate who gets someone in a car accident trying to access your mobile site that won't load.

Stop Wasting Your Money On Online Advertising

2011-09-01T17:01:00.000-04:00

If you are advertising online, there is a good chance most of your spend is wasted. In a rush for instant gratification, most individuals—and ad-buying firms—make a critical mistake. It's the reason most people give up on online advertising: chasing views.

In old media advertising, the paradigm is "the more voters' eyeballs see the ad, the better." Most firms in this model charge a flat percentage of your budget.

With online advertising, this model breaks down.

To maximize the value of online ad spending, you should start with a small group of highly-targeted voters (to the point of being creepy) and work your way out. You want the cheapest clicks from the highest-value targets. This process helps you continually create the most-effective ads in terms of cost and public opinion.

Unfortunately, online advertising companies don't see it that way. Their goal is to make as much money as possible, and to do that, they have to make you spend as much of your money as possible. They blanket your district with ads and charge by impression. But, what are the measurable the results?

In television advertising it is acceptable to say "we spent $20,000 on evening news spots to get your ad seen by 10,000 likely voters." In online advertising should be is totally unacceptable to say "we spent $1,000 and your ad got 3,000,000 impressions from 20,000 Facebook users."

Online advertising—and social media itself—are about creating action. If your online ads program is tied strictly to views and not metrics of success, you are getting carpet-bagged.

There are some honest ad-buyers out there. One model company who does a great job of creating franking ads for members of Congress is iConstituent. Their ads are highly-targeted and well-managed, with pricing based on results, not views.

If you're going to advertise online, don't fall into the traps of an old media mindset.

Use Adwords Retargeting on your Facebook Ads landing pages for Online Advertising Synergy

2011-08-30T03:37:00.001-04:00

Online advertising can feel like a lost cause, especially if you're not directly selling a product. Without a metric to measure return on investment, purchasing Facebook Ads may at first seem unappealing.

This post will show you how to get more mileage out of the money you spend on Facebook ads by targeting your fans by installing Google Remarketing Cookies on your Custom landinng tabs.

Refresher: a remarketing cookie is created by javascript in a webpage and then stored on a user's computer when visiting that site. Marketers can "retarget" those users to display Google ads for up to 18 months, no matter what site they're visiting or what they are searching for.

Facebook ads allow you to micro-target users by age, sex, location and interest. This is far more specific than Google Adwords targeting. Adwords however can be displayed across the internet on thousands of websites, while Facebook ads are limited only to Facebook.

Even with hyper-targeted Facebook ads, your ads may generate lots of clicks to your page without resulting in people actually clicking 'Like' after they land. By installing a remarketing cookie on your custom landing tab, you get the best of both worlds: your targeted Demographic from Facebook, and the power to reach that target through Adwords.

Here's a real-world example:

A Congressman runs Facebook franking ads to constituents in his zip codes who are married, college-educated and 35-60 years old.
A user fitting this demographic sees the Congressman's ad and clicks through to his page.
The user reads the landing page and decides whether or not to like the Congressman's page.
Months later, the user searches Google for healthcare information or visits a healthcare website.
The ad shown by Google is for the Healthcare portion of the Congressman's site.

If you install remarketing cookies on all your landing tabs—not just ad landing tabs—almost every new fan you earn will be added to a remarketing list.

By funneling users in this way, New Media Directors will be able to get the cheapest clicks, with the most valuable constituents. They old media model was to blanket as many people as possible with your message; the new media model is to target them with laser-like accuracy.

There are many more creative (and dastardly) applications of this technology. Get out there and use it before Facebook blocks Google's Javascript from rendering in their tabs.

Get Out The Vote To Win

2011-08-29T20:18:00.000-04:00

Working as a Campaign Field Organizer is the hardest and most rewarding job a person can have.

I haven't written much about field and would like to point you to a new site that helps you Increase Voter Turnout by guest-writer Ben Donahower. He previously showed us how to use campaign micro-sites to dominate opponents.

The new site, GetOutTheVoteToWin.com, hosts a collection of wisdom from 3 campaign veterans to help you identify and persuade potential voters. Check it out!

Welcome to The New New Media Congress

2011-08-29T00:12:00.002-04:00

Hey, hi, hello. An update on the status of this blog, plus some history.

I've finally decided to host the site on a proper domain, NewMediaCongress.com, instead of the non-germane and kind-of pretentious "MyName".com. Don't worry, all the links from derekpangallo.com/whatever will automatically redirect to newmediacongress.com/whatever. I'm good like that.

Back around 2005, when "Google" became a verb, I Googled myself and found that to the internet, I didn't yet exist. My name is fairly unique, so I knew it was possible to "own" my search results. Without much thought of what I would do with the domain, I decided to go ahead and spend the $10 to buy the .com of my name.

I promptly put the site to work as a personal blog, an emo digital channel of expression aptly titled "Electric Outlet". If you were to page back a few hundred posts, you'd find some old poetry, graphic design, youtube videos and general rants. I don't generally recommend it.

Over the last three years I've been writing The New Media Congress as a professional publication. In early 2011 I moved to Washington, DC to work full time in politics (still looking.) I've had a lot of fun, met some great people because of this site, and I'm glad I've been able to help lots of people better use online tools.

Thanks for reading and I'll look forward to continuing to cover how politicians use (and abuse) internet tools.

Tweet-Rank, Top Tweets and Trending Twitter Search Topics

2011-08-25T20:30:00.001-04:00

Before you spend money advertising on twitter, consider that you can get free publicity by seeding a "top tweet". The millions of users who search twitter and follow topics will have the potential to see your top tweet.

As twitter engineers seek to gain meaningful data knowledge by creating a link shortener, Top Tweets are a way of adding relevance to the search algorithm. Let's call this relevance "Tweet-Rank".

In this article I'll show you how to choose keywords for you top tweet, and how to elevate your update to top tweet status.

In the long-long ago, searching twitter simply returned a chonological list of updates—newest first. Now, right alongside promoted (sponsored) tweets for a given search term is "top tweet" containing the search keyword.

The Top tweet is a "sticky" update displayed right at the top of the search page. This is signified by a megaphone icon and a blurb citing how many retweets the update has received.

For example, right now there are dozens of tweets each second for hurricane hastag #Irene. If you search for #Irene though, at the top of the results list is a tweet that was posted hours ago:

\
How does a tweet become "top tweet"?

From the Top Tweets help article:

Why don't I see the Tweets I like on Top Tweets?

Top Tweets are Tweets that lots of people are interacting with and sharing via retweets, replies, and more.

If Tweets you love aren't showing up as Top Tweets, it means those Tweets may not be part of widespread conversation as much as the Tweets that are Top Tweets for any given search term.

While "and more" is a vague description, it's assumed that most of the weight in a top tweet comes from retweets. There is likely an internal Klout-like system to measure the influence of the individual retweeters; this would prevent spamming of the system and surface the best updates.

How do I get enough Tweet-Rank to become a top tweet?

Deciding what search terms you want to be a top tweet for is crucial, and remember that you can get top tweet status for more than one search term per tweet. Pick more niche keywords and include a few hashtags in your tweet.

If you want to be the top tweet for keyword "Obama"--fat chance. There are dozens of tweets each day containing "obama" that get hundreds of retweets, but there can be only one top-tweet per search.

Look at this example:

As of right now, that update is the "top tweet" for any and all of the search terms "americans", "#p2", "#tcot", and "#topprog". Anyone who follows those hashtags will see the @majorityfm tweet.

Next, let's look at at a different search subject, Rick Perry. The screenshot below shows the top tweet from four different searches. I underlined each search in red.

To be the top tweet for "Rick Perry", you would need more than 100 retweets, while trending for "#RickPerry" or "#Perry", would only require a couple dozen. I don't know who Perry the platypus and Squidward are, but suppose they're epic.

How do I get retweets?

I can think of a few ways to ensure your tweet gets retweeted enough to earn top tweet status for the keywords you have chosen:

Ask. Add a call to action to your tweet, like "Stand for somethign! Sign the Petition to XXX by retweeting this: http://oursite.com #cool #supercool #notcool"
Deputize your staff. Make your goal known in your organization. Step up and make each staff member a social media ambassador. Tell them it's their job to retweet you with their personal accounts.
Use Twitter Intents. The greatest email advocacy tool of this century is twitter intents. Add a retweet intent in an email to your supporters. Include a strong call-to-action and remind them they can retweet you with just two clicks.

How long does a tweet stay a top tweet?

I don't know. the tweet-rank surely degrades over time, but getting recent retweets would help sustain top tweet status. I've seen top tweets that are several days old.

You're awesome. Can I hire you?

Yes.

The Facebook Administrators of Barack Obama and Rick Perry's Campaigns

2011-08-25T01:21:00.001-04:00

A while back I found a Facebook bug that allowed you to see the administrators of any fan page (including Sarah Palin's.)

Now, while writing an article on Facebook Domain Insights, I notice that to gain access to insights, campaign staff add their Facebook profile addresses to the websites they administer, even on BarackObama.com and RickPerry.org.

Speaking of which, I bet the person who owns RickPerry.COM could make a killing selling that domain right now.

Anyway, I'm not in the mood for any investigative journalism (read: intense Googling), so I'll just post links to the profiles of the site administrators.

BarackObama.com Facebook Administrators:

RickPerry.org Facebook Administrators:

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum both have admin IDs on their websites too, but who cares about them?

Installing Facebook Domain Insights

2011-08-25T00:48:00.001-04:00

If you're reading this, chances are you know what website analytics are. You probably even have Google Analytics installed on your site. In this post I want to talk about a lesser-known analytics tool for your site, Facebook Domain Insights.

While each Facebook page has its own insights, domain insights reach back and tell you what is going on at your own dot-com.

Facebook Domain insights provide information like: how many times your pages have been shared, how many views those shares got, and age/sex/location data about your visitors.

Install Facebook Domain Insights

On the insights page, click "insights for your domain". Enter the domain where you will be installing the code, for example, www.derekpangallo.com. You have the ability to link the page insights to yourself or any page you admin. Here is the code that I got:

"<meta property="fb:admins" content="1810865725" />"

In this example, the content "1810865725" is my unique facebook profile ID number. To give multiple users access to the site, enter multiple comma-separated profile IDs.

Even if someone has set their Facebook username and has a vanity url like facebook.com/derek.pangallo, you can still find their Profile ID. Right click on their profile picture, and "copy image url". Paste it and get something like this:

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/211971_1810865725_2064579_n.jpg -- the number between the two underscores is the Profile ID. It's the saame process for finding a Page ID.

After adding the code to the "<head>" section of your template, click "Get Insights" and Facebook will crawl your site looking for the admin code. Once it validates, you're rolling!

Facebook insights can give you, well... insight.. into who is visiting and sharing your page. I recommend you assign the insights to a page or app instead of a profile though, because it's easy to "view source" of a website and figure out who the site admins are, like I did with BarackObama.com and RickPerry.org.

Hey, did you know that 85% of the people who have clicked "recommend" on an article at my site are males between 25 and 34 years old?

Members of Congress tweet after the Earthquake

2011-08-23T14:58:00.000-04:00

During Snowpocalyse 2011, Mayor Cory Booker helped residents get back on their feet using twitter.

After the 5.9 magnitude Earthquake felt across the Northeastern United States, Several Members of Congress Tweeted reactions and helpful information. While most members are in their home states this week, many still posted updates and disaster awareness alerts on Twitter.

Senator Claire McCaskill posted the first Quake-related tweet at 2:03 pm, just 11 minutes later:

clairecmc: Eartquake 5.8 just occurred in DC. My DC staff in emergency location. Hope everyone is ok.
[Link]

RepJoeHeck: Just spoke with everyone in my DC office, no one was hurt in the earthquake - thanks for your concern!
[Link]

MarkWarner: We've got staff reports of feeling earthquake in Abingdon Cville Richmond-- DC staff evac while bldg is checked .ABC says 5.8 - a big deal.
[Link]

repdonnaedwards: Feel that #earthquake? Light poles moving like they were on springs on Rt. 214. I was in a 7.6 in the Philippines as a kid, but wow!
[Link]

michaelcburgess: Re: DC earthquake. My DC staff describes remarkable shaking of the Rayburn Bldg. They have been asked to leave. No injuries reported.
[Link]

RepLoBiondo: Mays Landing office: 609.625.5008 for #SouthJersey residents needing help. Hope all are ok post #earthquake. Be aware of aftershocks
[Link]

MarkWarner: Bldg was evacuated bc of the #earthquake so we're doing this townhall old school style - out under a tree. [pic]: 4sq.com/rjzlsG
[Link]

GerryConnolly: Please be patient. Some cell service down and Metro trains are running at 15 mph post-earthquake. Investigators checking tracks #WMATA
[Link]

t.co, Short Links and Metrics

2011-08-22T18:40:00.000-04:00

You probably remember the first time you saw a "tiny url" and got a little freaked out. Tinyurl.com was a site originally launched to tackle the problem of long links breaking in emails at the end of a line.

Tinyurl experienced a revival when twitter came along and each character became oh-so-precious. Today we have a plethora of options for link shortening, and twitter has just introduced their own solution, t.co

I wanted to clear up some misconceptions over twitter's new link shortener, have a word about link analytcs, and advocate the link shortener you should be using.

What is t.co?

Twitter's shortening service, t.co, was created:

"to protect users from harmful activity, to provide value for the developer ecosystem, and as a quality signal for surfacing relevant, interesting Tweets."

These lofty goals haven't saved the service from coming under fire.

Some users are upset because they can no longer use link shorteners with built-in analytics. Guess what? You still can, it just gets displayed in a t.co wrapper.

According to the t.co support article [emphasis mine]:

A link converted by Twitter’s link service is checked against a list of potentially dangerous sites. When there’s a match, users can be warned before they continue:

Our link service will also be used to measure information like how many times a link has been clicked.

This information will eventually become an important quality signal for our resonance algorithm, which determines how relevant and interesting each Tweet is when compared to similar Tweets.

Twitter is trying to build a better internal search engine based on relevance instead of just chronology. We can see the genesis of this in trends and "top tweets".

Prior to the introduction of t.co, twitter was only able to track clicks on links from their website, not 3rd party apps. With their own link shortener, twitter can now measure all click traffic driven through their platform, from any tweeted link. It also means your Google analytics report will now be easier to read:

... analytics tools will now categorise all traffic from both Twitter.com and all Twitter clients as traffic coming from Twitter. Whereas before it would be divided amongst all the various twitter clients (usually just as “direct traffic”) and specific pages on Twitter.com – never directly from the tweet.

Add Search keywords in your URL

Here's another neat thing about twitter search optimization: twitter follows all short links and parses the complete URL in search. That means if I shorten www.newmediacongress.com and share it as http://goo.gl/uMdGH, searching twitter for newmediacongress will show results containing all links to my site, no matter what service shortened them. This is a great way to show up in search for any popular keyword or hashtag -- add keywords to the page of the URL!

Custom-branded link shorteners

If you want your own branded link shortener, it's simple to do through bit.ly. All that is required is registering a domain, then setting up a DNS redirect. For example: The New York Times uses nyti.ms, Mitt Romney uses mi.tt, C-SPAN uses cs.pn.

Interestingly, anyone can still access analytics from links of custom domains. This is a way to measure the influence of your opposition. Add a Plus symbol (+) at the end of any of their links and you will be redirected to the bit.ly page showing you how many clicks the link got. Mitt Romney's link to the tie-dyed "magical misery tour" t-shirts has gotten .26,588 clicks in the past few days. Look: http://mi.tt/MiseryTour+

What is the best link shortener?

You should be using the goo.gl shortener from Google, without a doubt. besides the custom branding, it has all the features of any other service, plus QR codes. Where it is leaps ahead though, is that it is by Google. Every time someone clicks a goo.gl link, that sends a signal to Google about that page. There is no doubt in my mind that they use this data to influence search results. Use goo.gl.

Going Even More Rogue: @JonHuntsman's Twitter Gambit

2011-08-20T16:38:00.002-04:00

When Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the GOP presidential primary race, the immediate question raised was: who will be the next weakest-link Americans say "Goodbye" to?

Most bony expert fingers pointed at Jon Huntsman, a late entry into the race who hadn't picked up momentum, then showed poorly at the quadrennial Iowa grease-eating contest, country music festival and straw poll.

With the chips down, Huntsman went rogue, making a series of unconventional twitter posts attacking his competitors and causing a buzz in the online political world. This build-up will culminate in an in-person interview with Jake Tapper to air 8.21.2011 on ABC's This Week.

Let's examine the shift in Huntman's twitter strategy and see if it bled over to any other networks.

It started with a bang at 1:57 pm EST on August 14th with a tweet sent via twitter for iPhone. Huntsman was clearly separating himself from the presidential pack, but also some of the Republican base:

JonHuntsman: To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.
18 Aug

Less than two hours later, after at least 360 retweets and a surge in followers, Jon tweeted an irreverent reference to little-known musician Captain Beefheart:

JonHuntsman: I wonder if a tweet where I admit how much I like Captain Beefheart will make the followers skyrocket even more! youtube.com/watch?v=HE32tc…
18 Aug

Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight K. Schrute on The Office, chimed in:

rainnwilson: Wait. Yr a republican? RT “@JonHuntsman: To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
18 Aug

Team Huntsman quickly responded, adding a (somewhat) clever Beach Boys reference:

JonHuntsman: .@RainnWilson I'm proud to be Republican, party of Lincoln, Teddy, Reagan. My q for you. Any relation to Brian Wilson?
19 Aug

Prior to going on Piers Morgan's CNN show, Huntsman tweeted at the host. The tweet was more a jab at Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell for her recent walk-off during a Morgan interview.

JonHuntsman: .@PiersMorgan - Looking forward to being on Monday's show. Will try and have as much fun as @ChristineOD did.
19 Aug

Now, on the eve a major interview on ABC, Huntsman calls out Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry for their recent remarks on returning to $2 per-gallon gas and equating monetary policy with treason, respectively.

JonHuntsman: $2 gas? Treason? Bus tours? I tell @JakeTapper its time to get serious. Watch This Week tomorrow.
20 Aug

Since roasting the other candidates, Jon has posted a link to his "join my campaign" page twice. These brought in 1,417 clicks to the site. How many conversions and donations he garnered is unknown, but the page has way too much going on to be effective. If your goal is to get people to donate, everything on the page should serve that end.

Strangely, while Huntsman's tone changed dramatically on twitter, the only thing that's changed on his Facebook page is an increase in frequency of the posts. Maybe a disconnect between staffers who run each page?

Some tips to the person in charge of the campaign page:

Don't talk about the candidate in the third person. This breaks the social media spell, alienating your fans.
Change the page type from "Politician" to "Public Figure". Functionality of both is identical, but people respond better to connotations of the latter.
When quoting the candidate, you don't need to put the post in quotations; it's a given.

Experts are suggesting Huntsman has effectively given up on 2012, setting his sights on 2016, merely looking to leave the race with a bang. I'll wait until I watch the interview tomorrow.

How to Hold a Facebook Town Hall Meeting in a Custom Tab

2011-08-19T13:36:00.004-04:00

I've described how to advertise a town hall event on Facebook. What if you want to conduct your event digitally as well? This is the first in a series of posts covering different methods and components of a good online Town Hall. I'll presume basic knowledge of HTML/CSS, or the ability to Google.

The simplest and most basic (yet effective) method is to embed the facebook comments plugin on a custom tab of your facebook page. You can also create a "like-gate" so only your fans can participate; this will increase your numbers. See an example like-gated town hall page here. Cool, huh?

I use the Static HTML app to create custom tabs. All HTML, CSS and Javascript are allowed. You can also create your own app and host it on your site, but that's a topic for another time.

When you get to the app page, select "Add to My Page" on the left, underneath the profile picture. Add the app to your page. Now go to your page, select "edit page", and go to the apps tab. Find the static HTML app and "edit settings".

This app allows you to create two pages: one that fans see, and one that non-fans see. When non-fans click like, the page automatically reveals the "hidden" content. My example page says "Welcome to my virtual town hall meeting. Please click "Like" to join the conversation." I also added an image to the page that hints at what fans get. Once becoming a fan, users see the Facebook comments plugin I have installed.

The default settings for the comments plugin work well, but you have to change the URL. When a person comments, their friends see a story in their news feed. Clicking this story redirects them to the URL you have entered in the settings. When you are looking at your custom tab, that is the URL to use. For my page it is: http://www.facebook.com/NewMediaCongress?sk=app_128953167177144

Now you have a tab that encourages people to become fans, promotes feedback, and increases social sharing. Now you just have to start asking questions!

There are more cool things you can with with a custom tab, like installing remarketing cookies that allow you to frank your visitors with ads months later. I'll write about that soon.

Publicize your Town Hall with a Facebook Event and Ads

2011-08-17T14:15:00.004-04:00

In 'Liking' every member of Congress on Facebook, I notice some avoidable recurring mistakes and room for improvements in constituent communication.

This post is about effectively promoting a town hall meeting using Facebook events, Facebook page updates, and Facebook ads. It's also easy to hold virtual town hall meetings.

Members often post status update saying "Catch me at 2pm at Smithfield elementary". Where's Smithfield? How do I get there? Is anyone I know going? All these questions can be prevented by proactively providing the information on Facebook.

Click to enlarge.

The event name should be as explicit as possible. Event names can be up to 110 characters long, use this to your advantage. A longer name is more likely to get noticed in the news feeds of an attendees' friends, and they don't have to click through to know most of the pertinent information

Include an event photo. If the image has the aspect ratio of 11x8, it will maximize the size when you create an ad for the event. Facebook ads images are 110x80 pixels.

Add a specific street address so constituents can see a map and find you. If the location of the event has its own place page, even better: click "change" after typing in the "where" box, enter the name of the town, and find the correct venue.

Leave both permissions checkboxes on; allowing guests to write on the wall and see fellow attendees adds to the viral spread of your event.

If your town hall is "virtual", the first item in the "more info" section should be a link to the website or page it takes place.

Encourage people to RSVP. If you wanted to be really tricky, say that only fans who RSVP will be allowed admission. After creating an event, you can export and print the guest list. Manufacturing this "exclusivity" would create a desire; this will gain fans, more people would RSVP, and more would show up.

When you create an event as a page, you have the option (in the upper-right corner) to "update fans". This sends a message to fans with the event attached. This is delivered to the "other messages" folder, so you won't get a high open rate, but it doesn't hurt either.

Facebook ads for events

Creating an ad for an event has strengths and weaknesses. You can't change the headline title, but you get an RSVP button right underneath the ad.

Depending on the size of your fan page and the geography of your district, you may want to run several separate ads. Try targeting those who are:

Residents of your district targeted by zip code, state, or within certain radius of a town.
Fans of your page. Check the radio button for "advanced connection targeting" and you can include or exclude fans of any page, event or app that you are admin of.
Fans of your opponents' page. Target just their fans by adding the name of their page to the "precise interests" section. This won't work if their page is under 1,000 fans.
Friends of event attendees who are not RSVP'ed themselves.
Politically active. Under broad category targeting: in the "interests" section, you can target people interested in Democratic politics, Republican politics, or both.

Use some combination of the geographic and demographic targeting to target the right people. Don't forget you can target by age and education if you have interest in a specific sub-category of voter.

If you have any questions about events or ads, contact me!

In Defense of @GovernorPerry

2011-08-17T02:29:00.009-04:00

You can read the title again if you need to. I'm defending Governor Rick Perry against criticism that he blocks constituents on twitter. I mean look: the guy has a puppy; how can you stay mad?

Not a dog fighter.

Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) was one of the first members on Twitter, and a big proponent, who eventually gave up the site because there was just too much noise to wade through.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, many tea party patriots on twitter proudly wave, like a badge of honor—in their bio even—they have been blocked by Keith Olbermann. Keith, like Perry, just wants to adjust the signal to noise ratio.

Perry and Olbermann aren't out to block users from following them; that's just a side-effect. They're effectively blocking people from cluttering up their @-mentions tab with negativity. @-messages from people you have blocked don't appear in your stream.

It's naive to presume that Rick Perry has any role in managing his twitter account. Some tweets come from the web, others from twitter for Blackberry, still others via twitter for iPhone. The gun-toting Texan who gets turn-by-turn navigation from Jesus has probably never even logged-in. This is ironic because other than the Pope, Rick Perry is the only person on Earth who could conceivably send a DM to God.

We've seen scandals in the past when politicians follow "controversial" users on twitter. Every wannabe-important professional has "retweets aren't necessarily endorsements, views are mine" in their bio. I roll my eyes at users who (like Perry) "follow" thousands of people.

At the end of the day though, you should use twitter however it works best for you.

So not only do I defend Governor Perry, I defend whatever staffer (or intern) whose job it was to monitor incoming @-mentions. This is a taxing task with 67,000+ eager followers, and one can understand the logic: you're looking for favorable tweets from supporters and influential groups to retweet; by blocking the "trolls" and naysayers, you reduce the noise.

The main criticism from those who have been blocked is that the Governor is taking away their voice, their ability to articulate themselves in engaged political discourse. Suck it up: your profile picture is a pair of slippers and your location is listed as "lala land"; why should he care what you say? Twitter has a way to go before it's the platform to tell your Congressman how to vote or ask to schedule a Capitol tour. You don't even have to use your real name to get an account...

The title of this post is "In defense of Governor Perry", not "of Rick Perry", or "of presidential candidate Perry". Now a national candidate, he can't block everyone who dislikes him; that would become a full-time job in itself. Plus it does after all cut down on your number of followers. And we know how important follower count is to a good candidacy.

As a service to Governor Perry, in my next post I'll talk about ways to manage incoming messages on a popular account without further alienating your enemies by blocking them. One more tip to Rick Perry's ghost tweeter: stop using double exclamation points—you tweet like a 15 year-old girl.

"Obama's approval highest among Muslims." -@RepFleming on Facebook

2011-08-14T13:12:00.000-04:00

Congressman John Fleming has been criticized for a controversial Facebook post.

Representative Fleming posted this link and then engaged in the comment discussion.

Selected comments:

Robert Thompson Well he is a Muslim. No surprise here.
Betsy Worthington Anyone who is surprised by this tidbit must have been in a coma for the last two years...some of us have been onto him for a while...
Jim Jensen Obama got 93% of the black vote. Tell me that's not racism. Muslims give Obama an 80% approval rating. That's telling in itself. Blacks vote for blacks. Muslims approve of Muslims.
Betty Ruth Kirkland I still believe he is not a citizen of the U.S and believe he is surely a Muslim. He hates whites and Christians. Guess he forgets he half white, huh?
Darrell Timpson Why shouldn't the Muslims approve one of their own without discretion. The blacks did it in 2008.

Fleming's response to criticism of the post:

"... just reporting. You are welcome to draw your on conclusions. ... I have said nothing on this subject but to point out to you the result of a poll. ... you are allowing liberals to make you feel that way. The US is a free country which means you don't have to subscribe to political correctness. Acknowledging that liberals intimidate you only gives them power over you."

-Rep. Fleming

Political Implications for Facebook ZIP Code Ad Targeting

2011-08-11T16:49:00.007-04:00

Facebook ads are a powerful tool, especially for politics, an inherently "social" endeavor. In this post I'll discuss a new addition to targeting tools that makes creating facebook political ads even more appealing to both candidates and elected officials, if it works.

Originally, when you wanted to target users by location on Facebook, you had few options. You could target by state, or users near a handful of larger cities. About a year ago, most towns were added. Now, Facebook allows targeting by ZIP code.

How accurate is Facebook ZIP code targeting?

I don't know. Facebook doesn't know your ZIP code, and targeting users by IP address is problematic. I ran a test and found that ZIP code targeting is definitely in same way more selective in targeting users:

I'm from a small town with one high school, one ZIP code, and a population of about 5,000. When I target users by the name of the town, Facebook says there are 3,320 people in the target. When I switch to the ZIP code, which should be effectively the same, the targeter returns 460 people. They definitely are trying to be precise.

It's likely this is being done to satisfy franking rules for online advertisements. The franking handbook states that “Members are authorized to purchase only advertisements ... on webpages that serve the Member’s district,” -- this means that Facebook's broad 'city' targeting technically isn't allowed for members whose districts are in densely populated cities. It would have been formerly impossible to show ads in Brooklyn but not Manhattan or Long Island.

How can I use Facebook ZIP Code targeting?

If you're excited to go pump all your constituent ZIP codes into the targeter, grab an intern -- You have to add each one individually. Also, you can't append ZIP +4 either; that narrow of targeting may have privacy implications.

While this upgrade is an improvement for small businesses and politicians alike, Facebook needs to show more transparency in how ZIP codes are calculated. Also, they need to add a means to batch upload many ZIP codes at once.

Isn't Field 2012 going to be exciting?!

p.s.: fun fact -- after writing this, I did a find and replace to change "zip" to "ZIP" -- the "ZIP" stands for "Zone Improvement Plan".

Go West, Young Man! Allen West Online Ad Analysis

2011-08-11T16:12:00.004-04:00

In a recent post about political Google advertising cookies, I used this Allen West ad as an example. This time, I'm going to focus specifically on the ad's funnel to discuss online marketing strategies as applied to new media politics.

Coming soon: how to use a micro site in conjunction with online ads to create buzz and drive action.

The 160 x 600 pixel ad is the most common format used by webmasters and designers, fitting nicely inside site margins. If you only design one banner ad, make it the 160 x 600 Skyscraper, or the 728 x 90 Leaderboard. Good job team West.

But why is the exposure on the photo of Representative West turned up so high? The texture of his shirt is completely blown-out, making him look like a severed-head floating in red space.

The average person who sees this ad might ask, "What things is Allen West fighting for or against?" With Google Adwords you pay for only clicks on your ad, not views. For that reason it is okay to have a prominent "Donate Now" button--it prevents wishy-washy visitors. Still, you should tell people why they want to donate beyond a bland "keep fighting." How about this:

"Allen West Needs YOUR HELP to keep fighting Big Government. Donate Now"

Clicking the ad takes us to the Contribute page Congressman West's campaign site, managed by completecampaigns.com, a division of Aristotle International.

Fugly. What's with the confusing "Go West!" badge? Yes, Go West, young man!

This landing page has too much going on. When you draw people in to make a donation, you want nothing on the donate page except encouragement and a form for the information you need. Less distractions equals less drop-outs. Likewise, everything on the page should fit without the need to scroll down, especially to press the "contribute" button; West's page has this problem.

The default checked radio button for donation amount is "other", meaning the user will have to either fill in a value or select another radio button. Instead, the median donation amount should be the default value. Again, we don't want our donors to do any more work than they have to. Every click that is required to complete the process will reduce the number of conversions.

Notice that the max contribution amount is $5000, even though the maximum contribution amount allowed by the FEC is $2500. West's team gets around this with a disclaimer:

By submitting your contribution, you agree that the first $2,500 of your contribution is designated for the primary, and any additional amount up to $2,500 is designated for the general election.

I take it he's pretty worried about that primary... but now we know what he's fighting!

Niche Site Domination for Political Campaigns

2011-08-07T15:03:00.001-04:00

This guest post is from Ben Donahower who blogs about political lawn signs at Campaign Trail Yard Signs. Ben is an authority on online marketing, offline marketing, and where the two meet for political organizations. Connect with Ben on Twitter @iapprovethismsg for all things campaigns and elections.

Niches sites are a powerful tool for political campaigns to dominate search engine results for important issues in the race. Also, niche sites are great to inform voters of your opponent's mishaps. If the other candidate needs to be taken to task, a niche site will do it.

Is there is a particular issue in the campaign that is at the forefront of voters' minds? Creating a site around a certain issue will rank well in the search engines and expose voters to your views on the subject not your opponent's.

Likewise, if there is an important piece of information about your opponent that voters need to know about to make an informed decision about who they can trust in elected office, a niche site to share this information with voters.

Here's how to do it.

Figure Out What People Are Searching For

First, go to Google Adwords and check out their keyword tool:

adwords.google.com
"Reporting and Tools" tab
Choose "Keyword Tool"

If you aren't sure what issues are important in the race one trick is to use the website field and search using your opponent's website, elected officials' sites who hold the same office in neighboring districts, along with relevant government and political party sites.

For the sake of this example, let's say you're a candidate running statewide in Texas and that redistricting is a very important to your campaign. Brainstorm a number of ways that someone might search for the issue:

texas redistricting
texas redistricting 2011
redistricting in texas

You might need to play around with this for a while to get the best results. I like to look at the results for each of these terms in at least exact and broad matches. An exact match means that the searcher is using that specific word or phrase without any other words. A phrase match, not shown below, would also include data for searches that include words preceding or following the search term such as "texas redistricting bills in the state house." Finally, broad match further includes data for words inside the search term like "redistricting laws in texas."

Here are the average monthly search results according to Google:

texas redistricting 5,400
[texas redistricting] 1,000
texas redistricting 2011 880
[texas redistricting 2011] 320
redistricting in texas 5,400
[redistricting in texas] 170

Taking a look at these numbers, www.texasredistricting.com would be ideal, but unfortunately that domain is already taken. Search for other options on www.pcnames.com. Add as few characters as possible and ideally, following the keyword phrase. Here are some worthwhile options that are available:

www.texasredistrictingplan.com
www.texasredistrictinghq.com
www.texasredistrictinginfo.com
www.texasredistrictingreform.com

Smaller campaigns will have less trouble finding an exact match domain for their own niche sites since there will be less search traffic for the terms that are relevant to the race, and therefore, less interest in the domain name.

Content is King

Great content has a number of benefits; the better the content the higher it will rank in search engines and the more compelling voters will find the information. Here are a few guidelines for your political niche site's content:

Create at least five pages on the site including a contact page
Write at least 750 words for each page
Repeat the keyword that you would like to rank for a couple of times on each page
Use headings, bold, and italics to emphasize content

Tell the World

Once you have a quality niche site that will focus the debate on a certain issue or tell voters important information about your opponent, tell your supporters about it. Ask them to use social media tools to promote the site including Facebook, Twitter, and Google's +1.

Make a special effort to engage supporters who have their own websites and blogs. Ask them to link to your new site using certain anchor text. Anchor text is the words that are used in the usually blue lettered and underlined hyperlink. In this case, you want the niche site to rank for the search term, texas redistricting, so ask them to use that as anchor text.

Niche Site: Sink or Swim

If after these promotional activities, the niche site doesn't rank well, think about how important the niche site is to the campaign and proceed with that in mind. For "texas redistricting" the hypothetical statewide candidate in Texas can expect around 400 visitors to their niche site if they rank first in Google with steep declines thereafter.

In the planning stage you can estimate the amount of traffic that you will get from Google based upon the number of searches and historically, what percentage of people click on what numbered result:

36.4% click through rate
12.5% click through rate
9.5% click through rate
7.9% click through rate
6.1% click through rate

If your niche site ranks 4th for texas redistricting, you will get about 79 visitors each month for that keyword. Your site will have more traffic overall since it will rank for other keywords as well. At this stage, the campaign should decide whether to leave it at it's current position or put more resources into the project.

If the campaign wants to continue to promote the site that means more sophisticated on-site optimization and executing a more robust off page search engine optimization strategy such as commenting on blogs, guest posting on other blogs, asking for more links, and creating content for article directories along with other tactics to increase your ranking on search engines.

Niche Sites Can Give Your Campaign a Boost

If your opponent's campaign headquarters is along Main Street you probably want to be right on the town square. If the other candidate has a yard sign on a street corner, chances are you have a volunteer who is dying to put your sign in front of it. Political campaigns are always looks for ways, big and small, to get ahead of the other candidates in the race. Niche websites are an innovative way to outrank your opponent in search engine results, so that your candidate is more visible than his or her opponent.

Tracking QR Codes and Usage Examples

2011-08-04T16:13:00.005-04:00

Last time I showed you why it's important to get set up Facebook and Google place pages. At the end I promised an expanded post on using QR codes in your location-based campaigns.

I missed the boat, because there's a great epolitics post by Ben Donahower on how your campaign can use QR codes. His site dissecting the use of campaign yard signs is a must-read too.

Instead of treading the same water, I'll go into some specific use cases for QR codes and how to track their usage.

How do I tell how many times my QR code was scanned?

Since I'm all about tracking campaign metrics, I create my QR codes using Google's link-shortening service, goo.gl. You can shorten the same url multiple times and get a different code each time. If you only use a specific short link in your qr codes, you can tell exactly how many times each code was scanned.

Once you've shortened the link, all you need to do is append ".qr" to the end of the URL and you will be given a .png image you can copy and paste to your needs. Now, if you add a plus symbol to the end of your link instead of ".qr" to go view the link's analytics.

For example, I used goo.gl to shorten the URL: www.newmediacongress.com, giving me: http://goo.gl/8INuj.

Adding ".qr", we get http://goo.gl/8INuj.qr, which yields this image:

Since the pixels are all at right angles, you can blow this image up to the size of the Washington Monument without losing any quality.

To see how many people scanned the image, I go to http://goo.gl/8INuj+

What links should I make into QR codes?

A Twitter intent. Intents are 1-click links that prompt a user to retweet or follow a user. Beloow is an example flyer you might use at your office of events.

You'll want to choose a better tweet and a stronger call-to-action.

Your Facebook page. Find the URL for your fan page, and replace "www" with "m". m.facebook.com is a version of the site optimized for mobile devices. I also liked to add "?view=wall" to the end of the link, which directs users straight to the wall on your mobile site. They'll like your page and be enticed to write something.

For this blog, I would make the code for m.facebook.com/newmediacongress?view=wall. Here's what it looks like on my phone:

I'm not sure what I'll blog about next. Email me or drop a comment and I'll be glad to discuss!

Make Your Office a Destination

2011-08-03T18:35:00.006-04:00

We learned how to get more Facebook likes by deputizing your staff as New Media ambassadors. Another way to increase exposure is to treat your office as a destination, filling out your google place page and enabling constituents who visit to "check in".

When folks come to visit your office for a tour, it's a destination. Coming to Washington, DC is a special pilgrimage that many people only make once in their lifetime-- this post tells you how to help them make the most of the experience.

How do I get on Google Places?

Your office is a destination. First you want to make sure you're showing up correctly on Google's places results. Claiming and filling in your place page will boost your rank in search, helping constituents find your office and website.

Try Googling your office. For example let's take Majority Leader Eric Cantor. When I search for him on Google maps, lots of non-germane results come up. When I find the right one for his office and click through to the place page, it looks like this:

Plain, ugly, and unhelpful.

By clicking the "Business Owner" link in the top right, you can add information to the listing: photos, videos, your office hours, and most importantly, your website. Claiming the page is easy if Google has your phone number right -- an automated call gives you a code to enter on the site. If you can't find your default listing, use the Local business center to add it.

Google geolocates a user's IP address to serve up the most relevant search results. Claiming your place page could get you to rank higher for constituent services searches -- don't forget to claim the place pages for your satellite offices too!

How do I convert visitors to check-ins?

Once your constituents are in the office, you want them to show their pride by checking in. On your Facebook page, click "edit" in the top right, then go to the "Basic Information" tab. Make sure you have a valid street address entered, then you should be able to "check in" to your page.

When near the office, use the Facebook App "places" button to search for and check in to your listing. Think of how excited your constituents will be to share where they are with their friends. This is free publicity and extra 'likes'. Aren't good will and word of mouth why we do constituent services in the first place?

How do I let users tag themselves in Facebook page photos?

Bonus points: ask the family if they want their picture taken in the office. With their permission, you'll put the photo in your "Capitol Visitors" album and they can tag themselves. Make sure you have fan tagging enabled in the photo app settings for your page -- it's off by default.

Just like Disney World!

What about Foursquare, Gowalla, etc etc etc?

All of those services are fine but don't have a huge user-base. Here I've focused on Google and Facebook because everyone knows what they are. The steps for claiming a business on the smaller sites are essentially the same.

By claiming your Google Place page and making your Facebook page a check-in destination, you are aiding your constituents and helping show them the good work you are doing.

Next time I'll show you how to use QR codes to quickly drive action, like checking in to your page.