Cross-posted from Congress.org; originally posted on May 22, 2013

I think we can all agree, there’s no one silver bullet when building your advocacy / grassroots effort.

Our clients have folks at every rung on the ladder, from users who are just joining the effort to those that are completely engaged. The challenge for many is not only how do we keep moving folks up that ladder, but how do we get more folks to join the effort so that they can have a chance at becoming an engaged user.

Today’s announcement from Twitter and their release of new Lead Generation Cards can no doubt help groups of all sizes increase visibility and build that base.

Quick Primer on Twitter Cards
Have you ever clicked on a tweet and had it expand to show the intro of a news article or further detail on a product? That’s a Twitter Card. In Twitter’s words, these cards “make it possible for folks to add rich experiences to tweets.” From the New York Times to retailers like Best Buy, businesses use Twitter cards to further promote their content, loading in videos, photos and more to allow users to get a quick snapshot of what they’re promoting.

Newly Released Lead Generation Cards
The Lead Generation Card takes that experience one step further. Instead of simply being able to display more information to a user who clicks on a tweet, with this new card, Twitter has added the possibility of an interaction – the ability for users to express interest and sign-up immediately all within Twitter.

Much like Google only a few days ago, see my article on Actions within Gmail, folks can now interact with the information provided all within the same interface. With Google’s announcement, I spoke of how users could add a movie to their queue or RSVP for an event directly within a message in the Gmail inbox. This week we’re looking at a similar interaction within Twitter.

With the new Lead Generation Card, businesses can now add an additional button on expanded tweets that allows users to pass their information to marketers/brands immediately. (See below)

Imagine the possibilities. No longer will a user need to load a new site, enter in their information and then submit the form there – all taking away from their experience within Twitter – now it’s as easy as clicking a button and passing on bare essentials (name, twitter handle and email) to the marketer/brand immediately.

Click here to continue reading on Congress.org

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The answer may surprise you: to influence the immigration debate, Zuckerberg helped bankroll Fwd.Us to run a good ol’ fashioned lobby campaign. The group’s targeted TV advertisements have drawn national media attention and the ire of organizations such as the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and MoveOn.org. This effort has been long in the making: over the last five years, the latest breed of Silicon Valley tech giants have established beachheads in DC where, under the guise of open government initiatives, they have cultivated close ties to both parties’ leadership.

There are, of course, alternatives to this kind of campaign. Social media has changed the way citizens and elected officials communicate. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are now widely used by both citizens and Members of Congress to connect, discuss, and share. With the adoption of these new mediums, advocacy has also evolved.

We’ve recently seen many inspiring and innovative grassroots advocacy campaigns.  Did anyone else’s Facebook feed turn red in March when the Supreme Court heard arguments on marriage equality and DOMA? That campaign was spearheaded by the Human Rights Campaign, highlighted by their “Love” logo created and shared specifically for the event. Or, did you notice the “blackout” of over 7,000 websites such as Wikipedia, Craigslist, and Reddit last January? That awareness and advocacy campaign completely reversed momentum on Internet-related legislation known as SOPA and PIPA.

Currently, the March for Innovation is conducting a social campaign, bringing in a broad coalition of leaders and drawing attention to the same immigration issues as Fwd.Us. These ingenious campaigns all deserve recognition for their use of technology to involve more citizens in the debate and transparently connect them to elected officials. Each succeeded through a meaningful, forward-thinking advocacy effort.

So, the next time you are planning a campaign, you can choose the ‘business as usual’ model if that suits your needs. But technology has brought about a host of high-impact, cost effective alternatives. Consider for your next campaign how to best utilize your resources, take advantage of your issue, inject a little originality, and tap into your network – you might just create the next great movement!

Ken Ward is CEO of Fireside21, a company that creates easy-to-use Web-based tools that help legislators keep in close contact with their constituents. Find Ken on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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One of the most notable features of this very well funded, high-profile advocacy effort is that it does not involve an aggressive email component, instead relying primarily on Facebook and Twitter to disseminate its message. The campaign organizers have provided an option for volunteers to call their Senators, though this feature seems secondary to the list of virtual events that are taking place across the country.

Electronic communication has made it vastly easier for constituents to become involved in public policy, and email has ruled this space for the last decade. Members of Congress receive tens of thousands of email communications each year; an entire private industry has been built around contacting lawmakers and it is increasingly easy for constituents to send a “form” email to their Member of Congress on virtually any topic or issue. In 2011, a survey of more than 250 congressional staff found that in-person visits, individualized postal letters and individualized emails are considered among the most effective advocacy strategies on the part of constituents. Constituent communication via a form email was not considered nearly as effective as any of the aforementioned strategies, and leaving a comment on a lawmaker’s social media page rounded out the bottom of the list.

So it’s somewhat interesting that the organizers of the March for Innovation decided not to include email to Senators as part of its strategy, opting instead for a massive social media push. The campaign has provided a range of tools to enable volunteers to act on behalf of the movement, including pre-written tweets (#iMarch), Facebook posts, and even a custom-designed Facebook profile image. Though there is pre-written email language for volunteers to send, the campaign organizers instruct advocates not to send emails to their lawmakers but to their friends and family, “encouraging them to iMarch.”

Is social media advocacy truly on the rise? Could it be that large-scale social media movements, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s marriage equality effort, are having more of an effect on Members and their staff than former methods of communication? Today in POLITICO, a representative from the campaign emphasized that the purpose of the March for Innovation is really to go beyond Washington. “This is digital,” Carlos Gutierrez said. “This gets out to a lot of different people all around the country. A lot of people around the country are being exposed to this; it’s not just an inside Washington thing.”

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Elena Biurrun, Mayor of Torrelodones, Spain, has become a figurehead for government reform across Europe. Just two years into her term, the former stay-at-home mom “has opened the [Torrelodones] Town Council to more citizen input, abolished many official perks and plowed the savings into school and road repairs, with enough left over to build bike lanes and refurbish a soccer field.”

While Biurrun is leading the charge publicly, a number of individuals and groups have also challenged Spain’s preexisting – and historically corrupt – political systems. One such group, Record Your City Council Meeting, “makes video recordings of public meetings and posts them online, risking fines where such reporting is banned.” A separate group of activists acquired more than 1.4 million signatures to inspire Spain’s Parliament to reconsider strict home-foreclosure laws.

Grassroots activism is not just growing in Spain; like-minded groups are operating in many parts of Europe, notably within the antiestablishment movements in both Italy and Greece.

Click here to read more in The Wall Street Journal.

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Today I tweeted re #edreform #marijuana poetry,anarchy,Walmart, @michellerhee & more, but the MOST retweeted was video of a tiny monkey

— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) May 20, 2013

Polis frequently inserts pop culture references and humor into his tweets; in the last week alone, Polis has referenced Steven Colbert, Star Trek, capuchin monkeys and The Powerpuff Girls. While he still primarily tweets on legislative issues, the light-hearted posts break up the monotony and keep his base engaged. In response to the monkey video, one follower replied to Polis with the remark “I’m tickled that you took the time to post that ”

The takeaway for organizations? Adding a healthy amount of variation to your social media posts can prevent your feed from becoming stale. Don’t throw caution to the wind – make sure that what you’re tweeting is accurate and does not offend or alienate your audience members – but don’t be afraid to have a little fun, either.

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Join Gary Nuzzi, John Jones (Adfero Group) and Zach Graves (R Street Institute) on Friday, May 24, for this intermediate-level session on web analytics.

When: May 24, 2013 (9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.)

Where: National Press Club (529 14th Street NW)

Register here.

Please visit getsmartdc.org for more details.

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The infographic shows that only eight women were represented in the top 50 trade groups. Furthermore, only one woman, Pamela Bailey of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, was in the top 10 best paid industry lobby executives. She made less than half of what the highest paid man earned in take-home pay.

A Huffington Post article also notes that the number of women CEOs at K Street’s top firms, just over 15 percent in 2011, is lower than the ration of women currently in Congress—18 percent after last year’s historic election year.

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Originally published in the Public Affairs Council‘s May 2013 Impact Newsletter.

Because Hurricane Sandy bypassed much of Duke Energy’s six-state service area, the Charlotte, N.C., power company was able to dispatch 3,000 of its workers to help restore electricity in areas damaged by the storm. While commendable in themselves, the company’s efforts also drew favorable publicity.

But there were no guarantees the hastily hatched plan to obtain that coverage would succeed. Knowing how much good Duke Energy’s work crews would do, the company’s communications staff wanted to tell their story. But the way they hoped to make this happen was innovative and untried.

“At 2 p.m. on Oct. 30, one of my colleagues pulled me aside and said she had this ‘crazy idea,’” says Lee Freedman, a company speechwriter. “If she got authorization to go ahead with it, she asked if I would be willing to participate. Figuring she’d never get buy-in, I said, ‘Sure.’”

Telling Their Own Story

To his surprise, Freedman was on a plane that night to Cincinnati, where he would meet a work crew as it prepared to go to New York. In New York, he would be embedded with the work crews, using Facebook, Twitter and blog posts to report on Duke Energy’s work in real time.

“Instead of relying on traditional media to repackage our material and localize the Sandy story, we opted to tell the story ourselves,” Greg Efthimiou, a communications director for Duke Energy, writes in PR Strategist.

Duke Energy is not the only company helping out after natural disasters and improving its reputation in the bargain.

“We always help other power companies when we are done restoring power to our own customers,” says George Nelson, vice president for operating and engineering for Pepco, which has about 793,000 customers in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

Pepco dispatched workers to New Jersey and New England after the snowstorm of October 2011; and, after Hurricane Sandy, to northern New Jersey and New York. After Katrina, Pepco sent personnel as far south as Florida and Texas.

“This isn’t just people working on the lines,” Nelson says. “This also means people who handle the logistics — securing hotel rooms, preparing meals in the staging areas and handling countless other tasks.”

Inevitable Surprises

None of this is easy, and it must be done in a hurry. Surprises are inevitable. When Duke Energy sent Freedman to Cincinnati, “none of the workers there knew who I was or what I was there for,” he says. “I had to introduce myself and explain that I’d be going with them to report on what they were doing, but that I wasn’t some spy from corporate. I had to help them understand that I would be there to tell the world of the good work they do.”

Earning Trust

To earn their trust, “I had to do a lot of listening,” Freedman says. He also had to show he could accompany them “without being a nuisance or getting in the way of our work,” according to field supervisor Doug Akins.

Some workers were skeptical at first, Freedman says. “They had heard of Twitter, and some are on Facebook, but a lot of the crew members don’t use these tools on a regular basis.”

Buy-In From the Top

The “crazy idea” was Paige Layne’s. A communications manager for Duke Energy, Layne says she came up with the plan not long before she obtained Freedman’s agreement. “Before that, I had to go to my boss, who had to go to his boss, for buy-in,” she says. “I told Tom Williams, who I report to, that if it worked, he could take all the credit, and if it flopped, it would be on me.”

Williams liked the idea, as did Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, and Freedman was on his way to New York a short while later. “We wanted Lee to be the reporter, not just to make it possible for other reporters to tell the story,” Layne says. “With new media, we could tell our own story and tell the world what our crews were doing to restore power to all the people.”

Pepco has employed a similar tactic, embedding 10 journalists from local media outlets with its work crews. Pepco also disseminated reliable information as soon as it became available.

“Throughout Hurricane Sandy, we provided customers with as much information as possible, through as many channels as possible,” says Myra Oppel, Pepco’s regional communications director. “We shared regularly, with updated, detailed and aligned messaging through our website, our social media channels, our call center and other communications outlets.”

Favorable Coverage

Over the hectic days that followed, Freedman posted more than 100 Twitter updates and published eight blog posts. He also had numerous interviews with journalists, few of whom had his enviable access. An Associated Press story that resulted from one of these interviews was picked up by 50 news organizations.

“That was great, because almost all other coverage was about millions of people being out of power and the struggles they were going through,” Layne says. “That’s what most storm coverage is always like. But the AP story was about what Duke Energy work crews were doing to help.”

The crew in Manhattan “spent its first day climbing under streets on the West Side, pumping water out of vaults and disconnecting switches that were ruined by the flooding,” AP’s Jonathan Fahey reported. “After ConEd restored power to the networks that serve Lower Manhattan, the Duke team visited customers who were still without power to determine if the utility needs to fix equipment or if the customer has a problem in the building that an electrician must address.”

One night, the crew members — Freedman included — slept on cots on a dinner cruise boat docked at Pier 41.

Giving the Story a Voice

“Aside from just giving the story a place and voice, [Freedman’s] updates helped to give our readers an idea of what the crews faced and what the people of New York and New Jersey faced,” wrote John Downey of the Charlotte Business Journal.

Before long, Freedman’s work was helping with work-crew morale. “During downtime, I would go truck to truck and hold up my iPhone to line workers in the utility trucks so they could see the tweets of support and encouragement we had received in response to my blogs and tweets,” Freedman says. “Once they saw social media in action, it actually picked up their spirits, because they realized people were cheering them on from afar.”

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The 113th Congress is is also stacked with first-time representatives who are likely to be approached by advocacy groups eager to get their issues back onto the legislative agenda. The uptick in lobby registrations is an indication that Congress is returning to “business as usual” after a chaotic few months where the debt ceiling debate and fiscal cliff dominated conversations.

“Congress has already taken action more quickly and decisively than expected on issues that affect a wide swath of industries, which is prompting some business interests to amp up efforts to influence the decision-making process,” according to Ho. Taxes, immigration, and cyber-security are expected to be at the top of the legislative agenda in coming months.

Click here to read more in The Washington Post.

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Over 300 government relations professionals will gather to honor Senator Mary Landrieu, Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers and WGR’s Distinguished Member Angel Riley of Lockheed Martin Corporation.

When: Thursday, May 16 (5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.)

Where: Union Station’s Columbus Club (50 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, D.C., 20002)

The event will include an awards presentation, food-drink-and-networking, live music, a wine wall raffle, and a silent auction. One of the distinguished items up for auction is a custom audit of your organization’s social media properties, including an assessment of how well your channels are performing, offered by Adfero‘s Senior Vice Presidents, Suzanne Zurn and Sue Zoldak.

Click here to register.

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