Last night I spoke at the Leadership Institute‘s Public Relations School on writing effective press releases. It’s a talk I’ve been giving since 2002, but since then it has obviously changed pretty considerably.
The most significant change has been in the forms a press release has taken. Eight years ago a basic press release was a one-page document written like a news story that was emailed and faxed to a media list, or distributed through a press release service. Today, through formats like social media releases, plus tools like easy blogging and media hosting platforms (like Flickr and YouTube), organizations and campaigns can augment their news releases with all kinds of extras.
And frankly, if they aren’t doing that, they’re missing out.
Just as important, platforms such as YouTube have given long-shot candidates ways to circumvent political reporters reluctant to cover campaigns they don’t believe have much chance of success…Most prominent is Florida, where former House Speaker Marco Rubio, a darling of the “tea party” movement, had nearly 20 times the video views in late May as Gov. Charlie Crist, whom Republican leaders had recruited into the race. Mr. Crist has since fled the Republican Party to run as an independent.
One key element of public relations hasn’t changed, of course: the importance of having a strong, well-framed message. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one’s around to tweet about it, it won’t make the front page – but the tree has to fall first.
Chris Kelly’s former job probably seemed like an asset when he jumped into the race for California Attorney General – in a state so closely identified with technological innovation, he was one of the executive leaders of Facebook.
The problem for Kelly now is that his title was Chief Privacy Officer. Having that position for Facebook is kind of like being a nutritionist for KFC – it doesn’t come with much credibility.
With Memorial Day weekend coming up, Campaign Season 2010 is about to hit high gear. With that, candidates who hadn’t built out their web presence are going to put the foot on the gas. At this point, that probably applies more to local and state candidates than candidates for most state or federal offices – campaigns where it can be intimidating to put together a robust online campaign. I recently spoke with a consultant for a state candidate who had just launched a Facebook page. The campaign was somewhat nervous about the launch for two reasons: 1) the page was still a bit light on content and 2) by its nature, the page would allow the campaign’s organized opponents to post negative comments.
These are both legitimate concerns, but they have legitimate answers. Some high profile stories from the last week illustrate how to deal with them:
1. When it comes to content, don’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.
As the Mark Critz campaign made clear, websites and other online presences aren’t static media. Just as a simple website can expand to include more sections and content, a Facebook page can expand with more wall posts, pictures, videos, or other pieces.
In fact, a phased strategy has an important benefit: with each addition, the campaign can reach out to supporters again with a fresh, relevant message. On Facebook, this is even more pronounced. If you join a Facebook page that already has all the content it’s going to have, it becomes easier to forget. If you join a Facebook page that constantly adds content, you are more likely to see it in your news feed, and possibly visit the site and take some sort of action. (Which would, in turn, show up in your friends’ feed, and give the campaign further exposure.)
Too many online campaigns fail to understand that a website or social network profile isn’t like a television or radio advertisement – while some seed content is important, adding more content later can actually work to their advantage.
2. Censoring negative comments gives them more legitimacy than answering them.
On any campaign’s Facebook page, there will be detractors who put their mark on every single post. By smartly building an active and engaged base, a campaign can create a community which will answer this criticism with supportive speech. There are also opportunities to directly engage the folks who make these comments in a public square – they don’t get to post to your campaign’s wall in a vacuum, after all.
If your campaign is not effective at answering critics directly, Facebook may be the wrong place to be. But then again, if your campaign can’t answer legitimate questions, electoral politics may also be a bad choice.
A spokesman for Mr. Corbett, Kevin Harley, said the subpoena had nothing to do with the criticism of the attorney general… He said the subpoena was related to a criminal case concerning Brett Cott, a former political aide convicted in a political scandal known as Bonusgate. That long-running investigation concerns bonuses paid to legislative staff members and whether they were illegally related to political campaign work.
For Corbett’s sake, I hope this isn’t simply an attempt to shut up anonymous critics, because it’s hard to think of a less effective way to do it. Consider that, between themboth, the accounts probably have no more than 1,000 unique followers, and that comes after a round of national press coverage that has surely inflated those totals. Everything Corbett has done has only driven more eyeballs their way. And any type of censorship – or perceived censorship – of political speech tends to be a bad issue for a candidate.
The online team employed a phased rollout approach, recognizing that the need to have something up online early trumped the need to launch a website with all the bells and whistles. And the back end content management system of the site was built so that anyone could update it – in other words, instead of the “website guy” having the keys and being the only one able to drive the campaign’s online presence, everyone got their own car. It provided for a streamlined, slick, and – ultimately – victorious campaign.
The online campaign didn’t win PA-12 for Mark Critz by itself, but no online campaign is capable of that. It was successful by the measure that matters: it didn’t get in the way of a the other parts of a well-run campaign.
Augmented reality is a pretty neat trick, using markers picked up by webcams (or cameras on mobile devices) to display images that others can’t see. This has been around for a while, but it usually required some type of narcotic substance; now it can be harnessed through technology without ingesting hallucinogens.
With smartphones becoming a hub of political activist activity, the next question is: how does the next “revolutionary” campaign use this technology?
The easiest way will be to turn lawn signs and other advertisements into instant sources of new information. The typical lawn sign is pretty simple: it has a name and, maybe, a slogan but little else. Augmented reality would allow passers by to point their iPhone or other mobile device and instantly have access to a much broader range of text and information.
But for many campaign operatives, the more fun part might be finding a way to piggyback messages about an opponent onto his or her own signs – the messaging equivalent of Bugs Bunny drawing a mustache on a wanted poster of Yosemite Sam.
Web comic XKCD – which chronicles stick figures discussing physics, science fiction, and computer programming – has unwittingly (or possibly wittingly) touched off a mini-controversy on Wikipedia.
The original comic featured a made-up word made up of words that dealt with making up words (with the original words, ostensibly, disproportionately popular on Wikipedia). Don’t be ashamed if that seems tough to follow – any web comic that has an explanatory blog is pretty high-end stuff to begin with. What isn’t tough to follow is that some enterprising fans created a Wikipedia entry for the made up word.
The ensuing debate among Wikipedia users and site editors took 19,000 words and resulted in searches for the word (“malamanteau”) redirecting to XKCD’s own Wikipedia entry. But it illustrates a good cautionary tale for user-generated content: it’s best to have good site rules up in advance in case you want to maintain any semblance of message control down the line.
And it’s also good to keep an eye on Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it, including people who might not have good things to say about you.
YouTube is celebrating not only turning five, but reaching 2 billion views per day. In the decade before YouTube, internet publishing and blogging had become commonplace. But though the internet had long been a place where anyone could put their work out there (as long as they didn’t mind not getting paid for it), YouTube’s video sharing platform – along with technology that made quality video devices cheaper – turned everyone into a video producer. Anyone could be Cecil B. DeMille.
That said, not everyone can effectively communicate on YouTube.
1. Video is now essential to message delivery.
Political communication has always been a matter of telling stories, and no medium can tell a story like video. In 1960, the story of the cool, collected, and telegenic JFK as the harbinger of a new political generation was cemented by his now-famous debate performance; in 2008, the story of Barack Obama as the idealistic, optimistic harbinger of a new political generation was cemented by a music video adapted from one of his speeches that seized upon the phrase, “Yes We Can.”
Politicians can try to position themselves with stump speeches and media appearances, and their surrogates can attempt to provide “objective” support. People believe what they see. That makes effective online video a must-have.
The reality of modern politics is that if you can’t make your case in a YouTube video, you have no chance of winning the hearts and minds of the public.
2. Brevity is art.
Part of the “effectiveness” factor is being able to boil an argument down to the point where it fits in a two-to-five-minute video clip. Case in point: one citizen activist was able, in 1:38, to sum up just how insignificant a 2009 federal budget cut proposal was:
3. The best ideas come from others.
The best part about YouTube is the opportunity for participation from the initiated, regardless of their “official” role. Obama’s nascent 2008 campaign had a lot of energy, yet it was tough for people to discern exactly what kind of change he offered. All Democrats were, in fact, plugging away at that theme after eight years of a Republican administration. But one Obama supporter – whose involvement in the campaign was tangential, though his enthusiasm wasn’t – summed it up by repurposing a famous 1984 Macintosh commercial:
The Obama campaign could not have cut this ad – it’s too direct, and it uses images and clips which are most likely protected by copyright. By supporting user generated content like this, YouTube invited a new level of citizen participation.
4. Compelling content is the most important factor in attracting an audience.
Never has publishing content been easier. Yet because of this, never has it been more important to create quality content: media consumers have plenty of choices.
It’s counter-intuitive: We think of the internet as this highly personalized frontier, where each user has the utmost control over the news he or she reads or the entertainment he or she consumes. Humans are social beings, and the internet augments that.
YouTube’s comments, video responses, subscriptions, and other site tools make it more than a place to post and share media; YouTube is a social network built on user connections.
But more that, YouTube success is based on the ability of an idea to pass from one person to another. High-ranked YouTube videos don’t amass viewers from independent searches, they come from recommendations. It’s the most obvious viral medium.
Rep. Eric Cantor and House Republicans have drawn criticism from both left and right for their YouCut program, which lets citizens vote to eliminate wasteful government programs. The word “gimmick” is tossed around by both sides – as if bumper stickers, lawn signs, and other efforts to earn political support aren’t gimmicks – while making the point that the cuts proposed wouldn’t trim federal spending by all that much.
But in the GOP’s defense, this is about continuing the message that the Republicans are the party of smaller government. There’s no better case against the concept of government spending than to point out the most egregious and unnecessary examples.
Jim Eltringham 