All politics are personal

May 11, 2010May 11, 2010 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

TechRepublican points to this pretty cool video about the continued significance of social networking:

The importance of online engagement is nothing new to businesses and politicians – at least, it shouldn’t be. Still, even those who appreciate the power of this communication don’t seem to grasp the underlying principles.

One set of stats stood out from this video: while only 14% of people polled trust advertisements, 78% trust recommendations from friends. Those aren’t necessarily Facebook friends, either; the more technology becomes integrated in our lives, the more it exposes our human nature. We trust people we know more than those we don’t know. Political strategists from the nineteenth century understood the need for voters to hear from local party leaders, and no substitute has ever worked.

Speaking at an event in Richmond, Va. last weekend, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe summed up what that means for the campaigns of the future:

Plouffe said the campaign was built using the Internet to engage voters in volunteering, contributing money and “sharing the message” amongst themselves. Connecting these people — not only to the campaign but to each other — helped them build trust with prospective voters they engaged both online and face-to-face.

“There is a lack of trust — in government, in business leaders, in academic leaders, even in faith leaders,” Plouffe said. But, he said, “People trust each other.”

Forget about local – all politics are personal, and always has been.

How do you like that? Facebook and microtargeting

April 23, 2010April 23, 2010 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

This was a big week for Facebook, which stepped up its presence in the battle with Google to control the internet on computers. (This is slightly different from the battle to control the internet through your phone or the internet through your TV or the battle control the internet through the cord surgically affixed to your brain stem.)

By spreading tentacles throughout the web, Facebook will latch your profile more closely to your online activity. Sure, it’s a little creepy, but it’s also voluntary; no one has to have a Facebook account after all.

Setting aside privacy concerns, this is a really big [BIDEN] deal in a year when political insurgency is all the rage (no pun intended). In a great post at TechRepublican, Jordan Raynor outlines how establishment political support (such as Florida Governor Charlie Crist enjoyed a few months ago) can be trumped by a campaign which connects directly with supporters and leverages that energy to create its own momentum.

Facebook is going to become a better and better place to do that – providing in 2010 and 2012 what the concept of microtargeting was in 2002 and 2004. In those years, Republicans used consumer data to identify potential supporters – if you shop at a certain place and subscribe to certain magazines, for instance, you might fit a profile of a Republican voter.

Now, you can profile your supporters (who may or may not belong to your party) and directly serve them online ads. The possibilities are pretty exciting – unless you’re sick of political ads.

You will be. You will be.

Hitler finds out he’s pulled from YouTube

April 20, 2010April 20, 2010 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Downfall is the movie about the final days of the Third Reich. But of course, many of us know it for its climatic scene of Adolf Hitler’s bunker tantrum – which has been re-subtitled on YouTube to make Hitler rant about HD-DVD losing to Blu-ray, his car getting stolen, the Cowboys losing to the Giants in the 2007 playoffs, and even everyone forgetting his birthday.

Coming soon: Hitler finds out that Constantin Films, which owns the rights to Downfall, is pulling the clips from YouTube.

While it should be well within their right to do so, is this the smartest business move for the film company? Recall that Chris Brown (before his alleged domestic violence incident made him untouchable) was able to use a viral video of a wedding party dancing to one of his songs to sell mp3 downloads.

I added Downfall to my Netflix queue last month just because of the Hitler parodies – how many DVD sales is Constantin missing out on?

140-character sponsorships

April 13, 2010April 13, 2010 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Though they haven’t shown up quite yet, the phrase of the day is “sponsored tweets” – Twitter’s long-overdue way to make money off its product. (When you hear anyone say “sponsored tweets,” scream real loud!)

I’ve searched a few terms that seemed like good candidates for these ads to show up but haven’t seen a sponsored tweet yet – which may be the first time anyone has ever wanted to see advertising but couldn’t find it.

Sponsored tweets do offer a new political tactic in advance of the 2010 elections. Candidates have been using Google ads to frame themselves and their opponents for years, and 2010 will be no exception. Search engine and Facebook ads, though, are closer to traditional advertising: you see creative (text or a picture), and if it’s interesting enough you take some sort of action. Clicking on an online ad is a more instant (and measurable) reaction that buying something after seeing a television commercial, but the concept is the same.

Twitter ads appear to be more message advertising – so the “creative” may not even come directly from the ad sponsor. Lets say you’re working for Republican Keith Fimian, running against Rep. Gerald Connolly to represent Virginia’s lovely 10th district (which includes this blog). If someone searches for Connolly on Twitter, you might sponsor a tweet from a voter or activist – rather than from the official Fimian campaign Twitter account – that calls on Connolly to get heaved out of office.

This strategy has been tested somewhat with Google ads, but mostly as a joke – searching for John McCain, for instance, might bring up sponsored links for the AARP. But Twitter ads give brands – political or corporate – a chance to use third party voices to frame search results. No doubt this will become as much art as science as the 2010 elections approach.

When the Superbowl isn’t the Superbowl

January 11, 2010January 11, 2010 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

A few years back, the late Mark McCormack – a key figure in the sports marketing industry and, by some accounts, the basis for the character Jerry Maguire – wrote an excellent business book, Never Wrestle With a Pig. It outlines various rules for succeeding in a professional career, one of which is to prepare for what McCormack calls “your Superbowl” – a key event which puts your talents on display. For a campaign, that’s Election Day, for a conservative organization looking to make a splash, it might be CPAC. In the big brand advertising world, the “Superbowl” was, well, the Superbowl for decades.

In what is a telling sign of the evolving media landscape, big brands like Pepsi and GM are sitting out the Superbowl this year. Even as ad prices tick downward slightly, Pepsi chose to invest $20 million in a social media campaign instead.

In many ways, corporate advertising is becoming more like a political campaign. Successful political operations use broad-based communication – like TV and radio ads – to raise name recognition, but as election day nears they focus on contact with individual voters with targeted messages (those solidly in a candidate’s camp are reminded to get to the polls on election day, while those identified as being on the fence are coaxed onto one side or the other).

Pepsi is the second-best selling soft drink in America. That’s a great spot to be in – it means selling an awful lot of soda. But it also means that there are plenty of people who, no matter what, aren’t going to buy your product. Pepsi could get in front of millions upon millions of pairs of eyeballs with a Super Bowl ad, but would those eyeballs be attached to tongues which desire Pepsi? Or would their entertaining commercials be laughed at and talked about by people who, at halftime, would still reach for a Coke?

Pepsi first claimed to be the choice of a new generation in commercials which approximately one generation ago, but more recent branding has labeled Pepsi as “forever young.” Their advertising strategy has evolved, too (though they surely hope the comparison of Will.i.am to Bob Dylan isn’t congruent to the comparison of their new strategy to their old one).

Sine we’re all wondering, there’s still no word yet on how all this affects Bud Bowl…

The Decade of YouTube

December 28, 2009December 27, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The last week of 2009 is a time to reflect not only on the last year, but the last decade as well. The internet may not have been invented in the 2000s, but it certainly became more integral to our daily lives. Among the internet innovations that have transformed not only the web but how we communicate, YouTube stands out.

The social web revolution of the last half of the decade made the internet more accessible. Instead of acting as a one-way flow of information, everyday people could have their own corner of the web and interact with their friends digitally with ease. But Mashable makes the case that, above Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other services, YouTube is the top social media innovation of the decade because it not only offers users a way to display content they have created, but also offers other users a way to easily share content that they like.

But the 2000s became the Decade of YouTube not because of technology, but because of cultural political impact. In 2006, YouTube had a profound impact on politics, famously changing the course of the Virginia U.S. Senate race (and, likely, the course of the 2008 Presidential nomination). In 2008, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidency in a YouTube video.

But more important than that, activists have used YouTube to make their case on a number of issues through short videos that have been passed from one person to another. Activists have taken down ACORN with a YouTube video. Both sides of the health care debate have made their cases with short online videos.

In fact, the current political climate almost necessitates thinking in terms of short, catchy videos, and not just to defend against a “Macaca Moment.” If you and your side can’t make your case with a funny or poignant two-to-four-minute video, you simply cannot win. Sound bites were important for media coverage in 1999, but now campaigns must actively create sound bites – for the media, for their volunteers, for their donors, and for the voters they hope to win over.

Some might say this dumbs down the political process. But focusing a message into a short video – or into a 140-character Twitter update – doesn’t need to leave out salient points. It does require a fundamental understanding of an issue. As Mark Twain said, “With a hundred words to do it with, the literary artisan could catch that airy thought and tie it down and reduce it to a cabbage, but the artist does it with twenty, and the result is a flower.” Or more succinctly, brevity is the soul of wit.

There have been many ways the Internet has changed politics in the last decade, but YouTube’s impact goes beyond the internet.

But the 2000s are the Decade of YouTube not because of technology, but because of cultural impact. In 2006, YouTube had a profound impact on politics, famously changing the course of the Virginia U.S. Senate race (and, likely, the course of the 2008 Presidential nomination). In 2008, Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the Presidency in a YouTube video.

In fact, the current political climate almost necessitates thinking in terms of short, catchy videos. If you can’t make your case with a funny or poignant two-to-four-minutevideo, you simply cannot win.

It extends to entertainment, too – from Susan Boyle to Saturday Night Live, the availability of short video has served to help turn rank-and-file viewers into unwitting advertisers with the click of a forwarded email.

Isolation brings people together

December 21, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This past weekend dropped a foot and a half of snow (or more) on the Washington, D.C. are. And since six inches is enough to grind Your Nation’s Capital to a halt, the Blizzard of ’09 was dubbed the DC Snowpocalypse.

The weather event was a fitting way to end a year that has seen an increased level of attention paid to online social networks. Those of us glued to the local NBC news coverage found elfin weekend meteorologist Chuck Bell giddily inviting users to get involved by emailing him pictures and name suggestions (his favorite was “Shopper Stopper”). A Snowpocalypse page quickly popped up on Facebook, and those on Twitter used the hashtags #snOMG and #DCsnowpocalypse to discuss the onslaught.

Twitter, YouTube look back on 2009

December 17, 2009 ~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week, both Twitter and YouTube released their 2009 trends list, much as Google did a few weeks back. Unlike Google, though, these trend lists say more about the way each site is used rather than social trends.

Twitter Trends: The Iranian election was not the top story of the year in American media, but it did top Twitter’s news trends list – largely because Twitter itself was such an important tool in organizing street demonstrations. In Entertainment, movies Paranormal Activity and District 9 ranked highly. Both became early examples of what is being called the “Twitter effect.” Real-time fan reviews on social networks gave both films an instant box-office boost. (The same effect may have sapped the excitement around other top-Twitter-trenders GI Joe and Watchmen, both of which did worse than expected.

Predictably, there were other trends that lend credence to the “I’m-sitting-on-the-porch” pointlessness of Twitter when misused. However, these examples also speak to the potential advantage of Twitter as an organizing tool – whether the goal is overthrowing an unpopular regime or flocking to a better-than-expected movie.

YouTube Trends: YouTube is interesting in that it can report two trends: the most-watched videos and the search terms.

The top viewership trends on YouTube centered around you-gotta-see-this viral sensations such as Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent and the famous wedding party entrance to the tune of Chris Brown’s “Forever.”

Top search trends, which were broken out by month, centered around news and entertainment events but weren’t always directly related. For instance, the death of Michael Jackson led to an increase in searches for the Thriller music video. What does this mean? Probably that a generation that doesn’t remember the dawn of the music video era was looking for a famous short film that was frequently discussed but seldom seen. YouTube’s slogan is “Broadcast Yourself,” but it may as well be “Catch what you missed.”

Year in review lists are a chance to look back at the big stories of 2009, but those are common knowledge. Digging into the trends can, however, show how people are using the online tools – and give insight on how to reach them.