Whether everyone in politics realizes it yet or not (still “not” for many people), online organization is not only here to stay, but it represents the quickest, most impactful and cost effective form of political organization.
And when it comes to organizing and campaigning on the Internet – (and before you get down in the weeds of all of the tools and things you can do online) – there are some fundamental tips you should keep in mind in order to be more successful.
Online Organization Tips:
1) Be Visible:
Voters or activist expect to be able to find you (and information about you or your cause) online. A basic website is a minimum threshold for credibility of any serious organization.
If they can’t find you, they can’t interact with you.
Generally speaking, a website gives you an Internet headquarters, or “hub”, to operate from. It’s a place to park critical information about your group or cause, to promote action items that your supporters can act on, and make it easy for your supporters to join your cause, reference your information and pass it on to others.
You can create a site or blog easily enough with services such as WordPress or Blogger. Short of that, you can easily create your own online “group” (for free) with services like Ning, Google and Yahoo. These can be public, private or moderated, however you see fit.
2) Keep it Fresh:
How often do you come across sites that look abandoned, or have out-dated information? And how often will you go back if that’s the case? Keep that in mind when maintaining your online presence.
Think like the type of person you want to attract. What information are they looking for? What are they likely to act on if you make it easy for them? In addition to the “fixed” information you might add to a site (such as fact sheets and information about your group or issue), you can keep sites fresh by adding a blog, (even letting several supporters help keep it updated), or adding newsfeeds on related topics with RSS feeds, etc.
The better and more useful the content, the more people will visit, and the more often they’ll forward the site and/or its content on to others. This means that the site can become an email list building machine.
3) Get Social:
If a website is your Internet “hub”, then think of social media as the spokes. And it can take your Internet presence to a whole new level.
Given that social media is an “opt-in” type of medium and also tends to be much more personal in nature, it can give you or your cause much more credibility when people share your links and information with others. In other words it’s like the Internet version of “word of mouth” advertising.
According to Pew Research, around 20% of all Internet users that were surveyed indicated that they either received or shared political information via a social network in the run-up to the 2008 election…and I’m sure it was higher for 2012. These are real people that live in the “real” world where you may be looking to identify volunteers for a precinct and/or church based organization.
Social media enhances your ability to aggregate small expressions of support from a large number of people into a greater whole, (in fundraising for example) – which means that it provides leverage.
If people are a primary resource in politics, then the “other’ people that they know are potential resources as well. Social media makes it easier to leverage your chief resource.
4) Be Outgoing:
Don’t just create a web presence and wait for the world to come knocking at your door. Do some promotion.
In the business world, you wouldn’t spend time creating a product for sale and then keep quiet about it. You would advertise. The same principle applies here. You make use of the tools you have (and those you can get) to let people know you’re there and why they should be interested.
The Internet offers a constantly expanding menu of ways to reach out. The most familiar is email and, given that virtually everyone who’s online has an email address, it’s the most fundamental. The newer avenues are the social networks mentioned earlier. Set up profiles for your site on those services and link them back to your site. Send an email to your list letting them know that you’re up on those networks, (“Hey, we’ve got a Facebook page up – click here to check it out, and then pass it on!”).
By regularly posting messages on those services with links back to pages or blog entries on your site, you “push” your content to a larger audience than would otherwise be exposed to your message.
***
Can you think of any other general tips you’ve learned about successful online organization by way of experience? Feel free to pass them along in the comments.
(Get more tips like these in my “Grassroots 101 Training Series“. Check it out!)
So you’re all excited or worked up about some issue, campaign or candidate and you decide it’s time to volunteer and try to make a difference? That’s great. But there’s always a risk that you’ll be overzealous, jump in to anything and everything with both feet and soon get burned out.
Updating the dead girl, live boy rule
It’s a metaphor for doing something so insanely stupid as to upend politically reality, or at least getting caught doing it. As another former Louisiana Governor Earl Long put it in the movie Blaze, “A politician’s got to be discreet in his indiscretions”.
But being discreet is getting tougher.
Since the dawn of the Internet, along with email and its spawn text messaging, a smart politician with any survival instincts has to know that anything sent to anyone – no matter how trusted they may be at the moment – can one day pop up on the front page of the newspaper, show up on TV, or in the email in-boxes of every voter in their district. Many a job has been lost on account of the “reply all” button.
Further, thanks to the ubiquitous smart phone, virtually everyone everywhere is equipped with a handheld digital camera and voice recorder that can quickly capture that obscene rant at a constituent, or the discreet exit from the no-tell motel with that hot new intern, and post it on Facebook in a matter of seconds.
Despite that, human nature is what it is, and people continue to do dumb things. Add that to a culture that continues to chase the lowest common denominator and you end up with a lot of unfortunately “candid” moments and busted careers. On the bright side, this gives voters a chance to see what they actually got on Election Day, often much to their disappointment.
That said, the “dead girl, live boy rule” has been more than adequate to cover the idiocy of politicians of all stripes up to this point. But every now and then someone comes along who does something so colossally and epically stupid that rules have to be re-written to account for it.
Clearly it’s one thing to get caught doing something foolish, but it’s something else to willfully and repeatedly do so in a self-absorbed, sociopathic and exhibitionist way, especially after you’ve already been busted and drummed out of office for doing it once before. Which brings us to the latest case of Anthony Weiner and what I’ll call the new “Carlos Danger corollary”, which covers using technology in an insanely moronic and reckless way – like taking pictures of yourself naked and intentionally sharing them with someone in a format that is just one mouse click away from being front page news.
So here’s the updated rule: never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy; or take pictures of your junk and send them to people. Politicians, take note.
Now that it’s becoming so much easier to get caught, we’ve got an increasing number of politicians who want second chances; a trail blazed by Bill Clinton and followed by many more ever since. As Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey recently put it, “when voters don’t take public service more seriously than entertainment we end up with clowns”. Maybe that’s why they keep asking for another chance. They know how low the standards have fallen.
And you can’t really mention these guys without also mentioning the women who enable them by publicly standing by them, excusing them, and in effect asking voters to excuse them as well. It’s like they have decided that, no matter how embarrassed they may be, no shame is worth losing access to political power.
Why are these women willing to allow themselves to be used like this? And, at the risk of being sexist, what’s the line on how many men we will see “standing by their women” in similar situations? (I’ll take the under)
Of course the intrepid feminist who blazed this trail of self-sacrifice was none other than the Democrats’ prospective 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton. And now we have Weiner’s wife, Huma, who has set the new feminist degradation record for standing by her man not once, but twice. (He’s really, REALLY straightened out this time!)
Maybe we need a new “Human Shield rule” of politics, stipulating that you can possibly save your husband’s career by throwing your dignity on a political grenade just once.
Beyond that, your credibility is gone along with your self-respect.