When Social Networking Goes Bad

Have you ever had one of those days when you accidentally send an email that one was only supposed to go to one person and contained either personal or business classified information, but end up sending it to a giant list? Or you forget to "bcc" everyone? Worse yet, you send a private email, but it ends up being spread all over the internet (a story of a law student applying to Harvard comes to mind...needless to say, that student did not get into Harvard or any other law school for that matter)? Well, one of the people I follow on twitter sent along the story of James Andrews, someone who considers himself a "key influencer" who did something along those lines.

It’s a story about a PR account executive/vice president named James Andrews from Ketchum in Atlanta who flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of the agency’s biggest clients. Andrews’ mission was to — now, this is important — talk with the corporate communications people at FedEx about social media.

Upon landing in Memphis, Andrews posted this message on the popular social media, mini-blogging service, Twitter, that’s widely followed by business people worldwide:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

Andrews openly used his Twitter monicker - @keyinfluencer.

Someone inside FedEx was following Andrews, and that person shared the post among the top executives at the FedEx front office, and the company’s corporate communications staff. At that point, a person in the FedEx corporate communications staff apparently took umbrage to the post by Andrews and responded with this personal message to Mr. “KeyInfluencer:”

You'll have to read the article to see what the FedEx Communications person wrote. But suffice it to say, Mr. Andrews didn't make the presentation.

James Andrews is (or was?) an account executive for Ketchem. Based on Mr. Andrews complete lack of judgment, the article then rightly questions what this guy actually knows. Then again, we all need to keep in mind what exactly we write when using something as simple and impersonal, or sometimes very persona,l as facebook or twitter. A few years back I remember reading in the L.A. Times about how colleges and employers were using MySpace to figure out if they wanted to accept a potential student or a hire a potential employee. So just a word of warning, sometimes an innocent comment made by you, may not be so innocent to a potential client or employer.

What Will It Take to Reshape, Rebuild the GOP? - The Plan

So now the answer to what needs to be done. Is this an exhaustive list? Far from it, but it's a start and the conversation that is going on can only be good for the party in the long run.

First, the GOP needs to understand that they do indeed have an age problem. This isn't perception. It's reality. Part of that is because the GOP has been so reliant on fundraising, which isn't a bad thing. It got them Congress and the White House for almost twelve years (save for that brief time the Democrats took back the Senate in the early part of this decade due in large part to Senator Jim Jeffords switching parties to become an Independent and caucusing with Democrats.) Plus, the GOP's "Get Out The Vote" (GOTV) efforts were unparalleled especially with "values voters" in key races in 1998, 2000 and 2o04. But the GOP needs to reinvigorate by also reaching out to younger voters as Democrats were able to do by meeting them where they are. How is that done? As younger people enter the work force Republicans need to interact with them on their level and with their issues. That means increasing their presence online, specifically within the area of social networking, and also speaking in plain but real terms about issues that are directly impacting them such as the economy and education. Some of you may be wondering about social issues. I see some of those issues as "luxury items" that may have some support but not within certain age ranges and certainly not in times when other issues flying right in everyone's face. That doesn't mean they are ignored, but sort of "put on the shelf for later".

Second, they need to be better at communicating their message. Barack Obama, and to a certain degree Ron Paul, with their presidential campaigns and Governor Mitch Daniels in his re-election bid here in Indiana, were able to do this with their campaigns. Again, this means speaking in plain but very real terms. That is why these candidates were able to connect with their constituency. In addition, they used the technological means by which the vast majority of the energized electorate could be reached. And that was through the internet and through Obama's very smart use of text messaging. This leads to a greater development of the grassroots especially on the internet as Democrats have so clearly dominated this area in the last five to six years. It encourages younger people to look into and potentially join College Republican and Young Republican networks who then can get them involved in local, state and federal campaigns. All because someone knew how to put a website together (that link is the website I put together for the Young Republican group I Chair).

Third, there is a movement afoot to recruit younger and more engertic candidates to run for office. In the "Rebuild the Party" movement this is what they have to say:

A "40 Under 40" initiative. Undoing the damage to our party's brand among America's youth will take more than new slogans and hip spokespeople. It will mean making young voters the face of the Republican Party, and not just another target group with its own bulleted list of "outreach" talking points. To that end, the next Chairman should commit to a simple goal: working towards a Republican Party where at least 40% of our challenger and open seat candidates for Congress are under 40. Such a party will send a signal to all Americans that the GOP is once again the party of the future.

It's hard to argue with their points here. If the GOP wants to be seen as the party of ideas and the party of the future, they need to recruit candidates who can better reach out to a greater mass of people. Now all of this should not be done or seen as a way to alienate the base of the party. But it should be seen as a way to educate the base on the needs of the party as well as the greater good, the needs of our nation.

(Apologies for not getting this posted yesterday. Technical difficulties kept me from getting much of what I wanted to get accomplished done.)

What Will It Take to Reshape, Rebuild the GOP?

I was inspired by a blog post over on Next Gen GOP on how to effectively reach out to and bring in younger voters to the GOP. It's a tough question that currently plagues Republican parties all across the United States. What is it exactly that turns away young people from the GOP?

Abby Alger, who wrote the post, points out some pretty obvious "perceived" (remember, when it comes to politics, perception is reality) problems we as Republicans face. Namely we are:

• "overwhelmingly old, white, racist, sexist, classist, and many other bad “-ists”
• Uninspiring and party communication to supporters
  
• Lack of an online presence that if it exists at the county level is only asking for money
  

Ms. Alger hits the nail on the head for the most part. And much has been written when it comes to the GOP working to re-brand itself. But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking this is the first time a major political party in America has gone through a self-inflicted identity crisis.

The same could be said for the Democrats in 1994 after the Republicans took Congress back like Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf went into Iraq in the first Gulf War and again in 2004 after George W. Bush not only won the popular vote in the 2004 presidential election, but took it by a decisive margin. The difference is that combined with national and world events, it only took the Democrats fully four years to take everything back.

But along the way, they learned what they had to do. They had to energize their base and move beyond donation to fully utilizing volunteers who previously had been ignored because of their lack of expendable donor cash. Now Republicans find themselves in an almost identical boat.

So what must be done?

Find out tomorrow as I return to actually updating this site on a regular basis! (Hard to believe, but I'm going to hold myself to my New Year's Resolution...I mean it!)

Papa John's Meet Facebook

Facebook, the wildly popular social networking platform, was originally started exclusively for college students to stay in touch and network. Now everyone uses it, from average people like you and me, to politicians, celebrities and businesses. And we're not just talking small businesses, but large companies like Papa John's. Business First of Louisville has the story:

Papa John’s International Inc. has cooked up a new promotion to reach the tech savvy.

Beginning today, any Facebook user who becomes a “fan” of the official Papa John’s Facebook page will receive an online redemption code for a free medium pizza with any online pizza order.

Louisville-based Papa John’s (NASDAQ: PZZA) also will provide the deal to the more than 10,000 Facebook users who already have signed up as “fans” of the brand.

It’s the latest attempt by Papa John’s to reach computer users. Earlier this year, Papa John’s launched an online ordering widget and text-message ordering.

I know it probably seems funny that Papa John's is trying to reach computer users. When you or I think of computer users, especially those who use Facebook, we're probably thinking of a slightly younger generation. I know that when I was in college, I worked at a place in my dorm that sold Papa John's pizza. But I think that this shows us that we can never underestimate or assume who we can or cannot reach through the use of new media. By the way, I'm now waiting for my free offer code for becoming a fan of Papa John's on Facebook. They certainly got my attention.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

My wife and co-blogger here at GTS Tool Box recently sent me a link to a post that claimed the average time a person spends on a blog is 96 seconds. For some businesses or campaigns, that's all they need to get their message out. For others, you better hope that what the reader scans is all the pertinent information they need to make an informed decision.

Interestingly, even though the average read time on a blog is 96 seconds…

* …that drops to 37 seconds for the largest internet blogs.

* …79% of readers scan pages rather than read them

* …16% read the whole page.

Now, if you've gotten this far and have read our previous posts, you'll may think that brevity is not one of our stronger suits. The thing is, if you were interested it what we previously wrote about, you probably read the whole thing. If not, you may have scanned them and left. But to maximize your readers time, keep things short. How do you do that?

1. Keep your topics simple - Even if it's a complicated topic remember this simple rule: "Keep it simple stupid." In today's day and age, attention spans are short. If you start complicating matters, your readers will tune out. According to the Informatics Review research tells us that to communicate effectively with a general audience in the U.S., we need to write at a 6th-8th grade reading level. Just be sure not to talk down to your readers.
   
2. Make your pitch in the first paragraph - Remember back in high school writing the purpose statement had to be in the first paragraph? Yeah, that rule still applies even in blogging.
   
3. Break up your posts - If you have a great topic on which to write, but could be lengthy, break if up into a series of posts. If your readers enjoy the topic, chances are they will come back to read "the rest of the story".

Remember, as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "brevity is the soul of wit."

Transforming the Art of Political Communication Part II

Earlier this week, I wrote about how Barack Obama has, through his most recent presidential campaign, transformed the art of political communication. Much like JFK in 1960, Obama was able to successfully use the internet via social networking and other means, to galvanize his core constituency to promote talking points, his views on issues and raise money. Now that he's president, he will be able to do this from the White House.

But what about Republicans? Or for that matter, what about third party options? Do they have a way to combat this? Can they level the playing field? When you're stacking yourself up against a email list of 10 million, it could appear daunting. The GOP has long relied on grassroots operations to raise money and to get out the vote (GOTV). They were hugely successful in accomplishing this in the late '90's and the early part of this century. But for the most part they did not make any gains or make any movement, really, on the internet.

Now it would seem the GOP is trying to make headway. Some individuals realized after election day (actually, they'd probably tell you they saw it way before then) that something had to be done. Republican bloggers and other online activists started a website called "Rebuild the Party" with it's number one priority, over the next four years, being the internet.

Winning the technology war with the Democrats must be the RNC's number one priority in the next four years.

What's Wrong -- And How to Fix It

* Recruit 5 million new Republican online activists. Even a compelling message won't go anywhere if we have no one to communicate it to. The next Chairman must undertake a crash program to grow the RNC's email file organically -- no spam and no "e-pending" from voter files. This will likely require a two-pronged strategy -- 1) engaging grassroots Republicans directly in the fight against the Obama agenda, with creative grassroots actions that make Republicans want to stand together with members of their party, and 2) integrating e-mail signups into everything we do at the grassroots level, ensuring that everyone who goes to an event and or is contacted by a volunteer is given the opportunity to join our network.

This goal seems daunting, but it forces us to think creatively about creating the sharpest, most compelling messages that will make people want to join us by the millions. If Newt Gingrich and T. Boone Pickens could each build an army of 1.4 million activists around energy, and Barack Obama could recruit 3 million to receive his VP selection by text message, then we know this is possible. If anything, given where the Internet will be in 2 or 4 years, we are low-balling the potential to create a new Republican online army.

* Hold campaigns and local parties accountable. As important as it is that we invest in new technology at the national level, we must remember that the RNC's primary objective is to win races state by state and district by district, not build up its own brand.

To pursue this essential mission, individual campaigns must be held accountable for the number of emails they collect and the money they raise online. As much high-level attention must be paid to candidates' online strategy as with the number of voter contacts made into a particular district or if the right media strategist is working the race. We must end a sense of dependence on the RNC at all levels -- in which the RNC simply turns over its lists -- and set goals that the campaigns must find creative and aggressive ways to meet:

In target 2010 Congressional races, we recommend setting a standard of at least 5,000 in-district online activists recruited, and a minimum of $100,000 raised online.

In target 2010 Senate races, we recommend a standard of 7,500 in-district online activists recruited and $150,000 raised online for each Congressional district.

* A more open technology ecosystem. As tempting as it is to believe that there is a silver bullet to solve all our technology problems, this is very rarely the case. The technology gap will not be solved by funding multimillion dollar white elephants, but by unleashing free market competition among trusted entrepreneurs and volunteers who want to help the party. The RNC should open its technology ecosystem so that trusted partners can develop on top of GOP.com and Voter Vault. We must build a corps of outside technology volunteers who compete to write applications that actually improve party operations -- and invest in the best ones. We must look beyond conventional political approaches to the Web, learning from technology hubs like Silicon Valley, and being unafraid to be the first in politics to adopt the changes in technology that are revolutionizing the consumer market.

It's an aggressive yet realistic plan to move the party forward using technology as the backbone. Not to be outdone, though, Barack Obama, this week, will begin making his weekly radio addresses also available via Youtube. Now I've got to ask you: when was the last time you listened to a weekly presidential address on the radio? I never have and I've been involved in politics and campaigns in some fashion since high school. Obama is revolutionary. He's truly making the White House his own, his administration distinct, and whether he turns out to be a good president or a bad one, history will show that he communicated like no other American president has before. Usually if you're a good communicator, history shows you in a good light. This is the struggle for the GOP to get over. Will they do it? They're getting off to a good start but they are two to four years behind the curve. Fortunately for them, with the internet it's easy to catch up. What's difficult is keeping up with the innovations.

Naked Conversations: A Blogging Book Review

In their 2006 book "Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk With Customers" authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel explore how businesses from local mom and pop operations to international companies can use New Media such as blogging and podcasting to build trust, establish a brand, connect with customers, and manage crises.

As might be surmised from the title, the book focuses on blogging's unique conversational tone. The authors contend that businesses of the past built trust through building personal relationships with customers, a practice that is increasingly difficult today especially in larger companies. Blogging's converational nature, based on reader interaction in comments and linking, has a tendency to build trust quickly.

Excellent bloggers aren't necessarily using their blogs to sell something, but rather to establish their expertise, ignite interest, and constructively use feedback from their target customers. As other blogs link to interesting posts, the message has the potential to reach millions of readers quickly and cost effectively. This in turn can lead to dramatic increases in revenue as a wider pool of customers becomes familiar with and trusts your brand. Scoble and Israel note that "no form of viral marketing matches the speed and efficiency of a blog."

The authors discuss the important question of return on investment (ROI) in regards to blogging, and give several striking examples of how blogging can boost revenue, but they also frankly acknowledge that the biggest investment a successful blog requires is time. Blogging can save vast amounts of advertising money, and can reach more people who are weary of traditional marketing (and now have the technological tools to tune it out), but it costs time to do it right. Effective blogs require consistent, interesting, and well-written posts, lots of research, and willingness to respond thoughtfully to reader feedback through comments and follow-up posting.

Businesses that are willing to devote the time to blogging often find that customer feedback can help them improve a product, repair their image, or stay in front of customer needs and desires. Even negative comments give a company a chance to respond instantly, thoughtfully, and openly, which is an invaluable opportunity to project a positive and responsive image, further building trust with your customer base.

That same ability of instant response will serve your company well in the event of a crisis. Scoble and Israel discuss companies that sustained high losses and lost credibility due to product failures that they were unprepared to address in real time through the internet. If a problem arises in your product or business, having a pool of blog readers with whom you have already established trust gives you a platform to quickly and effectively reassure customers and keep them informed on how you're making the situation right. Even a small acknowledgement and reassurance may be enough to prevent a viral spread of negative information about your company.

Although books on New Media quickly become outdated, the core points in "Naked Conversations" are valuable and may provide an impetus to more companies to establish a New Media presence, or overcome management objections and resistance where New Media strategies are being considered.

As always, if New Media is something your company or organization would like to look into, we would be happy to help.