"Taking Our Country Back" - The Book
About 18 months ago, I picked up a book "Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama" by Daniel Kreiss. The book chronicles the development of digital media in the Democrats' election campaigns from 2002 to 2008. I've read it cover-to-cover at least 4 times and each time I come away with something new on how to use digital media ...... websites, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
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| "Taking Our Country Back - The Crafting of Networked Politics From Howard Dean to Barack Obaman". by Daniel Kreiss |
It's interesting to read how Obama used social media and the Internet to recruit, engage, and activate his volunteers, particularly young volunteers in that 18 - 45 demographic in 2008. Media reports and YouTube videos, particularly interviews with Joe Rospars, reveal how Obama boosted his results with digital media in the 2012 election. Rospars first signed on with Howard Dean's 2002 bid for the Democrats' presidential primaries when he was only 22 years of age. In 2008 and again in 2012, he was Obama's chief digitial strategist. From a handful of volunteers in 2002 ..... to a staff of 100 in 2008 ....... and 300 in 2012 ....... Rospars has been on the leading edge of using digital media to engage supporters and volunteers.
Being In The Moment - The Obama Hug
Searching for "Joe Rospars" on YouTube brought up this interview with Bloomberg News where Rospars spoke about "being in the moment" with regards to a hug ...... a simple hug ....... between Barack Obama and his wife Michele. Rospars comments struck me on how we should be using digital media, particularly with Facebook and Twitter.
When asked how well planned was that simple hug, Rospars reply struck me right between the eyes. It wasn't. It wasn't planned at all. Using digital media isn't about pre-planning or pre-arranging a hug ....... that happened very spontaneously. It was all about being prepared to take advantage of those moments and making the best use of them.
Think about it for a moment. It was highly unlikely that a spontaneous hug was going to be pre-planned and discussed with Obama's photography-taking team. However, "the rapid response team" ....... definitely had to be prepared ...... to be on the lookout ..... for moments like that hug.
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| That Unplanned Spontaneous Hug That Tells A Story About A Relationship |
Here's the Canadian version of one of those "being in the moment" moments. November 11th 2015. Justin Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau attending Remembrance Day ceremonies here in Ottawa. Each of them looking at each other, remembering the sacrifices of others so that they could look at each other the way they did. This photo shur as heck wasn't planned. It was taken by a photographer who was looking for that special moment.
The Change in The Command-And-Control Regime
It's no longer top-down where the campaign controls what's going to happen. It's also bottom up where your volunteers and supporters are an integral part of your campaign. It's no longer being aloof. It may be scary to share responsibility for a political campaign ...... but that's the way it's going to go. You have to be prepared for this sharing. You have to define how you want things to go ....... because if you don't, they will. You have to establish a relationship of trust with your volunteers and supporters that's more than just pushing the party line or promoting the policies and platform. You have to connect with people. And you have to lay down expectations as to what's okay ...... and what's not okay.
The challenge is, how do we go about doing this - connecting with the people that count? It's more than just posting content and photos to Facebook or Twitter. It's about how do we make people feel that they're part of our campaign.
Being In The Moment - What Do You Do?
Firstly, you have to "be in the moment".
- You have to be continuously looking for those spontaneous moments that are about to happen.
- A picture's worth a thousand words so your camera should always be ready.
- And sometimes the event requires more than just one set of eyes looking for those moments.
- A photo without a caption means nothing, and a caption without a photo is even worse. Put captions to every photo you post. Put a photo to every caption you post.
- If necessary, use your graphics software to crop, brighten or lighten the photo.
- And post them ASAP! Posting photos 3-4 days later is not being effective. By then, it's too late and the memory has faded.
I've also been to events where supporters were taking photos. These subsequently showed up on Facebook and Twitter. As I viewed the photo below, I thought "Holy cow, Batman! The guy in the red T-shirt, back-row centre. That's the back of MY head!!" Needless to say, today my connection with this event is quite different from when the photo was actually taken ........ simply because that's a photo of me. And I see a lot of other people that I know who are also in that photo.
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| This campaign launch photo was used in a mail-out letter. |
Therein lies the challenge.
Understanding How The Mind Works
Let's take a quick look at how our mind works in remembering things. Contrary to popular opinion, we don't visualize things in terms of binary logic - the ones-and-zeros used in the computer world. Instead, our mind operates with the visual ........ photos, graphics, videos, colours, etc. Visuals are like an anchor. They grab our attention and keep us focused on the message. Once our attention gets anchored, we keep scrolling down the page.
This means that visuals of all forms are very important in our modern-day digital media ....... websites, e-mails, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets. Research shows that posts with an image every 100-words-or-so result in 30 or more "shares" than those without an image. Visuals leave a more lasting impression ....... simply because that's how our mind works. It's still in the analog domain where we use the visual to plant memories in our minds.
And because visuals keep people scrolling down and reading our content, they take in more of what we're saying. They feel more compelled to share their positive experience with their friends simply because the visual has left a more lasting impresson than the written word alone ...... that old "a picture's worth a thousand words" impression.
Our mind retains 80% of what we see from the visual as compared to less than 20% for the written word. Add to the fact that over 65% of our population learns from the visual and you have an excellent reason for including visuals ....... whether it's photos, graphics, videos, and colour ....... in everything we do in digital media.
So let's get started.
Creating Memories & Engaging Your Volunteers
Here's something that's very easy to do. Every time a crew goes out on a canvass, snap a photo and post it on Twitter and Facebook. Include the names of the people. I find that simple little effort makes all the difference in the world for the morale and enthusiasm of the team.
First, I keep my eyes open for someone walking down the street and I ask them to take a photo. I gather up the team, move in close together so that everyone's included, and ask the walker to take 2 or 3 photos from different angles. Once the canvass is over and I'm back home, I post it on the group Facebook wall. I include the names of the team with some peppy comments (Never, ever, simply post a photo! Always include some kind of comment.) My objective is to get a conversation going with everyone who's on that Facebook wall, even if that conversation is only a "Seen By" or a "Like".
After a canvass, it's interesting to see the number of "Seen By's", "Likes", and "Comments". All of these views, likes, and comments are the "digital media" equivalent of the cheering section at a football game. Even if the post isn't "Liked" or "Commented" on by a lot of viewers, the fact that they took the time to look at the post shows they're interested in the conversation ....... they're interested in what's going on ...... much like a group of onlookers listening in on a 3-4-way conversation. While only 3 or 4 of us are talking and the rest may only be onlookers, they're definitely interested in the conversation. And who knows, a couple of them might just join in.
These posts provide the momentum to keep things going, to keep people interested in the campaign. It creates a "buzz" that things are happening.
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| Make sure you take those photos!! It creates a "buzz". |
You Need A Team - An Opportunity For Volunteer Engagement
One person can't do this alone. If you're it ...... a team of one .... you're gonna get fatigued real quick. Being in the moment, looking for things to post, requires creative juices and those juices can dry up real quick when you're the only person on the team. When that happens, your followers dry up real quick. And getting those followers back is next to impossible.
A team of one is not a team. You need 4-5 volunteers who all have the same frame of mind - looking out for those "being in the moment" moments - and posting them to the Facebook wall or tweeting out the tweets. And the team doesn't necessarily have to be on the lookout for those photographic moments. There's a lot of material from other Facebook walls that can be shared with your wall. Mainstream media articles, op-eds, Liberal party posts and a whole bunch of other sources can easily be shared with your followers. Have some of your team focus on those other sources.
Set the expectations. What are the do's and don'ts. What are other campaigns or riding associations doing? Where and how are you going to develop your sources of material? What kind of writing style and tone are you going to use when you make your posts? And a whole lot more questions that will arise as you gain more experience in this new medium.
We Fail To Ask The Fundamental Question
The challenge in using digital media, ..... whether it's Facebook, Twitter, or your website, ..... is ...... how is your campaign going to relate to people ..... to your volunteers, ...... to your supporters ....... and to the voters. Digital media presents an excellent opportunity to engage them in a way that we were never able to do before ...... in a way that's personalized, ...... that's social ........ and ........ that ultimately can be very meaningful ....... or not ....... for them. For ultimately digital media represents giving up control of your campaign content and delegating it to your volunteers and supporters ...... through posts on your Facebook wall ...... through comments on your blog ........ or tweets on Twitter. Not all campaigns are comfortable delegating this power back down the chain of command to a bunch of volunteers or even down to voters.
The decision to delegate is not a decision to be made by the IT guys. It's not even a decision to be made by the publicity-and-promotion folks. It's a decision to be made at the top level of the campaign ...... by the candidate and their inner circle. Because it's more than just an organizational change. It's a cultural change. And not all campaigns are prepared for that cultural change.
We have to answer the question ....... to what extent do we want our volunteers and supporters engaged and involved in our campaign.
That's something we'll discuss on the next post ...... Volunteer Engagement - A Strategy.
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In the meantime, what are your impressions of how we're using digital media in this election campaign? Are our campaigns organized to use digital media effectively in promoting our cause?How could we improve our use of digital media?
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