YouTube’s New Search Stories
Wednesday YouTube launched their Search Stories videos similar to the one Google aired on a commercial during this years Super Bowl. Search Stories allows you to use six search terms under seven or so categories to create some really cool videos.
If there hasn’t been much news about you or you don’t post anything online then this may not be very useful, but for those of you that are, check out our two samples below. Pretty soon this type of stuff will get old so, we at Operation Red State would rather be the ones that killed it and enjoyed it while it’s still new 
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Enjoy!
Analytics should run your eCampaign
I’m a metrics freak. I love analytics. Every tool I use has some sort of measurement figure that enables me to make good decisions that will have positive impacts and adapt to change. Analytics SHOULD run your eCampaign, not gut feeling or perception. The numbers are always right.
Let me give you an example. As you saw from my last post, content distribution is insanely important. The question is, where do you distribute your content? What media outlets to you most aggressively send your press releases? Is it based on that sites traffic demographics? Is it based on their traffic count? What is it based on?
Enough with the rhetorical questions. It comes down to this. It’s all, some and none of those. The solution you’re looking for is the site that drives people to your site AND to the pages on your site that are most important for them to see. We’ve heavily leveraged analytics in all our work. In one of the campaigns we are working on, the results are astounding. Of the three main competitors here are the monthly traffic levels:
Candidate 1: From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 they had 185 visits to their website.
Candidate 2: From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 they had 815 visits to their website.
Our Candidate: From 1/20/2010 to 2/20/2010 we had 1,610 visits to their website.
Recently we had a blog post on their site that received 218 unique visitors. That one blog post had 18% more traffic than Candidate 1’s site. How? Effective distribution that was identified through rigorous analytics. Our data was able to tell us what sites gave us the most referrals, which gave us the best referrals, which referred people to the pages we wanted them to view. We can figure out anything and everything via analytics. Whether it’s analytics on Facebook where we can independently measure click through rates or whether it’s on Twitter? It doesn’t matter because we have the infrastructure built to handle analytics on everything we do. Thanks to analytics, our candidate OWNS the eCampaign in his race.
The lesson here is this: Don’t just trust your gut. Don’t just trust perception. Trust the numbers because they justify gut and perception.
How to win your race with technology
Filed under: Campaign Technology, local politics
Today I’m talking to those of you that run in those statewide races that are won primarily on name recognition. Races like Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of State, etc. These are very important positions but are almost always over-shadowed by popular gubenatorial and congressional races. They don’t spend nearly as much money and they don’t raise as much money either. This makes it difficult to manage, especially in states like Iowa with 99 counties!
So the answer to winning is a combination of two things:
- Be competent and know what you’re talking about (people know a fool when they see one)
- Get your name out there
For most people the second is the more difficult of the two. To do this there are three things you need to focus on to be successful in spreading your name.
- Video: You MUST leverage video. Video is both highly searched and easy for any demographic to view. Furthermore, we’ve given you EVERYTHING you need to produce better-quality video on our blog and you can do it everywhere you are. I’ve been asked more than once, “Usually when I’m in front of groups I give my stump speech. Which basically means if I record myself I’ll be recording the same thing over and over again. So why do I need to record every event?” The point is not to just hear what you have to say. It’s to see the people listening to you. See their reactions. You shouldn’t ever upload your entire speech anyways more than once. So take soundbites, create commercials, segment your videos into issue categories. Use video. At your events you or someone on your campaign should be walking around asking supporters why they are going to vote for you. Ask “soon-to-be” supporters what matters most to them in your race. Be creative. Video is the top of the totem-pole and I have yet to see anyone fully leverage it.
- Blogging: Yes, I’m going to beat this dead horse into non-existence. I love what we’ve done with Dave Funk’s campaign. We didn’t design the site but have helped his campaign with content strategy. If you go to his issues page you’ll see a list of 12 or so important issues. Now, obviously we don’t’ want pages and pages of positions on each issue. No one wants to read that much. So we’ve taken small excerpts that cover the general idea but links to a blog category. So every time Dave blogs about Taxes and Spending, you can click on the issues page link for Taxes and Spending and see an archived list of EVERYTHING he’s ever blogged about on that topic. It’s organized, and it gives everyone the level of content they want. That’s step one. Step two is to distribute your content effectively. Sending it to the masses. Your race may only be statewide but remember, in-bound links are important. Publish your content on large networks. We have targeted sites we use for Funk’s campaign and even the most obscure & bland posts get more than 50 clicks easy. So create your content, organize your content and effectively distribute your content.
- Email Marketing: Go and get an effective email marketing tool. Almost every demographic is using this tool. This is equal to Facebook and Twitter in importance when you campaign. This is a way to reach almost every demographic in one simple outlet. Use a good email marketing system that allows you to customize your email blasts, automatically pull in your blog feed and allows you to build customized sign up forms for your website, Facebook and anywhere on the web.
These tools are key. Just because you do them doesn’t guarantee you success, however, if you effectively leverage these three things and distribute them properly you are looking at unprecedented success in your campaign. Remember, you need to create content, organize content and almost more importantly, effectively distribute content.
Blue Swarm launches Facebook Donation Application
Filed under: News, Red Alert Dossier
Well, it’s the tool we’ve all been waiting for. A way to process transactions without ever having to leave Facebook. With Facebook being the largest and most active of social networks it was only a matter of time before this came around, but now we have this great tool offered to Blue Swarm clients. I’ve gone ahead and recorded a screen cast on setting it up. Sorry, it’s not very formal, I just threw it together so we could start using it in one of our client’s campaigns which you’ll also notice. Nonetheless, you’ll see it’s still a great tool that you can leverage to maximize the donation potential of each and every fan and friend on Facebook. The great thing about it that I immediately fell in love with is the fact that ANYONE can add a DONATION tab to their personal Facebook page. That’s right! You can literally have hundreds and thousands of Facebook users raising money for you with little to no effort on their part. Watch the screen casting below and hopefully you can get started as soon as possible on this innovative tool.
If the Flash video player isn’t working go ahead and click here to watch the WMV version on Windows Media Player.
CLICK THE MAGNIFYING GLASS IN THE LOWER RIGHT OF THE PLAYER TO GO FULL SCREEN/ZOOM IN
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
Build Your Own Video & Audio Production Studio and Portable Streaming Video Kit for Your Campaign
Filed under: Campaign Technology, Red Alert Dossier
Part I – Audio
Your campaign should be using video and a lot of it. Campaign video can build a reputation and a defense against baseless attacks from the competition. Video also helps you build your brand. Just check out the latest stats from Comscore on Youtube and you’ll find that 33.2 billion video views occurred in 2009. That’s 100% growth between January ‘09 and December ‘09. Still not convinced? I’m guessing you agree with what I’ve said so far…but you just don’t know where to start.
I understand. It is overwhelming when you haven’t done video as a habit before. Let’s chisel away at your road blocks one at a time. Today we’re going to look at the audio component.
Wireless Lapel or Lavalier Microphone:
Why use an external mic when my camera has one? Bottom line..the mics built into camera are awful. They do the trick if the subject is close enough but you can really raise your production bar by using an external mic. Obviously this means your camera must be able to accept an external input. Most Canon’s have a mic jack even at the low level. MOST non-HD cheap camcorders today have eliminated the mic jack and the famous FLIP HD does NOT have a jack. There is a place for Flip cams and we’ll talk about that when we release the video portion of this series. Flip UltraHD Camcorder, 120 Minutes (Black)
Why wireless? Here’s the super double bonus. If you buy this wireless Shure lapel mic, you can also use it when you do your streaming of events using Ustream.tv or Livestream.com on the campaign trail. You won’t have to rely on yucky mics built into computers or trying to patch into a sound system. You simply plug the wireless mic base station right into the MIC JACK on the laptop and you’re good to go. This works incredibly well. Just be sure to bring a bunch of 9V batteries because the power pack you wear requires this size and it can eat batteries if you use it a lot.
Using a wireless lapel mic with your camera and during streaming will prevent issues like we saw in the beginning of this Mike Cox 2010 review I did. These guys are smart and they know how to fix what’s going on there with the audio (watch for a couple minutes)…but you’ll get the idea.
This rugged and affordable Shure wireless mic system is really at the entry point of good equipment and I’ve found nothing else that matches its performance at any lower price. There are cheaper options from what I’ve seen…but reports from many freelancers I’ve spoken with don’t bode well for them.
Shure Wireless Lavalier System PG14/PG185 – Wireless audio delivery system
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