Is SEO a Waste of Time in Running an Online Campaign?

SEO. Search Engine Optimization.  What is it and why do you need it?  SEO, long story short, is a method of strategically using keywords, links and more to increase the findability of your website via search engines.  When I say search engines, I don’t just mean Google, Yahoo, Bing, etcetera.  I mean any search function whether it’s Google alerts or even a news aggregator like Newsvine.  All search functions have algorithms, some more extensive than others, that allow you to search based on keywords and other  criteria.

So if the purpose of SEO is to make your site, your online brand, your online you, more findable via searches, does it really serve a purpose in politics?  The reason I mention this is because how much of a politicians traffic is driven through direct referrals like a Twitter or Facebook account and how much traffic is generated organically through searches?

I’m not sure I’m able to fully answer that question.  Certainly if I wanted to know who was running for City Council in West Des Moines, IA I may simply search, “City Council” & “West Des Moines, IA.”  Obviously being findable is important in this case but honestly, my search query is so specific that I think I’d find them with or without them optimizing their websites with SEO.  The only case it would make a difference is if you wanted your site to pop up first in the results before the competition’s sites.  That said, internal SEO does help.  Utilizing effective tags on your pages and posts make your site more searchable and user friendly.  If I wanted to know what your stance was on a local sales tax increase I can hopefully search, ’sales tax,’ internally on your site and locate all your comments and opinions on the topic.

Without getting too far off topic I’d like to talk about what I feel is more important than SEO.  Some SEO “geeks” may fault me here saying this is included in SEO but I really couldn’t care less.  It’s called content management.  What is content management?  Well, it’s the production, optimization, distribution and promotion of content.  You’ve read this here before about the insanity of brochure websites.  Why?  Because they don’t manage content.  They don’t create and integrate multiple content distribution outlets that offer ubiquity for you and your message in the online world.  What it comes down to is the fact that you must be blogging, posting images, uploading video, responding and engaging your constituency to make your eCampaign work.  Not a bunch of hidden keywords (which most search engines don’t pay attention to anyways).

A business client of ours sent us a 10-point checklist of SEO tips they received that explain how one could improve their website and, of course, boost their sales.  Of the 10 points I think approximately seven or eight were either the creation or distribution of content.  So by merely blogging and sending it to the right content outlets for all to see  you are 70% of the way there according to these tips.  Quite frankly, I would consider you 99% of the way there.

Again, while many out there would find flaws in my analysis I firmly believe that your campaign should first ignore the technical side of SEO and focus more on content management.  When you have accomplished this maybe you can start hiring SEO consultants but quite frankly, our clients get most of their traffic from effectively targeted followings on social networks.  Not from organic searches.  In all candor, this type of traffic is more effective anyways because they are more likely to be people looking for you or your message, not people that have stumbled their way on to your site while looking for something completely different.  Call me a misinformed moron for saying, but it is what it is.

eCampaign Support via Facebook Fandom

I read this article earlier that made me chuckle.  Long story short, in Canada, there is apparently a looming Teachers’ Strike.  So students from 11 Ontario Colleges planned a walkout at the same time in protest of this strike.  So what did they do?  They had a Facebook Fan Page, DUH!

So on this Facebook Fan Page they gained 22,000 fans.  Quite a number.  They than had  petition, likely distributed through Facebook, that had 4,000 signatures.  Of all these numbers, only 356 students agreed to the walkout.  So the time arrives to walkout and protest and what happens?  (Do you hear the chirping birds?)  Nothing happened. The National Post’s Kelly McParland reported  that,

“Graeme McNaughton, founder of the antistrike Facebook group, said he had found volunteers at 11 colleges who were willing to lead student walkouts. In the end, however, turnout was meagre, and in no case exceeded 20 people.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I find this incredibly funny.  Here you have “activist” college students trying to fight a cause and get incredible online support.  In reality though, only 18% of their fans were willing to sign a petition, 1.618% agreed to walkout and assuming the maximum quoted above (20 per location)  a whopping 1.09% actually did anything.  The National Post reported that one school had a whole student (yes, singular, it’s not a typo) walk out and deliver the petition to the admin offices.  HA!

Lesson?  Just because you have a lot of fans means nothing.  I was actually reading from The Iowa Republican and the Bleeding Heartland and saw a comment by the same commenter that was bleeding with ignorance.  He/She concluded that because one candidate had quadruple the numbers of anyone else running that he would win.  The funniest thing is that he can’t add because one of the other candidates had twice as many as his beloved candidate.

When you’re running your campaign there are two things: Don’t think you lack support because you only have few fans on Facebook and don’t think you’ve got it in the bag because you have a gazillion fans.  In a lot of cases you’d be better off having 20,000 gremlins become fans than having 20,000 actual fans.  (Because gremlins are sneaky, just don’t put them in the microwave;)

So what’s the point of being a fan?  Engagement.  You need to engage.  If I have 100 fans that I am constantly engaging versus someone with 10,000 fans they never engage, I am better off and have a stronger following.  It’s not about fandom, it’s about engagement.  So as you run your online eCampaig remember that even if you rise to the elite of Facebook Fandom, if it’s only based on quantity, not quality, you’re support is utterly worthless.

Government 2.0 versus Citizen 2.0

We’ve all heard quite a bit about Government 2.0 the past 20 months or so and the question is still out there – Is Government 2.0 possible?  Government 2.0 is the concept of “collaborative government.”  One where our representatives can execute their responsibilities via the web.  This could be taken as far as allowing Congress to vote remotely out of their offices in their districts or as simple as automating information distribution via the web.  One area where our Iowan SOS Mike Mauro has dropped the ball is not allowing businesses to organize or incorporate via the Internet.

To the degree in which some people would like, full fledged Government 2.0 is either impossible or a long ways away.  It may be impossible because Government is never efficient.  It’s definitely a long ways away because we’ve got a bunch of old people running the show.

What IS possible is Citizen 2.0.  Citizen 2.0 is the activist side of politics.  Via the web every individual can express what they want in a variety of venues.  How does this relate to your campaign?  Stop thinking in terms of Government 2.0 and start thinking in terms of Citizen 2.0.  Government 2.0 is what Obama practiced.  He declared greater transparency through the Internet, he has his team TIGR and everything.  Well, we’ve all seen how that worked out.  Instead you need to focus on driving online activism.  Create an environment that facilitates the creation of Citizen 2.0 and engage with those individuals.  This is the key to winning the eCampaign.

The Ambiguous Donation

I was reading some blogs today and came across a great article from Hotair.com about the Massachusetts US Senate race between Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley who is only leading Republican State Senator Scott Brown by a mere 11 points.  Which for Massachusetts, a state where Obama won by 23 points, is pretty darn good considering there are still ten campaigning months left.  In the post the author placed an appeal to donate to Brown’s campaign.  An appeal I’d second as that would be a huge win for us.  But that’s not my point.

Directly below, I was perusing the comments to this post.  Sure enough the second one said,

“I fanned him on Facebook. That’s like a contribution right?”

With the emergence of Social Media (SM) the definition of a donation seems to be skewed.  I’ve noticed this with other campaigns as well.  People are beginning to remove the $$ from the definition of “Campaign Donation” and replacing it with any action from volunteering to “fanning” them on Facebook.  This in fact, is wrong!

Fund raising is key for any campaign, DUH!  Yes, volunteering your time is good, but let’s be honest, I can reach a heck of a lot more people through a TV ad or even a tweet than I will from you knocking on five blocks of homes.  Not only that, but they are less intrusive as well.  Don’t get me wrong.  Volunteering is vital for a successful campaign but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to donate.  That said, you as a candidate should not expect them to not donate because they are volunteering.

It’s simple marketing.  You need to ALWAYS be asking people for donations until they’ve given you the maximum funding the law allows.  Remind them at every turn.  Money may not be the exclusive force that wins campaigns but I promise, it sure does help.

As a campaign you need to be strategizing all the time on how you can generate more funds through your daily actions.  How can you remind people all the time without looking like a loser?  It varies from area to area so figure it out.  Our clients are finding success in different ways and with SM you have many more avenues for generating those funds.

Like I said, don’t let your supporters get away with thinking that fanning your Facebook page is sufficient.  If they want real change than they MUST donate.  Even if it’s just a dollar.  I don’t care how much.  Obviously the more the merrier but anything and everything helps.

Twitter, an Incredible Search Engine

Well, we’ve done it again. Today we just launched another fantastic course on “Listening on Twitter.” For those of you that had tuned in last night to the Red Alert Hour you may have heard me say, “Twitter is one of the most powers search engines on the web.” In a world of Google, Yahoo and Bing you would think not much can compete. Well, if you search is news related or business/political anything Twitter may be the first place you want to stop.

Twitter is generating more content than any website I have ever seen. Okay. So maybe it’s not the original outlet of the content so it’s not really “generating” it but it is one of the most popular venues online to share this content. Seriously. Twitter had the following Google did it would blow Google out of the water in terms of searchability.

Why do I say that? Twitter has created the perfect search and share environment. It’s like a peer to peer content sharing site. Imagine LimeWire or Napster (back when it was free, years ago) but instead of music, pics and videos you are sharing links and information, legally . Furthermore, Twitter has provided a fantastic search mechanism, hashtags. I’m not going to explain hashtags because I’ve done that enough. But everything and anything is findable on Twitter.

All of that said (I noticed I say that a lot) here’s why this matters. Imagine the benefits of leveraging this tool to gather campaign intelligence. To understand what your listeners feel about issues. By leveraging Twitter you can move your campaign to the level it needs to be at to win your next election. Fortunately, there are applications that have been provided by third party developers that make listening on Twitter incredibly simple.

Find out more by subscribing to ORS, remember, it’s only $97 a quarter….for now.

Listening on Twitter

This course has been designed as a way to help you listen on Twitter.  Twitter has thousands of applications that do a variety of things but when it comes down to it, being able to listen clearly through the clutter is by far your most powerful tool.  Listening to Twitter can be a difficult task so we’ll take you through some tools that you can use to optimize your “listen-ability” while saving as much time as possible.  There are also certain programs out there you can use to aggregate the functionality of some of these tools.

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2012 Iowa Caucus

I can’t believe this but I’m already amped up for the 2012 Iowa Caucuses! I know that’s it’s years away…but really when you live life in election cycles it’s not that far off.  Will this be the year that you go out and ensure that we don’t have another vote for “Change” or “The guy who might be a little better than the guy with all that social media prowess”.  You’re looking to vote for PEOPLE not PARTIES right?  So make sure when you huddle around your candidates sign in the Democrat caucuses or write a name on a piece of paper on the Republican caucus side remember where we are.  Remember what got us here. And, KNOW what you can do about it.  Vote.  Vote in smart people who will lead and won’t waiver.  Vote in realism.  Vote in favor of the constitution.

The Authentic Tweet

I’ve had this discussion recently with a few different people and I feel the need to blog about it.  As I’ve alluded to in recent posts there are many marketers out there that feel an authentic tweet is not yours if it’s not you.  It was Spring, I believe, of this year when Twitter was all a rage because everyone found out that Guy Kawasaki, an online genius, used multiple ghost-tweeters.  There were people I saw that unfollowed him for that vary reason.  Seriously.  Despite the fact that he generates some of the best content out there, not to mention a phenomenal site, AllTop.com, they unfollow him because it’s not always HIM who’s tweeting.  Frankly, I find this obnoxious and unreasonable.

There are business people out there who have Twitter accounts they use for marketing purposes.  So, among the million things a business owner has to do during the day (hire, fire, taxes, scheduling, managing, servicing, repairing, maintenance, paperwork, and you know the list would go on and on and on and on) some people have the audacity to expect them to be the one and true voice on Twitter.  I’m sorry.  That’s not rational and you are not rational for thinking this way.

So the argument typically continues like this.  “Well, politicians represent themselves on Twitter so they should be the one interacting, posting, etc on Twitter.”  Is that so?  Since when did a politician represent themselves?  HAHAHAHA.  I know.  I see that too.  Let me rephrase that.  Since when did a strong, conservative candidate only represents themselves?  A politician represents an organization…a movement…a constituency.  @VoteForMe is not a person but a representation of something much, much bigger.  It is not vital that you spend 20 hours a week blogging, tweeting, updating on Facebook and sending text blasts.  If you do I’m afraid you’re going to lose because that’s 20 hours you don’t get to spend IRL (in real life) in front of the people you seek to represent.  Hiring a ghost tweeter is NOT a bad thing.  I don’t care what people say.  They obviously have never run a campaign or they do this type of thing for a living which affords them the opportunity to spend 20 hours in Twitter.

Does that mean you don’t have to ever tweet?  No.  You still need to communicate.  You still need to interact.  Just use common sense.  IT’S NOT THAT HARD!  Stop over thinking it.  Go out and find someone (like us ) that knows what they’re doing and get it DONE!

Drive Campaign Sales!

Today I joined Doug for the Red Alert Hour and we discussed a few things I really want to extrapolate on.  It really is amazing how few people get it.  Not just in politics but even in business.  People assume that because it’s called social media it is meant to be only ’social.’  They think that these online communication venues are only meant for interaction.  Why is it that communication within the world of social media is constrained to be defined strictly as ‘friendly interaction?’ Are television ads not communication?  Are radio ads not communication?  Heck, are newspaper ads not communication?

I bring this up for a very good reason.  You see….political AND many social media consultants aren’t saying that selling (fund-raising) through social media is pointless.  Rather, they are saying DON’T DO IT!  They say it’s against all that social media stands for.  They say it’s not authentic.  This REALLY erks me.  Let me share why.

Social media STILL follows all the basic marketing principles.  How does my tweeting back and forth with you about the weather going to make you give me your hard earned cash?  IT DOESN’T! It does make you think I’m a nice guy to chat with, but that’s it.  I’m not just saying this – I’ve experienced this with past clients.  You need a call to action. You need to tell them why you are online.  If you are on Facebook and Twitter just to chat…more power to you.  But don’t complain when your sales aren’t going up or you haven’t hit the level of funds you need for your campaign.

Social media IS selling. It’s selling yourself.  It’s selling products.  It’s selling services.  It’s selling oppportunities.  It’s selling and selling and selling and selling.  Get the point?  The argument they always give me is that you need to brand.  Yeah.  So what?  You tell me what good branding is if you aren’t going to sell what you have to offer.  Wait.  You don’t have to because I already know it’s useless.

So get ready, here’s what it takes.  Branding and selling need to be simultaneous acts through social media. You have mere seconds to position yourself, peak interest, coerce a click and motivate your viewer with a call to action. That’s right.  In a matter of seconds.  It’s shorter than TV and radio.  This is done through content generation.  Provide your viewers with valuable content and ALWAYS remind them to donate funds to your campaign.  There are some strategies we use at OperationRedState and of course you’ll have to sign up to find out what .  But it really does come down to the fact that if you are ONLY conversing with your following don’t expect anything to happen.

People don’t vote for friends.  They vote for leaders.  They vote for people they know will stand up for what their constituents believe in.  They vote for people that communicate with them and ask for their help, both monetary and through actions.

You aren’t online to be their friend and frankly, I don’t want to be your friend.  If you are then that’s all you’ll ever be – the friend that keeps running for office but seldom wins.  You are online to lead.  Show me your a leader.  I dare you!

Social Media has Reached it’s Tipping Point in the World

The other day an article came out from StrategyEye.com. In a recent survey half of all businesses in the sample said “they are not spending enough online and 86% say they plan to increase their social media budget in 2010.”  While this article is in the context of business the concepts involved a very much the same for you politicians.

We said it was going to happen and it finally will begin full throttle (as though it wasn’t growing fast enough anyways). Social Media adoption among campaigns and organizations is vital, however many are unsure of how to get there. Whether it’s a lack of resources, lack of know-how or for many organizations, a lack of time.

The study went on to say “many firms are struggling to make the most of social media, with 54% saying a lack of resources is the biggest obstacle to better engagement. Less than a quarter of those surveyed say they can see a ‘tangible’ return on their investment. Just under two-thirds say they have gained ‘more benefit’ from their social media spend ‘but nothing concrete’.”

The hardest thing I’ve seen from marketing and social media consultants is that when they go into an organization to help develop a social media campaign it’s always about branding and rarely about selling. In a political context we are still selling.  Branding gives you a position.  Selling gives your target a “call to action” that is, TO RAISE MONEY!!!  It seems it’s always about conversing with your consumers and less about SELLING.  Both are in fact, necessary.

Even if you just entered a race, yes, branding is important, but if you don’t have enough cash to stay in the race your brand means nothing. If selling is not a part of your social media adoption than you will not reap tangible returns as mentioned above in the study.

People get really confused when I tell them I do social media change management. It’s because they are hell-bent on the idea that social media is something you “register” for and you’re off.

Before you have your next meeting with your political team or the consultants you work with ask yourself this question and then ask it to them:

“How will social media transform real work into real money?”

Simple as that. How is social media going to increase your fund raising ability? How is it going to get you that extra hundred, thousand or even ten-thousand dollars every week? How is it going to making your campaign stronger tomorrow? These are questions they should have answered the first time you entered the online arena and if they cannot answer them now, you need to look elsewhere for help.

If you don’t you’ll fall into this category of campaign or organization:

“‘While an increasing number of companies are embracing social media, many are struggling to effectively manage their engagement,’ says Phil Gripton, managing director of bigmouthmedia UK. ‘They are consequently failing to make the most of a potentially enormous opportunity.’”

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