Twitter, an Incredible Search Engine

December 11, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News, Red Alert Dossier, Social Media

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.

Tags: hashtags, listening on twitter, operationr red state, political intelligence, red state, redstate, twitter, twitter search

UGC Through Social Media

May 11, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Social Media

As a businessperson what’s the one source of information you would pay anything to access? Your customers. As a politician, you should be thinking the same thing. Except, with social media, the only thing you need to pay is attention.

UGC is something you’ll see floating around there and if you don’t know what is you’re going to learn it’s the most important thing to your campaign if you want to use grassroots politics. UGC | User Generated Content.

I’ve touched on this once before but if your constituents don’t have an outlet to contribute to your message you will fail in the world of social media. The only thing you really need to learn though is how to build these outlets where they can contribute.

Facebook: Facebook groups and pages allow for tons of UGC. Through discussion pages and other applications you can give your followers access to contribute. Remember, it’s not always public by default. I haven’t checked lately since FB made all these changes, but you may have to go in manually and make your pages public or at the very least, public to an individual few you trust.

Twitter: This one is tough, especially for politicians. If you use ghost tweeter as a politician and people figure it out, your toast. While it’s okay for businesses and organizations to do this the Twitter-sphere doesn’t like it, and understandably so. Well, the best way to do it is through hashtags. Create a hashtag that your supporters can use in their tweets. This at least allows them to categorize their tweets as your supporters and their tweets will get indexed as such. You could also look into selecting some to set up second Twitter accounts they can use when tweeting about what you’re doing.

YouTube: Let your followers create videos and upload them to your YouTube profile. Afraid they might upload something bad, don’t, you can moderate them.

Blog: When you’ve identified some supporters you can trust, invite them to be contributors/authors and blog for you. Not only does this create UGC, but it creates a ton of content period which ultimately makes you more findable on the Internet.

UGC is crazy important. Find ways to give your constituents the chance to share and not just join the conversation, but start the conversation. Don’t for a second think your staffers count as UGC….they don’t.

Tags: facebook, hashtags, Social Media, twitter, UGC, user generated content, youtube

#Hashtags, Your Guide Through the Twitter Chaos

May 10, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News

WARNING (if you already know what hashtags are skip to paragraph three). What is the only way you rely on find anything on the web? Most of initially will think “Google.” But I didn’t ask where do you go to find anything on the web, I asked what is the only way you rely on. The answer: you search for it, and yes, you go to Google for that. For those of you not very familiar with the search process, to put it simply, Google and other search engines index the world wide web similar to the way your computer is indexed to make files more findable.

Twitter uses a unique way of searching which we’ve touched on before. They categorize their content with hashtags. The difference here is that those of us that use Twitter get to choose the categories. When I tweet I can use a hashtag anywhere in the tweet that would help others find it through a search. My favorite, aside from #ors of course, is #tcot. Top Conservatives On Twitter. To create a hashtag you simply use the pound sign in front of your letters. Another popular hashtag is #followfriday where you can search other’s recommendations on people to follow.

Now, why the heck am I telling you this? Hashtags can be used for two things. First, this is a way to represent yourself and to get your supporters to represent you. When they tweet about you they can simply add #votejohndoe which will index that tweet as yours. Second, you can use it to monitor. Look up your opposition’s hashtags. Look at your own. Know what people are saying about you. Listening on Twitter and other social sites is imperative so you can know what’s going on. When they say something about you that is bad, respond. When they say something good about you, show gratitude. If they aren’t saying anything about you, hire a new social media strategist, or just subscribe to ORS. Either way, you must listen to be effective and use hashtags to your advantage.

SEO for Twitter Search (phoenixrealm.com)
Twitter Is Sustainable (socialmediatoday.com)

Tags: Google, hashtags, searchability, twitter

Operation Red Ride for Conservatism

March 23, 2009 by Doug Mitchell · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News

ragbrairoute2009 There is perhaps NO other event across the fruited plains that says “Grassroots Movement” like RAGBRAI. For those of you unfamiliar, RAGBRAI is the “Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.” Typically, 15k-20k of your closest friends ride, camp and eat their way across the great state of Iowa. Well this year is different. We won’t have Lance Armstrong again because he’s doing a slightly different ride this year called the Tour de France.

So in conjuntion with the launch of OperationRedState, we’re putting on Operation Red Ride to rally conservative citizens and Congresspeople to share ideas, build realtionships, and find new ways to connect with each other through technology.

Those of us on Operation Red Ride will be using the Twitter hashtag #ORS along with #RAGBRAI to show our support, organize, and communicate during the ride. We’ll also have a support van providing RED Gatorade for our grassroots troops at the Operation Red Ride headquarters in each overnight town. Operation Red Ride jersey’s may be available as well if we get enough interest.

If you’d like to connect, please contact us directly at info@operationredstate.com. Otherwise, until then, stay in the loop and subscribe to our email or RSS updates.

Thank you for supporting Operation Red Ride 2009.

Tags: conservatives, grass roots, hashtags, Iowa, Opeation Red Ride, operation red state, ORS, RAGBRAI, Social Media

Conservative Tea Parties from the Twitter-sphere & Facebook

March 7, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · 1 Comment
Filed under: News, Social Media

It was just a while back I began seeing a plethora of fellow conservative tweeters calling for tea parties nationwide. While some have already occurred in locations like Chicago, D.C, and Denver there are still plans for a much grander tea party scheduled for Tax Day. How did this begin? Well, thank social media.

If you go to Hashtags.org or even just Twitter Search and search under #teaparty (#teaparties, #teapartys, #teaprty, #teapart, #teapartstream) you will see a number of Tweeters assisting in this movement. While many are attributing the “tea party revolution” to Santelli’s rant, these were being discussed even before then. There are Facebook groups popping up all over supporting the movement. You can actually go to www.taxdayteaparty.com and check out all the scheduled tea parties in your state. Some states aren’t quite there yet, like Iowa, but there is still plenty of time to locate the party nearest you or host one yourself.

Through these two social networks (Twitter & Facebook) they have been able to organize with sponsors like Michelle Malkin, Smart Girl Politics, #TCOT, and more. Without the tools social media provides this movement would have never had the opportunity to get this off the ground. They have received free publicity from a number of news networks, liberal/progressive bloggers have been ranting & raving “conspiracy theory,” and they’ve been able to leverage these tools to generate nationwide interest and participation. April 15th is more than a month away and you’ll see Texas already has six teaparties hosted and scheduled in different cities.

Conservatives have always been known as the “think tank” types that don’t rally & don’t protest. This only enhances the significance of the tea party movement. Conservatives are obviously sick and tired of pork, trillions of dollars of debt, and encouraging the entitlement culture. Granted, spending over the last 8 years hasn’t been much different. We had seen the largest expansion of government in our Nation’s history under President Bush.

While we don’t deny this fact, conservatives are not willing to continue this executive shopping spree for another 4 years under President Obama. We’re no longer willing to support our government’s rejection of fiscal responsibility.

The question was posed on Twitter just the other day, what if China calls our Nation’s debt? Quick to reply, one tweeter said, “Time to get the Lincoln bedroom ready for the big sellout.” Others said we could just change our country’s name to “The United States of America, powered by China.”

Again, while many liberal commentators have downplayed the results of the tea parties we’ve seen thus far, I’m quite sure that the nationwide Tax Day Tea Party will be one that can’t be ignored. Why you ask? Social Media. It’s what we’ve been blogging about all along. We’re past the days of radio ads, telemarketing, and television ads. While those have a purpose on the campaign trail social media represents action. TV, radio, & news represent reaction. We are finally using grassroots politics to change our Nation. Let Kirk Shinkle of US News know that this IS A NOBLE STAND!