Government 2.0 versus Citizen 2.0

January 8, 2010 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Red Alert Dossier, Social Media

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.

Tags: activists, citizen 2.0, government 2.0, Iowa, Mike Mauro, politics, president obama

The Dems Push Back with Social Media

April 29, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News

To mark President Obama’s first 100 days as President he visited a small town in Missouri. This just happens to also be where the Dems are making a second push with social media to win over the minds of the people. Organize for America. Sounds great, right? No, this is just another Democrat grass roots movement that is being employed because of recent opposition.

USA Today put out on article today stating that Organize for America is using social media as a way to expand Obama support nationwide through grass roots efforts.

So far they have held 11 community meetings and Patricia Justice, Ph.D student from St. Louis says “I have not seen something of this magnitude.” The article’s author calls the movement a “first-of-its-kind effort.”

Seriously?! First of it’s kind? You’ve seen nothing like it? All because of 11 meetings and 600,000 supporters (they didn’t report how many of them were actual tax payers . There largest meeting thus far had an entire 200 people attend. Impressive. Especially compared to the 20,000 tea party protesters in St. Louis back on April 15th.

In all seriousness though, this movement is supposed to be grassroots. There is no link to a Facebook page. There is no link to a Twitter handle. There is no link to a website. There is nothing that shows a serious 21st century grassroots movement of any kind or the development of an online presence.

Grassroots movements in the 21st century encompass a powerhouse combination of social media and IRL (in real life) interaction. It’s about creating a two-way conversation that can be held online or face to face. The Tax Day tea parties are a perfect example even though the drive-by media is still somewhat unwilling to recognize its impact . First, we know we made an impact otherwise the left wouldn’t be scrambling like they are. Second, we haphazardly created this two-way conversation. There were websites, Twitter pages, Facebook groups, and more, that were entirely devoted to this single event. This naturally was picked up on the donkey blogs and drive-by media. Through this we were able to reach out to even more support. That is a grassroots movement at its best. It may have started out as some haphazard movement online but it’s becoming increasingly popular for conservatives to participate online. Now, it’s a strategy and one that will work.

Orlando Tea Party, Re-Setting the Stage for Tax Day!

March 27, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News

I’m sure most of you are aware of Tax Day Tea Parties that will be occurring nationwide on April 15th. If you aren’t sure where yours is or are interested in hosting one check here.

Orlando hosted a Saturday Tea Party and Police said it reached approximately 4,200 protesters. What were they protesting? Well here are their signs:

“Repeal the Pork or our Bacon is Cooked”
“Obama Lied, Liberty Died”
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”
“You can’t blame Bush anymore”
“Have Shovel, Where’s Bridge?”

They had a number of speakers covering the obvious topics, socialism, the economy, and the Bush/Obama failouts, er, bailouts that is. What really excites me about these pre-tax day tea parties is that the protestors have a purpose. One of the attendees was quoted in the Orlando Sentinel saying,

“The goal was to get people united, to let people know that they aren’t alone in their feelings on despair,”[...]“We want to speak out against the push toward socialization that we feel is taking place in our country.”

This is how America feels. Can this be ignored? No matter what the donkey bloggers say. Despite the tingling feelings Keith Olbermann & Chris Matthews get. No matter what, our country will be taken back. Government was made by the people and will be taken back by the people. You can’t stop us. This conservative grass roots movement is one that will mark history. It’s not about Democrats & Republicans. I am neither. I am American. I am conservative. I believe in something more than just Bush’s erratic spending habits and Obama’s Chicago style politics, and I think you do too. Let’s not let them be more of the same and show up to the nearest Tax Day Tea Party near you.

Tags: bailouts, chris matthews, keith olbermann, Orlando Sentinel, President Bush, president obama, tax day, Tea Party

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!

Tea Party U.S.A.: The movement grows (michellemalkin.com)
The Drudge Report Meets Twitter: The TCOT Report (bhc3.wordpress.com)
Denver Tea Party – a set on Flickr (tsurch.com)
The ‘Tea Party’ goes national (hsh.com)

Tags: #TCOT, #teaparties, #teaparty, bailouts, conservatives, facebook, hashtags, kirk shinkle, michell malkin, National Debt, President Bush, president obama, Rick Santelli, smart girl politics, Social Media, social networking, Stimulus, stimulus package, taxdayteaparty.com, Tea Party, twitter, twitter search, US News

Glenn Beck: The US Collapse of 2009

February 26, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News

Glenn Beck has done an incredible job of showing the devaluation of the US dollar since we left the gold standard. This is something we all need to hear and something we all need to share. Democrat or Republican, we are digging ourselves a grave that may be too deep to climb out of. Call your Senator & Congressional Representative & let them know we can’t afford this anymore.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

Tags: barack obama, Glenn Beck, gold standard, president obama, stimulus plan, US dollar, youtube

Purchasing Power of Social Media

February 25, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · 1 Comment
Filed under: Campaign Technology, Social Media

I was pilfering through my Google Alerts today and found some interesting stats I had never seen. We all are well aware of the success of the Obama campaign with social media. The numbers though are astounding if you look at four of the major social networks.

These stats were compiled courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang’s blog.

Internet Usage in United States

United States Population: 303,824,646
Internet Usage: 220,141,969
Penetration rate: 72.5%
Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9%

Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson)

Facebook

Obama: 2,379,102 supporters
McCain: 620,359 supporters
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161
McCain: Friends: 217,811
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993
Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain

Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers
McCain: @JohnMcCain 4,603 followers*
Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

Obama won the Presidential elections.

We were not just beat, we were left in the dust. Imagine if each individual that was following contributed just $100 to his campaign. Just from Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, and Twitter, assuming no repeat users, Obama would have raised $343,929,600! Let’ look at the actual dollar amounts raised according to the Federal Election Commission.

Obama raised a total of $744.9 million | McCain raised a total of $346.6 million

Here is how it happened. If you check out FEC.gov you’ll see breakdowns of donation amounts. 45% of Obama’s total contributions were $200 or less. Guess what the amount was….$334,636,346; very close to our previously calculated $343,929,600. Obviously the assumptions behind my calculation are inaccurate but I have read that President Obama had around 8.5 million followers across all social networks & his website. That would mean each follower would only have to contribute $39.37. That’s not much. Again, this is based on the assumption that those who donated $200 or less all followed online.

This is the power of social media.

On the other hand, contributions of $200 or less for McCain were merely 18.5% of his overall contributions.

It is blatantly clear that social media is a powerful and progressing force in the political arena and NO candidate on any level of government can afford to ignore or underuse these tools.

Furthermore, NO candidate can afford to use them incorrectly.

By leveraging social media tools in your campaign…no matter the level (local/state/national) you will raise more money, reach more people, increase your capacity to influence others, and position yourself such that you will always know what your constituents want.
That’s a winning formula.