K Street Cafe

Cross-posted on Adfero.com

A recent study found that the majority of businesses now have a social media strategy. Really? A true social media strategy? I’m not buying it.

The study I am referring to found, when interviewing 450 senior management and marketing professionals, that 72% of the respondents claimed to have a social media strategy.

I have two beefs with this study. The first is with the methodology. Who are the 450 executives? Are they from large or small businesses? How were they selected? In order to find out, one must give their contact information to the sponsoring firm so they can download the report. No thank you.

The second problem with the study is that many confuse strategy and tactics. I have no doubt, based on experience working with organizations large and small, that many have adopted social media tactics. But tactics are very different than strategy.

(more…)

Written by Kate Kaye, ClickZ Politics & Advocacy

Political campaigns are stuck on Facebook, and one Washington, D.C.-based digital consultancy aims to help them put engagement on the social site to use in more ways than simply collecting “likes.” Republican agency Engage has developed a set of tools for combining Facebook, social games, and Foursquare-style action-based incentives to driven online and offline activism.

Corporate brands from restaurants to retailers have taken to Foursquare, Gowalla, and other location-based services to capitalize on the check-in fad, awarding consumers with special symbols displaying their visitation prowess, and often with discounts or freebies. Engage’s Multiply product isn’t exactly a check-in service, but it takes a cue from those mobile-centric loyalty programs to build community and inspire activism for door-to-door canvassing, fundraising events, get-out-the-vote efforts, and other key activities driving political campaigns. The tools allow campaigns to attach a system for awarding prize points and badges to their sites, and connect with Facebook’s social graph to encourage sharing among supporters’ social networks.

The notion of awarding incentives to super-supporters is nothing new. The Democratic and Republican parties, as well as individual campaigns often honor their big fundraisers – if not just with cool names and bragging rights, than with parties or other prizes.
The tool helps campaigns track individual volunteer actions, virtual and in-person – from sharing a link on Facebook or donating cash to door-knocking. “The actions that score points and the number of points are flexible from organization to organization,” said Mindy Finn, a partner at Engage. Staffers can make note of who performs a real-world task and upload that information to the system, which in turn awards points. “For example, if there was a phone bank at headquarters, [you could] award 50 points to anyone who attended,” said Finn.

While points and badges are rewards for volunteers, data is the primary reward for campaigns. As the Multiply page on Engage’s site states, “User scores let you target your supporters by likelihood to take action – tied to their phone number, email, and Facebook ID.” The firm is pushing its Data Manager upgrade, which allows campaigns to “collect form data on your site and score every single action or form submission.” Part of the Engage pitch also involves volunteers registering with Multiply.

To read the entire article on ClickZ, click here.

Originally published on Epolitics.com

Update: See also Kate Kaye’s earlier coverage at ClickZ.

Politico’s Morning Tech column has highlighted a clever use of mobile advertising in last week’s Florida primaries:

As the Sunshine State headed to the polls yesterday, down-ballot candidates bought Google online ads on mobile geo-targeted to specific districts, hoping to capture people who are doing last-minute research while waiting in line at the polls. Democratic State Senator and Attorney General hopeful Dan Gelber, who easily won his primary, used mobile Google ads for a 24-hour blitz on primary day. Lisa Small, likely soon to be declared winner of her circuit court judge race, also used the strategy, Google told us.

(more…)

America’s fiscal crisis is fueling activism in cities and town across America where Tea Party rallies shine the light on our national debt and out-of-control government spending. But there’s also a revolution happening online, particularly with web videos that tell the story of an economically challenged country.

Debt, spending and taxes don’t exactly translate into blockbusters. Over the course of the past couple weeks, however, web videos on each subject have illustrated just how significant those issues are for engaged citizens.

(more…)

A few Thursday evenings ago, NBC aired a rerun of last year’s highly anticipated The Office episode that featured Pam and Jim getting married. When I watched the episode again two weeks ago, I could not help thinking about a crucial lesson to be learned for any organization planning their next advocacy campaign.

If you watched Pam and Jim’s wedding, you will recall that the writers heavily borrowed the memorable wedding routine from the extraordinarily popular YouTube video JK Wedding Dance. It’s the one where the wedding party dances down the aisle to Chris Brown’s song, Forever.  The video became so popular (now over 44 million views on YouTube) that the entire group was invited to recreate the routine on The Today Show.

(more…)

I just received a mass email from a Web marketing firm (that shall remain nameless) offering their social media services. The subject of the email was “Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.”

I recently gave a lecture at American University’s Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute on how to use social media and other online strategies for advocacy. You can watch it here.

It took a recession, but resumes finally are receiving renewed scrutiny. The ability to embellish and obscure shrinks when one out of every six workers is under or unemployed. More than ever, recruiters want to see accomplishments, not responsibilities; numbers, not adverbs. (more…)

Can the law keep up with technology? (CNN Tech)
As technology lurches forward at an astounding speed, legal issues are emerging just as fast.  A legal system at least five years behind developing technology is at a loss for how to handle issues such as lawsuits derived from posts on social networking sites.

Census Turns to Kids for Help (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Census Bureau is running an interesting campaign targeted towards children in immigrant neighborhoods as a way to reach adults who don’t speak English.

Yesterday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Communication Center hosted a panel discussion on calculating your ROI for social media campaigns. I was fortunate to join three terrific panelists presenting at the event including Adam Conner from Facebook, Laura Howe from the American Red Cross, and Paul Argenti, a Professor from Dartmouth. (more…)