What is the Internet useful for in political campaigns?

The general consensus of many of the “old guard” political consultants that I have come in contact with is that the Internet is not a successful tool for driving messages. This group believes that the best way to promote a campaign’s messages is through earned media and paid advertisements on television, cable, radio or print media. Messaging is considered the top priority of campaigns and is central to the majority of their actions. Part of this disbelief regarding the Internet’s potential among “old guard” consultants certainly derives from a fear that they can’t control their message online (something that has been debated online since the Dean campaign). However, many consultants believe that, regardless of online message control, it is impossible to convince people of anything through Internet tactics.

There isn’t a political consultant in their right mind who would advocate completely ignoring the Internet. However, the Internet is not considered to be the top priority in lower budget campaigns because political consultants don’t see evidence that the Internet can convince people that their candidate/cause is better than their opponent’s.

The real question boils down to this: What kind of medium is the Internet? Is it a reach medium? Or is it a reinforcement medium?

To clarify, I consider a reach medium to be one where a message distributed on the medium reaches and is consumed by a population of people. Thus, if the message is effective and the consumer is receptive, the message will impact the person’s opinion on the matter at hand. Television and the radio are the best examples of reach mediums. They both amass large audiences and more importantly they affect the opinions and decisions made by those consuming them.

Whereas, a reinforcement medium is one where people explicitly seek out opinions similar to their own and through consumption strengthen those opinions. Niche publications and ideologically affiliated publications are the best example of reinforcement media. There is certainly an argument to be made that certain television channels and radio stations are reinforcement media. However, as a whole I view media to fall on a spectrum falling somewhere in between a pure reach medium and a pure reinforcement medium.

“Old guard” political consultants would argue that based on people’s online habits, they use the Internet to reinforce preexisting opinions, rather than seeking out information from both sides of an issue in order to choose a stance. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been an academic study based on whether or not the opinion of “old guard” political consultants is accurate on this issue.

As such, one of IPDI’s next major research projects will be to look into the political information consumption habits of people. I believe any research must combine survey data similar to the Pew Internet & American Life Project with a controlled experiment that specifically watches people’s consumption habits.

We are looking for input on how such a study could be conducted. My current thoughts entail giving people a news story about a topic such as the economy, global warming or foreign affairs. Following the article the research subject would be provided with a list of stories from a variety of ideologically coded news sources, which they would be required to click on at least one. The experiment would be preceded and followed by a questionnaire regarding their views on the issues at hand, in order to determine how their opinion changed over the course of the exercise.

Do you think an experiment in this style would work? Do you have any ideas to improve the study? Please email me at akellner@ipdi.org.

Caveat: If the Internet is jus t a reinforcement medium, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There is fairly substantial anecdotal evidence that the Internet is very successful at rallying the base and invoking them to take action. A recent example is the number of people who have volunteered for the Obama campaign that was initiated and often carried out entirely online.

What good is Facebook?

It depends upon who you talk to.

The government of the Province of Ontario, Canada recently announced that it was banning use of Facebook for government employees and elected officials. Why? The government simply does not believe that the site adds value.

Sure, that means no updating your profile during work hours. But it also appears to mean that no elected officials can conduct voter outreach on Facebook – one of the fastest growing online communities.

In an article published this morning, the BBC puzzles over the ban, suggesting that the decision may, in fact, isolate government from the very people it serves:

Is there really no benefit to have government policy makers access and participate in the hundreds of groups discussing Ontario health care issues? Would it be so bad for elected officials to actually engage with their constituents in a social network environment?

The attempts to block Facebook or punish users for stating their opinions fails to appreciate that social network sites are simply the internet generation’s equivalent of the town hall, the school cafeteria, or the workplace water cooler - the place where people come together to exchange both ideas and idle gossip.

Online Advertising: Too Risky?

While the government in Ontario has closed the doors to Facebook outreach for the near future, Times Online reports that the UK Government has decided not to purchase advertising on sites that contain user-generated content – including Facebook.

Facebook’s value isn’t being questioned. Rather, the decision was made because the Central Office of Information, which controls the Government’s advertising budget, is worried about “Government messages appearing alongside offensive or otherwise unsuitable material,” like negative comments, criminal activity, and office gossip.

Instead of closing the door permanently on all sites, Jamie Galloway, the COI director of digital media, suggests the approach will be measured and sites will be reviewed:

COI is not considering removing all social media activity indefinitely. COI are regularly reviewing the use of social media in government communications campaigns, to ensure they are effectively reaching target audiences.

These two events lead us to a set of questions about the intersection between government outreach and user-generated content:

• How can governments conduct social networking outreach in a way that reaches voters and conforms to its own values?
• Are our values about “good” and “bad” online content are outdated when it comes to determining which sites provide an appropriate environment for government outreach and which do not?
• Does it really detract from an elected official’s message if a girl in a bikini leaves a comment on that official’s Facebook profile?
• Will an ad for a government organization be less effective because it happens to appear on a social networking page on which users post heated and sometimes profane opinions about political matters?

Via Reason, we see that Rudy Giuliani has bought the the Jerusalem Post’s web subscriber list and is using it to make a donation pitch:

Israel and the United States share common values. We cherish freedom, democracy, and human life. Our shared values have attracted common enemies. The terrorists Israel is fighting are the same terrorists America is fighting, and we must continue to fight them together.

Last week Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that the world would soon witness the destruction of Israel. This 2008 presidential campaign will determine how we deal with statements like these and the madmen who make them.

I stand by Israel and I’ll never embrace a terrorist like Arafat, a tyrant like Ahmadinejad, or a party like Hamas. Will you join me and support my campaign for President so we can continue to work together? Your contribution of $1,000, $500, $250, $100 or $50 will go a long way in helping us to ensure victory.

Reason contributor David Weigel makes the observation that fundraising pleas through foreign newspapers is a little bit strange. Perhaps the Jerusalem Post is a poor example, because it’s an English-only foreign paper aimed at Americans (both visiting and not), but we can’t help but look at the Internet/politics angle. Does this email money effort shift some fundraising norms? Does anyone think Giuliani would take out the same ad in the physical version of the paper? Either way, it’s a clever way for the Giuliani camp to find potential new donors.

We’ve been flirting with the idea of widgets for awhile. We touched upon them briefly in Person-to-Person-to-Person (page 38, lower left-hand corner!). We used them at our Politics Online Conference in March. Some of us even use them on our personal Facebook and MySpace pages.

We just haven’t been ready to jump into a full-fledged relationship with widgets — until we read this article by Kim Hart about widgets in the Washington Post yesterday:

And here:

Sounds like a sticky concept. That’s why we turned to Eric D. Alterman, founder of KickApps, to figure out who’s using them and why. Eric authored a chapter on the important of context in social media for Person-to-Person-to-Person. It turns out that widgets are just good for displaying photos on my MySpace profile.

“It’s not about toys,” said Alterman. “Campaigns can use social media widgets and platforms to create a highly social experience that lives both on their websites and in their online community.”

Think about one of our favorite things to track this campaign season: video. Alterman says that campaigns can use a widget platform to deploy media on their sites — web videos, speeches, podcasts, etc. Supporters can them click on “Grab this Widget” and carry their favorite pieces of media with them to their blogs, profiles, and websites. When friends, readers, and visitors visit those sites, then can watch a media clip or click on the widget and travel to the campaign site for more information.

The campaigns can control what is displayed on the widget. In other words, as you update your site’s media content, you can update the media content displayed on each of the widgets your supporters have placed all over the web.

Alterman put it this way:

This of it as a television channel updated constantly on TV sets all over the web. Or think of it as a series of billboards placed all over the Internet. With widgets, my website doesn’t end on my website. My website extends all over the Internet to wherever my widgets have been placed. My windows are everywhere.

Like political wormholes.

Jeff Jarvis over at PrezVid posted an analysis yesterday that we’ve been meaning to do for a while: study the keywords that candidates are using for their GoogleAds. As Jarvis writes:

It’s a good way to see who considers whom a threat (and who’s a threat to no one). And we can also track who’s trying to associate themselves with which issues.

Jarvis has got charts and a breakdown of which candidates are buying the AdWords of other candidates. Looking at it and other things we’ve read on AdWords, the Republicans are using it much more than the Dems. Which is interesting, because we always say the GOP doesn’t know how to use the Internet.

We’re going to explore this subject more in the future as it becomes more of a story. It’s a unique campaign advertising tool: get traffic by targeting people looking for your opponent. It’d be interesting to find out what the campaigns see as the point of all this.

As we gear up for the 2007 Politics Online Conference, IPDI brings you the first in a series of interviews with industry professionals discussing the state of online politics. Our first interview is with Matthew Zablud, Vice President at the Adfero Group.

Special thanks to Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network for hosting IPDI’s Vlog posts!

In addition to their premature campaigns, the ‘08 Candidates have started to do their advertising on the blogs.

The John McCain 2008 Exploratory Committee, for example, has begun using web ads on sites such as conservative forum Townhall.com. Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani have run blogads on conservative blog sites. Hillary Clinton spent her first few days as a candidate running blogads for her webcasts on both liberal and conservative blogs. John Edwards and Barack Obama have hit the political blogs, as well. Here are the screen shots of their ads.

Here are two quotes from both sides of the ‘08 field:

Matt Gross, head of online communications for the Edwards campaign, said the candidate intends to use the Web to deliver his message to voters unfiltered. … “We saw blog ads as an effective way to bring people in the blogosphere directly to the campaign Web site, where they could hear from Edwards directly.”

Gross said that the campaign also includes direct outreach on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, as well as SMS messaging to bring people to the campaign sited. “The Web is central to our goal of creating a truly national grassroots campaign in 2007 and 2008,” he said. [MediaPost Publications]

“It’s all about the ROI,” said Eric Frenchman, chief Internet strategist at political consulting agency Connell Donatelli Inc., the firm handling the Internet components of the McCain campaign. “Obviously we’re getting branding and messaging out there at the same time,” he added.

Achieving ROI, or return on investment, may be a typical goal for most commercial advertisers; however, such terms remain foreign in the political sphere, where concepts like name recognition are more commonplace. Although commercial jargon may fall on deaf ears where political advertisers are concerned, Frenchman believes ROI is what counts. “That’s what it’s all about if you’re spending online advertising dollars,” he said. [ClickZ News]

The basic strategy on either end seems to be to create ads that invite blog readers — who are typically considered part of the group of Influentials that are wooed duringe very election cycle — to click, learn, and act all while getting the candidate’s name out there and earning some money.

It’s the new way to advertise. And it’s cheaper than television ads. MediaShift’s Mark Glaser writes: “these early efforts show that both Democratic and Republican candidates will be courting bloggers and their audiences for help with their campaigns — and eventually, their votes.”

Later this week, we’ll take a look at all the candidates in the field and survey their use of Google AdWords.

By the way, Eric Frenchman will be leading a panel discussion about online advertising at this year’s Politics Online Conference. Check out who else will join him by visiting the POLC website: http://polc.ipdi.org

Eric Frenchman, the chief internet strategist for the consulting firm Connell Donatelli, Inc., will take part in a panel on integrating online and offline advertising campaigns during the Politics Online Conference 2007.

Frenchman has worked in the corporate world, managing advertising campaigns for big-name companies such as AT&T, Harrisdirect, and BMO Investorline.

He joins Michael Bassik, vice president of Internet adverstising at MSHC, in the tutorial-style panel discussion “From TV Screen to Inbox: Creating an Integrated Political Marketing Approach.” The disucssion will focus on how to use real-life, traditional advertising assets (direct mail, Web video, e-mail Web sites) and will show how and why it makes sense to add an integrative online component to existing advertising efforts.

Stay tuned for more details about POLC 2007. To find out more about the panel discussions, check out our site at http://polc.ipdi.org.