How a Candidate Can Own a Key Topic on Social Media

 The Three-Team Campaign Social Media PR Approach

(originally published in a shorter form in PR News, November, 2013)

 Ned Barnett

Author's Note:  I am an Advisory Board member at PR News, the leading public relations trade journal, and four times a year, I write major front-page articles to help public relations professionals improve their craft.  This blog is based on my most recent front-page article (I'm working on the next one now), but adapted for a political campaign.  

It may not be possible for a campaign to field three social networking/PR professionals, but if you consider how different members of your campaign staff can wear different hats, you'll see how to apply it to your campaign.

For the past decade, the blogosphere and the extended social media world has spawned a new and fresh cadre of political issue experts, men and women who have now transcended the Internet to become best-selling authors, convention keynoters and highly-paid campaign consultants.  In almost all cases, these individuals have used a series of well-defined steps to become, in the parlance of social media, “subject matter experts” and even visionary “thought leaders.”  Some early stand-out leaders include Howard Dean's Internet guru, Joe Trippe, who's online fund-raising tactics are worth emulating no matter what your political persuasion.

This once-intuitive process is now sufficiently well-established that steps needed to capture perceived leadership in a given topic area can be replicated as part of a more comprehensive campaign.  To do so, however, begin by really understanding the process.   

First, compare this online topic-dominating effort to the classic measurements of a political campaign's PR and advertising impact – reach and frequency.  Online success comes when the reach – the number of people contacted, and especially the number turned into followers or friends – reaches a critical mass of awareness. 

To do that, you must interact with those followers – in two distinct ways, creating content and engaging in on-line conversations – and do so with sufficient regularity to become a “name” in their minds ... and in their world.

It is also essential that a real person - usually and preferably the candidate, but there are rare exceptions (a candidate's spouse comes to mind if s/he is high-viz, as Hillary was in '92 and Michele was in '08) - is used as the public face on the effort.  In the world of social networking, "campaign" presences are not going to succeed.  Their very nature as impersonal non-persons defeats the whole concept of “social” media.   

Instead, that candidate must become the visible front for this ongoing effort.  However - and this might seem counter-intuitive, but that's how Social Networking works - the candidate should know that it’s not really about him or her – it’s about the campaign, and about turning that real person into an avatar, an image of the candidate that will create its own online reality.  In other words, we're talking about the difference between a candidate's image and the candidate's reality.  

For instance, I have an old friend who used to work on Al Gore's Senate staff, who SWEARS that Al is truly funny and a great guy to shoot pool and drink beer with.  Really!  And four years before, campaign insiders swore (after he lost) that Bob Dole is really a funny guy, too.  Uh, yeah. 

However, the reality in politics is every candidate has an "image" that must be maintained, or else.  In another and more current for-instance, Chris Christie is (as I write this) twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, because what his staff did with "Bridge-Gate" is at odds with his defender-of-the-people and hands-across-the-aisle get 'er done image.  I don't know what Christie's reality is, butwhat's going on now is certainly at odds with the image he wants to project and protect.  Realistically, this incident could kill his chances in 2016, even if he had nothing to do with it.  

In politics and the blogosphere, image IS reality.

This "image" candidate requires a few characteristics if he or she is to become seen as a subject matter expert or thought leader on a given subject, regardless of the facts-on-the-ground reality.  First, and most obviously, his or her background should lend itself to claims of credibility in the topic matter - if not, watch out!  When Al Gore (him again!) claimed to have created the Internet, that claim was literally "unbelievable" because he had no IT background, and no rational person would think a policy wonk could create the World Wide Web.  

 Next, the candidate must be able to present well on camera for YouTube – as well as in front of the public as a platform speaker. That's pretty much a given for candidates, but there is a difference between a slick 30-second ad and a credible YouTube video, which must look more honest and less "slick" or "produced."  Of course, the candidate must also be effective and credible when addressing the news media during interviews - more and more, Internet media, including Internet radio and Internet TV, are including live-recorded interviews, just like Fox or CNN.

In the social media world, the process of turning a candidate into a credible subject matter expert and as a visionary thought leader begins with “content.”   

This first involves creating and posting blogs and - when appropriate - comments on other bloggers’ blogs. However, it also includes creating and posting other written content, such as position papers or issue-oriented white papers. This should extend to eBooks as well, but that's a subject for another of my blogs.   

Next, because of the importance of YouTube in the online world, fresh content must include video blogs, video white board presentations on issues and even recorded Town Hall-format subject-specific webinars.   

To succeed, your candidate's on-topic content must be fresh, insightful, helpful and well-presented.  It must add value to both the ongoing political and online discussions of the topic or issue.  Finally, this content must be refreshed and updated with sufficient frequency to keep interested readers coming back for more.  

Online, a steady drumbeat of new and vibrant content is essential to success, and never more so than in a political campaign.

The second step involves “conversation” – primarily tweets, Facebook posts, Linkedin comments and activity on other social networking platforms.  The more platforms involved in the process, the more impact will be created.  However, with so many social networking platforms out there, the law of diminishing returns quickly kicks in.  If campaign paid or volunteer staff-time resources are limited, focus conversation efforts on the big three.

The conversation process humanizes the candidate, regardless of who really creates the conversational content.  This begins by posting insightful brief topical comments on Twitter and other sites, posts that are, in essence, “mini-content.” These are used to establish credibility and attract subject-matter followers.  Many of these posts can be pre-written, then – using one of the social media posting tools, such as Hootsuite – this mini-content can be scheduled for posting at times and dates in the future.

However, to truly humanize the candidate, posts must transcend the process of just adding content value. You can’t just talk to followers – you must talk with them as well.  These interactions with others must get into personal – or more accurate, seemingly personal - dimensions. 

To make it personal, and until the volume of feedback you get makes it impossible to create personal replies, interactions must involve a timely and original response to all feedback comments received on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.  Interactions also involve looking behind the curtain and exposing a bit of the candidate in a human sort of way.  However, these posts shouldn’t be truly and deeply personal. Instead, they should show a bit of insight into the man or woman behind the campaign avatar, the "image" candidate.

The perception of accessibility is the goal here – conversation turns the candidate into a living, breathing individual, one who can be trusted by followers and friends, one who creates the perception of real relationships and online (political) friendships.  

By providing meaningful and valuable content on a regular and frequent basis, and by entering into the social networking conversation as a distinctive and humanized source, your candidate can own a topic area. And because the Internet is so diverse, virtually any topic area is up for grabs - if you have something fresh and original to say.  No matter what your candidate does – no matter what area of expertise your candidate actually “owns” – the social media world is ready to entertain his or her bid for (political) leadership on any given subject.

To do this in an organized and professional fashion, create three campaign social networking PR teams (or their equivalent), each with a specific assignment.  These teams cover content creation, conversation and the promotion of the content, both online and off-line. 

The Content Team writes the blogs and the major blog comments, as well as the position papers, white papers and eBooks.  This team also creates the video component – video blogs, white board presentations and webinars.  Obviously, the candidate will be featured in these, but the content team creates the concepts.   

The content team must also create the promotional material – or at least promotional guidelines – that will be used by the Conversation Team to position each new piece of content on the various social networking platforms for maximum impact.   

The Content Team must also work with the candidate to make sure he or she becomes sufficiently well-versed in the subject matter to be able to represent each new and meaningful bit of content as his or her own.  

 Finally, this team must become a high-output production house for the creation of new and exciting material for the social media world on a regular and frequent basis.

The Conversation Team handles the ongoing social networking interactions that not only promote the new content online, but also serves to humanize the candidate.  This team will then create and post – in the candidate's name and "voice" – a regular and frequent stream of topical, along with the occasionally off-topic, comments that will provide a three-dimensional framework for those who ultimately follow or friend the candidate.   

The conversation team will also seek out other bloggers on the same topic, and post brief comments to their blogs – remembering that longer subject-matter comments will be written by the Content Team.  Because of the nature of the Internet, this conversation is and must be a 24-7 process – if possible (and of course it's only possible with national campaigns) it helps to have members of the Conversation Team located in different time zones to spread out the responses. 

Conversation is just as critical as credible content.  Without effectively humanizing the candidate, the whole effort will ultimately fail.

Finally, create a news media PR team.   

This team will create wire service and direct-to-the-media press releases about each of the key content posts, describing why they are important and providing links to that content. They will then follow them up with individual pitches to the top media targets.   

This is where most organized social media topic ownership efforts fall flat.  Don't let this happen to you, your candidate and your campaign.

To promote new content, most supposedly "savvy" social media political campaigners rely solely on postings online – on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all the rest. 

Those online posts are absolutely necessary, but they are not sufficient.  

 BusinessWire-like press releases and direct media pitches to key targets will bring new followers to the content, rapidly expanding the impact of the entire campaign. 

However, in addition to press releases, the news media PR team will also seek out breaking news on the focus topic.  Then they will reach out to the news media, including – when appropriate – talk radio and cable news or cable business news. To these news media, they will present the candidate as a blog-published expert on the topic who can put the breaking news into perspective for the media’s various audiences. In this way, even an off-year Congressional dark-horse candidate can garner important press coverage - because he or she has something important and new to say on a breaking news issue.

In pitching to the media on breaking news, the team will cite your recent blogs or other content that demonstrates the candidate's expertise about the breaking news topic.  

In 2008 I proved this process.  First I published a series of topical articles on breaking political news at the highly-credible American Thinker. Then I pitched Neil Cavuto, and wound up getting on five of his programs as a subject matter expert on topics ranging from McCain's failed campaign fund-raising efforts to Obama's secret abortion initiative.  

Along the way, I also generated five interviews on Imus, a half-a-hundred other local radio interviews and more than 100 Internet media articles.  

Finally, to cap it all off, Rush Limbaugh read one of my entire American Thinker posts to his 20 million readers ... and I wasn't even a candidate!

 This process will generate media coverage and broadcast participation, which will attract new online followers and add online credibility to candidate.  This is another area where most purely online social media efforts fail – they don’t take it outside the four walls of the computer screen and into the larger media.

A side note:  publishing an eBook, or even announcing a forthcoming eBook, will enhance the candidate’s credibility with the news media and the blogosphere.  Authors have an almost automatic cachet that few others can claim.  Presidential candidates routinely have campaign-oriented books, but few other candidates consider this - to their detriment. 

Bottom line:  By coordinating these three efforts – content, conversation and off-line media PR promotion – you can position your candidate as a subject matter expert on a hot political topic, and as a visionary thought leader in that same area.  Over time, this will all help make the candidate one of the Internet’s – and one of the media’s – “go-to guys” on the issue.  He or she will be seen as both a candidate and an individual who is a touchstone for both online and offline discussions on the topic.

Sidebar – Creating the Campaign's Conversation Team

 Creating ghost-written content is second nature to every media PR professional and most campaign experts, and that goes for media relations as well. This makes the creation of those two teams largely self-explanatory.  However, creating “Conversation” is far more personal, and more than a bit tricky.  Individuals on the Conversation Team are a special breed, men and women who need to be able to do the following:

1.     One:  They should be able to look at new content, then immediately know where and how to position it online, by using social media platform posts and with various discussion groups.

2.     Two:  They should be adept at identifying, creating and posting items which seem to personalize or humanize the candidate, based - remarkably - on that person’s daily calendar.  Instead of posting (in the lead person’s voice) “I’m in Las Vegas today to give a talk on such-and-such,” say something like, “I never realized what heat really was until I came to Vegas today to give that talk at …”

3.    Third, however, the real trick is to win the confidence of the candidate, then get inside that person’s head. It’s vital to understand the candidate's thoughts, his or her passions, and dreams and the things that makes him or her eager to get up in the morning to tackle a new day.  This kind of information is essential to humanize this candidate, but that only comes after trust is established. 

However, once trust is established and the candidate becomes an open book, judgment kicks in.  There are a string of topics that should be avoided – taboo subjects must include exposing this person’s family or intimate interactions while trying to create that humanization.  It’s a tricky tight-rope, one that requires real discernment, as well as real trust.  It takes a special, intuitive and insightful person to fill this role.

There is one other caveat to creating an online persona for the candidate.  The candidate needs to understand that this is about the election, and not about them, personally.  Let me repeat:  this is not about them.  this is about the iconic “them” that you are creating to capture and own a key topic area on the Internet, and by doing so, win the election. 

This means, among other things, that the candidate should not be posting him- or herself on these social media sites.  In fact, this should go a step further.  The candidate's previous personal posts – if posted in his or her name – must come down.   This is a tough sell, but it’s essential to make the conversation part of the process really work.  

Because it's not really about them - it's about the elections.

Staging a Political Campaign Event? Think "Wedding"

Campaign Event Management – Think “Wedding”

Ned Barnett

 Note - I was inspired to write this because my "last" single son got married Saturday night, in a big event that was held (but with no political overtones) at the Clinton Center in Little Rock.  Yes, it really does look exactly like the world's largest double-wide, and the inside is even tackier than I'd feared ... it's really almost a parody of itself, and of President Clinton. But it made a fine venue for a great wedding, and having talked at length with the wedding planner - she had dinner with my wife and I after the rehearsal - I was inspired by how closely weddings and political events can parallel.  So learn from the events-masters - wedding planners - and make your next event a life-altering success!

Everybody has experienced a wedding – their own, in most cases, along with the weddings of brothers or sisters, daughters or sons – but even if you’ve only experienced a “Hollywood Wedding” on the Silver Screen, you’ve got an idea of what one is like.  And if you can imagine putting together a wedding – a big wedding, with all the bells and whistles – you’ve know everything you need in order to put together a successful political campaign or fund-raising event or other voter-growing project.

The key to success is planning, whether it’s for a wedding of for a political campaign event.  Except for elopements, visits to the Justice of the Peace, or last-minute spur-of-the-moment “quick, before we sober up” Vegas weddings, all really impressive weddings begin with planning.  And planning begins by making a master checklist.  With just a few exceptions, the lists are the same.

Wedding	Campaign Event
1.     Wedding Planner & Timetable	1.     Event Planner & Timetable
2.     Theme	2.     Theme
3.     Date and Time	3.     Date and Time
4.     Location or Venue	4.     Location or Venue
5.     Priest, Preacher or Rabbi	5.     Master of Ceremonies
6.     Guest List & Invitations	6.     Guest List & Invitations
7.     Caterer & Flowers	7.     Caterer & Decorations
8.     Entertainment	8.     Entertainment
9.     Wedding Favors	9.     Campaign Hand-Outs
10. Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner	10. Pre-Event Run-Through

Let’s run through those.

1.     Event Planner.  Whether this is something you do yourself, something that you assign to your campaign manager, or something you hire out, this is essential. Someone has to be in charge.  If “everyone’s in charge” (i.e., everyone instinctively knows what they’re supposed to do) then, in fact, nobody’s in charge.  Success happens by accident, not intention.  Recommendation:  Hire or retain an event planner – this frees you and your staff up for what you all do best – take care of voters, donors, the media and campaign business.  Then, ask the event planner to create a time table for the events – indicting who does what, and when, in order that it all comes together on campaign event day.

2.     Theme.  This is a central element to the event.  Weddings usually have themes – from “back to nature” to “traditional church” – and this defines everything from the location and date/time to the nature of the invitations and the flavor of the edible decorations.  So create a theme that focuses on the event – and focus the event in ways that will bring in your goal, be they donors, volunteers, the party faithful or potential voters.  Sometimes traditional is best, but sometimes thinking out of the box works.  Traditional means having a voter-education component (“this is who I am and why you should vote for me”) or announcing a new position on an issue of breaking-news importance.  Media events designed to generate press also are traditional, but unless you're already a Governor or Senator who's running for re-election, getting the press out to a "press event" can be tough (meaning "impossible").

Those traditional programs often work – but sometimes, it helps to go beyond traditional, to think out of the box, to make this more than an Amway-like sales pitch.

For example:

Super Bowl Sunday could be a horrible setting for an event – but you could make a Super Bowl Sunday event the hit of the season … IF you want to attract women voters who would otherwise be stuck at home, bored beyond tears as they serve up hot wings and cold beers to their significant other and his buddies as they make fools of themselves in some kind of weird annual male bonding ritual. 

Women can be a powerful force in your volunteer team, but they have other priorities.  Staging a “Gal’s Night Out” kind of events - for voter calling or envelope stuffing or training them to be effective advocates - can really be effective, especially when your event includes the free delivery of (hopefully-donated) pizza and wings, sent home to the husbands of any woman who actually show up, making it “ok” for them to be away from home at supper time.  That may seem a bit pricey, but it could provide a huge pay-off in new volunteers and get-out-the-vote efforts.  They’ll even come home to a happy and well-fed family.

Think out of the box.  If it's not a couples event, come up with a theme that works for the guests’ spouses and families, as well as the guests – and one that also works for building new volunteers, donors or voters.

3.     Date and Time.  You need a date that doesn’t conflict with local civic or charitable events, or Wednesday night church services or other scheduled conflicting events.  You need a time that won’t require you to close your campaign office for too very long (you will have to shut down if stage this event in your own office, or manage the event with your campaign staff.  But to have it somewhere else means your guests won’t see what a great place you have (assuming you have a great-looking campaign headquarters, and that's a bit of a stretch) – and that’s not a good thing.  You also want a date and time that will allow your target audience to turn out in force.   Tie your schedule to something that works for you, or find a way to make it work.  Most events should not be held during office hours (except for noon-time lunch-hour brown-bag rallies) – unless you can come up with a workable exception that makes sense. 

4.     Location or Venue.  The ideal location in most cases is your campaign office, because it allows you to show off your office (and because you've already paid for it).  But there could be a case made for having it off-site - especially if the space is donated.  Cash bars help cover costs and make people happy (and can "pay for" the room) - but be careful if you're in the Bible Belt (that's where I learned politics, and I learned that everybody drank, but nobody admitted it, or would do it in public).   

     Also, The location should be tied to the theme of the event.

5.     Master of Ceremonies. You don’t need a priest, preacher or rabbi to “officiate” the way you do at a wedding, but it often makes good sense to have a third party as your MC – this allows you to more effectively circulate with your guests and not have the pressure of being “on” every instant.  The MC can do double-duty if he or she also represents in some way the theme.  The key here is that the candidate is the only one who can close a deal (I don't mean this in a negative way) - the candidate should talk to donors, representatives of voter blocks, etc. - s/he is the only one who can make the assurance that yes, I'll vote for (or against) that legislation, which is what most voter-block group leaders and potential donors want to hear.  You're not for sale - but if your position and theirs coincides, they want to know this so they can support you.

Having an MC can be especially important if your event involves you making a presentation to your guests (and you'll certainly want to give an informal and rah-rah version of your stump speech).  The MC can hold their attention until you’re ready, then introduce you. 

Whomever you choose, you want someone who creates confidence, and who is glib on his or her feet.  Even better if he or she adds a little local celebrity buzz to the event.  Do not underestimate the importance and impact of local “celebrity,” and make use of it in attracting the guests you want – the ones who will become donors, volunteers or voters.

6.     Guest lists and invitations.  These perhaps should be two distinct categories, so let’s start with Guest Lists. 

a.      Guest List:  Your invitation list should include:

                                                    i.     Known supporters or donors

                                                  ii.     Friends of known supporters or donors (ask your supporters to nominate potential guests)

                                                 iii.     Prospective donors or voting block supporters

                                                iv.     Civic, Religious and Community leaders (especially those who might some day become supporters)

                                         

b.     Invitations and Promotions:  Your “invitations” should include mailed and emailed invitations that would be professionally designed and written, then mailed or emailed (or both).  This is important, and a professional should be called in.  Also consider phone banks, to both offer invitations and to serve as reminders - you won't be top-of-mind for the people you want, so a reminder helps.

However, the idea of “invitations” should also include other approaches; here again, professionals (PR, Social Networking, Advertising, etc.) should be involved as well.  

But be careful here.  Back in '78, a Texas senator, Lloyd Benston, was thinking about running for President, and was in South Carolina to talk to some local leaders. However, the event was publicized in the paper, so I went.  There were about 15 "suits" in the room - political professionals - then there was me.  Ol' Lloyd spent all his time talking to the voter (me), which was smart, but the meeting was a bust - all because it was publicized in the wrong way.  So, be careful.

Here's how to promote the event (though I'll address this in much more detail in a future blog post).

                                                    i.     Press releases posted via wire services (BusinessWire, etc.) announcing the event and giving a call-in or social network contact account link by which people can RSVP (and give you their contact information)

                                                  ii.     Social networking “invitations” posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc., and supported by blogs, photo spreads and other “content” that will make the right people interested in attending

                                                 iii.     Advertising in local political and civic media, both online and print/broadcast

                                                iv.     Posters at strategic allies – anywhere you can find supporting organizations that will let you post because they share a common target demographic audience

7.      

     Caterers and Decorations.  This means event decorations, such as bunting and American flags, blow-up photos of the candidate, etc – there may be catered food (or not) – but whatever you do, you will want to decorate the location – and offering snacks and beverages is almost always an excellent idea.  If alcohol is involved (always a risk, and a reward if you're careful), open bar makes sense unless you've got a financial donor.  Rely on your professional event planner here – she’ll have established business arrangements that should (if you picked the right event planner) get you premium services and discounts. 

However, do check to make sure that the events planner isn’t getting kickbacks from vendors – that kind of business arrangement does not generate superior quality (vendors providing kick-backs have to either cut corners or lose money), and it sure doesn’t get you the best prices, since if at all possible, the kick-back will be passed on to the event planner's client – you. 

8.     Entertainment.  In many events, you – the candidate – you are the “entertainment,” making a presentation about who you are, why you want to be elected and what you'll do when you're in office.  But think beyond the box.  A soft/light jazz combo could add class to the event. The MC might be a budding stand-up comedian who will lighten the event, but no offensive jokes - make sure of that.  On-the-spot entertainment, such as character-sketch portrait artists and even palm readers, can be used effectively - but only in the right event.  You can be serious or light, but you want the entire event to be memorable, and great food, great drinks and great entertainment can add to any event. But never forget - the bottom line - YOU are the event.

9     Campaign Hand-Outs.  These remind your guests that this is ultimately about electing the right candidate - you. It might include samples of custom/branded products - T-shirts, ball-caps, or even buttons and bumper stickers (though I'm not sure of their current value, except on eBay) - and it might also include a “gift bag” with free-service coupons and samples from supportive businesses.  Make them campaign-connected, or make them memorable

     Pre-Event Run-Throughs.   This is where most events run by candidates and their teams fall flat.  Practice.  No wedding goes forward without a rehearsal, and a rehearsal dinner. That’s part of what makes them special, and part of why amateurs (grooms) so seldom mess up on the big day. They rehearsed.  Then, and only then, they partied.

Make your event special.  Do a run-through the day before, or a few hours before - whatever you can make work.  It should be a “dress rehearsal” of the entire event. Make sure everyone on your staff, and every hired gun, is ready. Then, if you do it the night before, reward them by having an event “rehearsal dinner,” at a nice place, and pick up the tab.  That will put everyone in a confident and positive mind-set when they’re ready to move forward.

Bottom line:  A wedding is the beginning of the rest of their lives for the participants. It’s a big deal, and people who care do the planning, sub-divide the responsibilities and make sure everything is done right.  Your campaign event could be the beginning of the rest of your life - if you don't believe me, ask Howard Dean about Iowa.  Make it work for you, and you won't regret it.