RNC New Media Director, Todd Herman's address to PDF '09 11:49 AM

Todd Herman Discusses the GOP's Next Steps in Web Development at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum:

Personal Democracy Forum: Day 1 by the numbers 11:42 PM

The 2009 Personal Democracy Forum has already been a phenomenal success - and we still have another day to go. This truly is the Mecca of online political strategists and thinkers. I think I can speak for the conference as a whole in that it is truly a privilege just to be amongst such brilliant leaders and to learn from them and engage with them here in New York.

If you are on Twitter (Ha! Who am I kidding?) you may have noticed that #pdf09 became what's called a Trending Topic yesterday on Twitter. At one point, #pdf09 (the "official hashtag of the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum") was the #2 Trending Topic on Twitter. That was before we were even done with our first panel! Just goes to show you the power of the aggregate and the influence the PDF '09 attendees each have within their respective social media circles.

As of the time I published this post, 2,232 unique Twitter users have used #pdf09 in their tweets making up a total of 10,657 #pdf09 tweets.

If you have been following my live-tweeting from the Personal Democracy Forum, you know that I make up an admittedly absurd 176 of those tweets. While I was live tweeting one of the early panels yesterday, I realized how useless it was to have a Word document open for me to take notes with because Twitter had become the most powerful, open-source note taker for the entire conference! So while your Twitters-stream may be bombarded with my tweets, I assure you that each one is a carefully thought out tid-bit of information from PDF '09. There are so many fantastic thoughts and ideas being tossed around at this conference that I am making it my responsibility to make sure you hear them.

According to some in the #pdf09 community, I have become a momentary web-celeb for my mass amount of tweets:

As I mentioned on this blog earlier this week, one of the ways you can follow the conversation at PDF '09 is by using this great tool the Bivings Group has put together to track all #pdf09, #pdf2009 or "Personal Democracy Forum" tweets. For most of the day yesterday, I remained at the top of the "Most Tweets" column on this feature which was displayed for the entire conference to see. Someone asked me in a tweet last night to "pls share with us what your follower count increase was after staying on top of #pdf09 twislurp tweeters list today!" So, as promised here are some statistics for my personal Twitter profile growth at PDF '09.

• As mentioned before, I have tweeted 176 times using #pdf09. Roughly 170 of those came during yesterday's live-tweeting from the conference.
• Yesterday, I was retweeted 106 times by some incredibly influential people inside and outside of the Twitterverse.
• Before the conference began, I had 687 Twitter followers. At the time I am publishing this post, I have 794. This was by far my largest day of Twitter growth ever.

I was happy to hear reiterated time and time again at PDF the idea that increasing your Twitter following should not be your primary objective, but rather how many times your content it retweeted. I couldn't agree more with this line of thinking and am thus obviously much more excited about how much my content was retweeted yesterday rather than my follower growth.

We still have another day to go, so make sure you are following all of the great Twitterers from the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum. Here's 5 great ways you can follow the largest most influential conversation of the internet's impact on politics today.

8 Social Media Lessons From #iranelection 11:01 PM

This afternoon, I had the privilege of sitting in on a panel at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum that discussed the social media lessons we have learned as a result of the Iranian Elections (or #iranelection on Twitter). Here is a list that was presented on the panel of 8 social media lessons we have learned from #iranelection, according to techPresident's Nancy Scola:

1. Old media and traditional media need to find a way to complement each other. I alluded to this in CNN's response to the Iran Election in an earlier blog post.
2. Social media does not have a good system for establishing meta-tags to our content leaving our social media followers/fans/readers with little context to what we are talking about.
3. Retweeting on Twitter doesn't have the ability to link back to the original tweet. This could become a problem in the future.
4. With the emergence of live-blogging, it is becoming increasingly difficult to link to content internally. For example, if I was to tweet something along the lines of "When I said earlier today..." there would be no way to direct my followers to what I said earlier in the day.
5. We need to teach social media literacy.
6. It is worth asking ourselves whether or not we are applying our energies for causes in the best possible format. For example, during the #iranelection protests, everyone (including myself) changed their Twitter profile icons to have a green background. Was that the best use of social energy?
7. Learned from #iranelection that if something is "trending" on Twitter people assume that issue or cause is progressive which may not always be the case in the future.
8. Connecting people via the internet is a political act - even when you don't realize it. For years, Iran has established themselves as one of the blogging capitols of the world. What may not have been clear to the Iranian people years ago when they were beginning to use these tools is how the tools would eventually be leveraged for political action.
   

In addition to this list, I found the following tidbits of information particularly fascinating and insightful:

• With the Iran Election news on Twitter, it was a very small portion of the Twitterverse who was actually breaking significant pieces of news. Most use of 3iranelection came from people retweeting that content. Scola quoted Robert Mackey of the New York Times : "Retweeting is reporting."
• According to Olivia Ma with YouTube, since the protests in Iran, YouTube has only seen roughly 10% of their normal traffic from Iran.
• Ma called #iranelection the establishment of the "Citizen powered news bureau."
• Traditional media are now using "crowd-sourced fact checking" when trying to confirm news broken by social media.

Mike Bloomberg's Keynote Address at #pdf09 5:59 PM

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's keynote address via webcam to the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum:

Personal Democracy Forum: Preview 5:24 PM

June 28 and 29th I will be attending the 6th Annual Personal Democracy Forum in New York City. Last year was my first year at the Forum and it was an unbelievable experience learning about the next online tools for political campaigns and governance. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the PDF Network and specifically the annual Forums, here is a brief synopsis from the PDF website:

The Personal Democracy Forum is the world's largest and best known conference on the intersection of technology and politics. For the sixth year, more than 1,000 top opinion makers, political practitioners, technologists and journalists will come together to network, exchange ideas, and explore how technology and the Internet are changing politics, democracy, and society.

This year, PDF has a fantastic lineup of speakers including:

• Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City
• Vivek Kundra, White House CIO
• Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com
• Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook
• Joe Rospars, Obama '08
• Eric Frenchman, McCain '08
• Craig Newmark, craigslist
• Cyrus Krohn, Fmr. e-Campaign Director, Republican National Committee
• Liz Mair, RNC Director of Online Communications

If you would like to keep track of the events of the conference, you can do so in a few different ways:

1. Follow the PDF '09 conversation by using this great tool the Bivings Group has put together to track all #pdf09, #pdf2009 or "Personal Democracy Forum" tweets.
2. Subscribe to this RSS feed for all #pdf09, #pdf2009, @pdf2009 or "Personal Democracy Forum" tweets.
3. Check http://video.personaldemocracy.com for videos of the PDF presentations.
4. Follow me on Twitter. I will be live tweeting the entire conference from my @JordanRaynor Twitter account.
   
5. Check back here at JordanRaynor.com for more in-depth anaylisis that can't fit in 140 characters. Remember, you can always get the latest from this blog by subscribing to the email that is automatically sent to you once new content is posted or by subscribing via an RSS feed.

The Power of Passed Links 7:06 AM

Fred Wilson, a member of the Twitter Board of Directors, recently gave this short presentation at the 140 Characters Conference where he makes the case that because Twitter and Facebook drive traffic based on human recommendations, these services will ultimately surpass Google which does not have the human touch of link passing. Check out this very insightful ten minute video:

Mobile Google AdSense 3:24 PM

Today, Google announced beta testing of AdSense for Mobile Applications. This is a really interesting step in the direction of further monetization of mobile websites. Mobile devices played a critical role in the Obama campaign's success in 2008 and with the rapid growth of mobile web users and technology this new Google advertising platform will undoubtedly play a critical role in 2010. Here is an excerpt from Google's announcement:

We want to contribute to the growth of these mobile applications, which is why we're happy to announce our beta launch of AdSense for Mobile Applications. After all, advertisers are looking for ways to reach potential customers when they are engaged with mobile content, and application developers are looking for ways to show the best ads to their users. We have already had a successful trial of this service with a small number of partners, and are excited that we can now offer this solution to a broader group.

Here is a very short, yet interesting video from Howard Steinberg, Director of Business Development at Urbanspoon, discussing their experience with Mobile AdSense.

The Search for the 'Heart and Soul' of the Republican Party 8:27 AM

This morning I have published my latest Sayfie Review column entitled "The Search for the 'Heart and Soul' of the Republican Party". The column is an analysis of the last three state-wide election cycles in Florida and the type of Republicans Florida primary voters have nominated. You can read the full column by clicking here. Here is an excerpt from the piece:

It’s back - the battle for the “heart and soul of the Republican Party.” Just last week United States Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina claimed the battle once again as he endorsed Marco Rubio’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate. “Primaries are good, particularly now, as we search for the heart and soul of the Republican Party,” Demint said touting his support of Rubio’s candidacy.

As one examines the battle lines currently being drawn amongst Florida Republicans, it is difficult not to be struck with a sense of déjà vu. The classic debate between “conservatives” and “moderates”, “true Republicans” and “consensus builders”, “Reagan Republicans” and “RINOs” is being heard once again from grassroots activists to the halls of the state party. Florida political history reminds us of near-identical battles in the past three state-wide election cycles and the candidates Florida Republicans have nominated to lead their Party.

Click here to read this column in it's entirety

'But they're ALL correspondents!!' 11:44 AM

Insightful cartoon from the Boston Globe:

Alex Sink's Interesting Ad 9:42 PM

Today I did a quick Google search for the major candidates for state-wide offices in Florida in 2010 to see which candidates were running ads through Google AdWords. Interestingly, the only candidate running ads on a broad keyword search for their name was Florida Democrat CFO Alex Sink who is running what looks to be a close race for Governor against Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum. More interesting is that Sink is running her ads on the search word "Kendrick Meek" - the Democratic Congressman likely to be the party's nominee for the U.S. Senate contest.

While the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate is far from over, popular Florida Governor Charlie Crist remains well ahead in every poll conducted to this point and is expected to have a significant financial edge over former Florida House Speaker, Marco Rubio. Rumors have circulated for months that within Florida Democratic circles, party fundraisers are being urged to give to Alex Sink's campaign for Governor over Kendrick Meek's run for Senate as Sink's campaign is viewed as a safer-bet for Florida Democrats. Perhaps this Google AdWords campaign is a sign of confirmation of these rumors.

At a fundraiser in Tallahassee tonight, the Miami Herald reports that Sink claims her campaign is, "going to need something like 40,000 contributions from all over Florida." Undoubtedly, one way to bring in that many donations is through targeted online advertising such as the above ad. The fact that Sink is the only state-wide candidate currently advertising on a keyword for a fellow party-member in another race may shed some light on Florida Democrats' strategy for 2010.

Bloomberg Connected 8:15 AM

In the final weeks of the 2008 Election, the Obama campaign rolled out Facebook Connect onto My.BarackObama.com (MyBO) allowing Obama supporters to connect with their existing Facebook friends on MyBO and bring more of their Facebook friends into the online campaign for organizational and fundraising purposes. Because Facebook Connect launched so late in the '08 cycle, we have yet to see a full-blown example from a campaign on how to integrate this amazing functionality.
Enter Michael Bloomberg's re-election campaign for Mayor of New York City. From day one, Bloomberg's campaign has served as a best practice for online fundraising and organization. This week, the Bloomberg campaign announced their new "online community" with excellent execution of Facebook Connect allowing Bloomberg supporters to "connect" with their Facebook friends already on the Bloomberg site, but more importantly, allow them to publish any action they take on Bloomberg's campaign site onto Facebook, making the campaign's fundraising and organizational efforts more viral on the leading social network. The campaign's integration of the feature is already being compared to MyBO by the New York Times and with the high-profile nature of this race, Facebook Connect is sure to gain exposure amongst political communications professionals across the country.

For purposes of this post, I tested out the functionality so you could see an example of this incredible feature. From MikeBloomberg.com, I logged in to the site using my Facebook login information. Not only does it integrate my Facebook profile picture and my location but it also shows me which of my Facebook friends are on the Mike Bloomberg community. Most importantly, it allows me to "invite friends" to join the Bloomberg community as well.

So let's say I am a Latino supporting Mayor Bloomberg and I join the Latinos for Mike Bloomberg group within the MikeBloomberg.com community site. With Facebook Connect, once I join that group the site gives me the option to publish a story about me joining the group on Facebook that will appear in my friends' news feeds. I can even add a message for my Facebook friends to see.
Now, enter the magic of Facebook Connect for campaigns. Once I select publish and voluntarily post a story on Facebook about my involvement with the Bloomberg campaign, the viral effect of social networking can take shape to the benefit of the Bloomberg campaign. By publishing my activity on MikeBloomberg.com, I have allowed my Facebook friends to "comment" or "like" my Facebook post and even "join" the Bloomberg campaign directly from Facebook. One of the cool features of Bloomberg's integration of Facebook Connect is the third "join" option given to Facebook users which links people to the MikeBloomberg.com homepage to collect their email addresses in one of the most creative and presumably effective ways I have seen yet. Here's what the news story I published from MikeBloomberg.com looks like on my Facebook profile and in my friends' news feeds:
And while this is really cool functionality for joining a group, imagine the power it holds for online fundraising. With Facebook Connect, campaigns can now take the viral effect of online fundraising to Facebook. When I give $5, I can now let all of my friends know and invite them to do the same on the social network I, and my firneds, are using every day. That is the power of online fundraising.

Similar to MyBO, the new Bloomberg custom social network only allows supporters to take a limited number of actions for the campaign (join a group or RSVP for an event). In 2008, this was the best model as it only allowed supporters to take action that would be beneficial to the campaign. MyBO and the Bloomberg community do not allow supporters to upload pictures, videos and other fun items found on Facebook and other social networks and in 2008 this made sense as their was no viral or social benefit to the campaign to integrate these features. But with the emergence of Facebook Connect (and I am sure other services like it from other social networks between now and 2010) I am a little bit surprised that the Bloomberg campaign did not find a way to allow users to take these extra actions and publish that activity as well to Facebook. With Facebook Connect, it is no longer superfluous activity for your supporters to upload pictures and video to your site if they can publish that activity on Facebook, thus bringing more viral attention to your campaign. I will be interested to see if other campaigns experiment with this between now and November 2010.

"News gathering...becoming a collective pursuit" 9:16 AM

Over the past few days, CNN has been heavily criticized by the Twitterverse for not adequately covering the Iranian elections. #CNNFail has been a trending topic on Twitter as people continue to hammer away at the news organization and their coverage. In what I believe is a remarkable piece, CNN's Rick Sanchez fights back against the online uprising and defends the news organization and its coverage of the Iranian election. Let that sink in for a moment. CNN is fighting back against Twitter. Even more fascinating is Sanchez' closing line in the below segment when he says, "The fact is that news gathering as we long have discovered on this particular show is becoming a collective pursuit, and we welcome that." A very insightful segment into the changing traditional news media industry:

Tweets from Rubio/Demint conference call 2:06 PM

This afternoon, South Carolina Senator Jim Demint announced his endorsement of Marco Rubio in his primary race against Florida Governor Charlie Crist for the United States Senate in Florida. I live-tweeted a blogger conference call with Senator Demint and Marco Rubio. If you missed it, here are my tweets from the call.

Iran: A Nation of Bloggers 8:08 AM

Since Friday's presidential "election" in Iran, much has been made of the role Twitter and other social networks have played in organizing protests and breaking news from Tehran. One insightful tweet this weekend said "What's sad about today is that #iranelection may be remembered as the day twitter came into its own as journalistic and organizing force."

While political and public relations professionals (like myself) gush over the potential Twitter and other social networks have given us to win our elections and promote our brands, what we really should be celebrating is the fact that these amazing tools are being used half-way around the world to free our common man from tyranny. If Twitter never helps another campaign win an election or another company make a profit, at least we can celebrate the hope, momentum and power it has given the people of Iran during this pivotal moment in their history.

In an interesting post last evening, The Washington Post examines the online explosion surrounding the Iranian election and The White House's "online silence" in response. In the post, the author links to a fascinating video that helps one fully comprehend the impact social networking and blogging has had on Iranian culture and more importantly, what the online space means to younger Iranians' fight for freedom. Watch the video and be sure to share it with your networks:

How NOT to gain Twitter followers 7:08 AM

Have you done a Google Search for "twitter followers" lately? Go ahead, try it out. What you will find is that everyone seems to know how to "Get Twitter Followers Now" and achieve "Explosive Twitter Growth". And while these scams may increase your following for the short term, it is more important for Twitter users (and users of all social networking mediums for that matter) to be concerned with how influential and significant their following is rather than the size of their following.

Here are a few lessons I have learned on how NOT to grow your Twitter following:

1. Do not used paid services which simply allow you to follow mass amounts of people who are likely not interested in what you are talking about, in hopes that they will follow you back. While it is true that one of the best ways to gain Twitter followers is by following others first, that logic only goes so far. People are smart enough to only follow you back if your content is interesting and valuable to them.
2. Do not rely too heavily on @Replies. A lot of people on Twitter think that the more your content is "retweeted" or replied to, the more followers you will gain. And while this logic has some merit, it does not always work. I'll give you a perfect example. A few week's ago, Jonathan Martin (Senior Political Writer for Politico) linked to my Sayfie Review column regarding Florida's most influential Twitterers while citing my Twitter username in his tweet. I was ecstatic! With 3,000+ followers and more importantly a great reputation, Jonathan Martin was sure to drive me followers, right? Wrong. I never saw the "Martin surge" of followers some Twitterers would come to expect after such exposure.
3. Flooding the zone. While this varies for each Twitter user, as a general rule of thumb I think it is safe to say that your followers don't want your tweets to be the only thing they see everytime they login to Twitter. The line of thinking that the more you tweet the more they follow is not necessarily true, but again this is something you have to determine for yourself.
   

At the end of the day, growing a significant social network following that is truly interested and engaged in what you are talking about takes a lot of time and a lot of work. Like everything in life, true success on Twitter does not come quickly or without serious effort, so get to work!

Launched! 6:00 AM

Today I am thrilled to officially launch JordanRaynor.com. This blog will serve two purposes. First and foremost, I hope this blog will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in the internet's impact on politics today. From online advertising to social networking, this blog will keep you ahead of the curve on the latest tools and trends for politicos on the web. Secondly, JordanRaynor.com will serve to highlight some of the projects I am personally involved in both at Sayfie Media and at NetPower Strategy.

For the very latest from JordanRaynor.com, you can subscribe to this blog via email or the RSS reader of your choice.

Please take a moment to look through the site and let me know what you think. I would love to hear what you have to say! If you like the blog and want to share it with your co-workers and friends, please take a second to use the button beneath this post where you can share this post with your contacts via email, text message or the social network of your choice.

Thanks and welcome to JordanRaynor.com!

24 hours later... 2:04 PM

Ruffini once again calls out our dissenters. Bring them on!

Who will challenge Raynor & Ruffini? 2:39 PM

That's what Patrick Ruffini asks in response to my latest column "The 3M Campaign Cycle Reversed: Virginia’s wake-up call to the Sunshine State." Here's Ruffini's tweet:

It is quite the honor to be grouped in the same line of thinking as Patrick Ruffini, largely respected as one of the godfathers of Republican online strategy. Be sure to check him out at engagedc.com, and thenextright.com.

The 3M Campaign Cycle Reversed: Virginia’s wake-up call to the Sunshine State 7:26 AM

This column was originally published by Jordan Raynor on SayfieReview.com

Terry McAuliffe - you know that name - former Democratic National Committee Chairman, Chair of Hillary Clinton for President and long-time Clinton family friend. Well in case you haven’t heard, Mr. McAuliffe has been running for Governor of Virginia, Florida’s not-so-politically-different friend to the North, since just after the 2008 Election. McAuliffe quickly racked up all of the big money, big consultants and big star-power his team thought necessary to win the seemingly smooth primary in Virginia. But, he lost this past Tuesday to State Senator Creigh Deeds. Who? Exactly. And while Deeds had run state-wide in Virginia in 2005 and lined up a few heavy hitters for his most recent campaign for Governor, there was a fundamental difference between him and McAuliffe in 2009. McAuliffe, much like Hillary Clinton, ran as if his nomination was inevitable. His campaign banked on using big money and institutional support as the driving force in his campaign, instead of his message.

Tuesday’s Primary Election in Virginia should be a wake-up call to all incumbents, challengers and political operatives across the State of Florida. The campaign cycle of what I call “The 3 Ms” is reversing itself in more and more races across the country and it will likely appear in campaigns across Florida in 2010.

The Traditional 3M Cycle

Every political consultant and politician knows this cycle of the political campaign by heart. Big money leads to momentum which finally leads you to find your message.

MONEY → MOMENTUM → MESSAGE

While this cycle will continue to win elections, it is far less effective today than it has been in the past. Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic Primary is the most high-profile case study in how this cycle can fail in the modern day campaign. Terry McAuliffe’s crushing loss on Tuesday (roughly a 24% margin) provides a more recent and more local example. For those who think what happens in Virginia has no bearing on us in Florida, consider that these are both purple states that went for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and Obama in 2008 with very similar margins of victory.

In the past, this cycle has typically been the formula for victory; but with the increase of political engagement at the local level, driven by technology’s further democratization of the political process, this cycle is becoming less and less relevant.

Having the money and support of the political establishment is rarely a bad thing. After all, “seed money” is critical to any campaign no matter how high-profile the candidate. It’s when the money comes before the candidate’s message that problems arise.

The New 3M Cycle

In 2008 President Obama put the new 3M cycle to work on the grandest of stages and since then, you have seen it begin to take shape in races here in Florida and across the country. A solid message leads to momentum which leads to big money.

MESSAGE → MOMENTUM → MONEY

Creigh Deeds started his campaign in Virginia similarly to Barack Obama’s campaign for President in the sense that message came first. Message came before the big money, before the endorsements and before the momentum. In both instances, sincere grassroot campaigns were able to achieve victory not because of initial institutional support, but because of the right candidate with the right message for the right time.

If you have all of the big money, consultants and endorsements in the world, that’s great. But don’t flaunt it around to the extent that your campaign becomes the campaign of inevitability. 2008 was not the year for that and neither will be 2010.

If I were a candidate running for office in Florida in 2010, I would take a strong, sincere, relevant message over money and the support of the establishment any day.

The new campaign cycle has proven itself on the national stage and elsewhere across the country. It is only a matter of which candidate it will propel to victory in Florida in 2010.

Does Money Even Matter in Elections Anymore? 7:17 AM

That's the question Patrick Ruffini, the brilliant online Republican political strategist, asks in this fantastic blog post he published last night examining the results of the Virginia Democratic Gubernatorial Primary. The most entertaining part of the post has to be this video showing just a portion of the 25,000 signs extending 20 miles that the McAuliffe campaign erected just before the election. Brian Moran, one of McAuliffe's challengers said in response to the signs, "It goes to show, if you have too much money, you waste it.''

Tweets from Google AdWords Seminar 8:43 AM

This week, I live tweeted from the Google AdWords Seminar I attended in Orlando. Here are some of the highlights:

The Algorithm 3:43 PM

Tomorrow, I am heading to Orlando for a Google AdWords Seminar. I have used AdWords for nearly a year now, but I knew I needed to refresh myself on some of the basics. In preparation, I watch this video by Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian who explains the Google AdWords auction algorithm with incredible simplicity. This is a must watch for any political communications or corporate communications professional currently advertising or interested in advertising on Google.