Facebook on Capitol Hill 8:13 AM

Politico has a great profile piece out this morning on the three-man team at the helm of Facebook's D.C. bureau whose job it is to expand Facebook's presence in Washington D.C.  This includes working with candidates and elected officials on setting up Facebook pages and profiles while ensuring that they are complying with election laws.  Click here to read the full article and also be sure to check out Politico's video below:

Facebook Outlines Mobile Strategy 8:50 AM

As Facebook continues to grow at an alarming rate of 1 million new users every other day, it's future will likely rest largely on it's success and adoption on mobile devices.  Currently, there are more than 100 million active users accessing Facebook through their mobile device and according to Facebook, these mobile users are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.  So what does the future of Facebook on mobile devices look like?  Facebook's Vice President of User Growth, Mobile and International Expansion, Chamath Palihapitiya, gave some insight during this recent session on Mobile Communications 2.0 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona:

An Alternative Facebook Friend Diet 8:28 AM

The Heritage Foundation's Director of Online Strategy, Robert Bluey, published a piece a few weeks ago calling for a Facebook Diet of sorts.  Bluey cites a recent tweet from David All in which All claimed he was "going on a Facebook Friend diet for 2010" with a goal of being "under 1,500 by July 4th." 

I share Bluey and All's concern and desire to make their Facebook networks more personal and to rid their Facebook news feeds of Blingee Book and Mafia Wars.  After all, the social network was built be a place where you could connect with your "friends".  But with all due respect to these two online strategists far more brilliant than me, I would argue that eliminating your current Facebook friends or refusing to accept friend requests that come in the future is not the best solution to this problem. 

In his blog post, Bluey says that his wife will ask "why a total stranger is remarking about a personal item" such as a picture of their son.  A good question indeed.  I ran into similar annoyances when friends of my parents started joining Facebook 3-4 years after I had been on the network.  My parents and their friends suddenly had access to everything I was doing with my life online, and people who I had not seen in a decade were suddenly giving me life advice via my Facebook status.  Talk about obnoxious.  But un-friending these people or not accepting their friend requests was not the answer.  There were times when I had information that I wanted to share with these people, whether it was news of my engagement, wedding plans, or career moves I was making.  If I had made the decision to deny their friend requests or un-friend them, I would have lost the ability to communicate with them via Facebook. 

Over the past week, I have received an average of 6 friend requests per day.  Almost all of these people I have never heard of before, but upon inspecting our "mutual friends" it is clear that these people want to connect with me professionally (or, perhaps more likely, simply increase their Facebook friend count for reasons beyond my understanding).  While I do not want to give these people access to everything I post on Facebook (especially personal status updates), why would I turn down someone who has initiated a relationship that could be beneficial to me professionally?  More than 15% of the traffic to my blog comes directly from Facebook, and increasing my footprint on Facebook will allow me to drive more traffic to that content and make connections that could be mutually beneficial to me and my "friends" in the future. 

So how can I keep these two worlds of Facebook "friends" separate?  The rarely-talked-about, yet incredibly effective Facebook Lists tool.

Every time I receive a friend request on Facebook from someone I do not recognize, I check to see what friends I have in common with the requester ("mutual friends").  99 times out of 100, the "mutual friends" will be politicians, journalists and other "professional" connections I have made on Facebook.  By simply clicking the "Add to List" drop down menu underneath the name of the friend requester, I can choose what previously created list I want to add this new friend to.  If they are someone I think will be interested in the political content I post to Facebook, I add them to my "Professional" list.  If the person is someone I know in the offline world that has no interest in politics, I place them in the "Personal" list. 

Once these lists are set up, I can determine which lists see which status updates and links I post to Facebook.  For example, this blog post would not interest my personal friends on Facebook, but if I wanted to drive my professional network on Facebook to this post, I could because I have a created a list of my professional friends.  By clicking the drop-down menu to the left of the "Share" button, I can manually select exactly who I want to see my Facebook status update or link.  

In this example, I want my entire professional list to see my link, so I select "Professional" and save my setting.  Once I click "Share" only my professional contacts will be able to see my link, sparing my personal friends from my political ramblings. 

Facebook Lists can also be incredibly effective for political campaigns at the local and congressional level.  If a candidate is using a Facebook profile instead of a Facebook page, they have the ability to segment their friends into many different messaging niches.  Let's say Candidate X for State House posts a Facebook status update regarding their position on property taxes.  If 35 people "like" that Facebook status, Candidate X can be relatively certain that those 35 people agree with their stance on that issue.  If property taxes are an important issue to Candidate X's campaign, why not segment those 35 people into a separate Facebook List and target future messages regarding property taxes (especially fundraising pleas) to those people?  

This principle of segmenting your message is a timeless one that has been made simple in other online mediums such as e-mail.  But it admittedly requires much more effort on Facebook. 

Facebook has evolved a great deal since its launch six years ago, and those of us that have been a member of the network for a number of years have seen our network of friends evolve with it.  For those of us who continue to use Facebook and other forms of social media to promote our candidates and causes, we will always be confronted with the challenge of keeping our personal and professional lives separate online.  This alternative Facebook Friend Diet, though tedious, has immensely helped me segment my Facebook network instead of purge it.  I hope it will do the same for you.

Cross-posted from TechRepublican.com

Palin's massive online footprint 1:25 PM

As I was sitting in the doctor's office yesterday, I decided it was time to clean through some of the people I was following on Twitter. As I scrolled through the bios of numerous TCOT (Top Conservatives on Twitter - the most significant conservative organization on Twitter) members I was following, three themes appeared again and again:

Christian, mom, homeschool

And right then it hit me - with Sarah Palin's most recent TIME magazine cover staring me in the face in the doctor's office waiting room - regardless of what she does in the future, Sarah Palin is building an incredible online grassroots organization that should be marveled and replicated by politicians across the country.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Palin's circumvention of the mainstream media following the announcement of her resignation. Weeks after her announcement, Palin has not let up. TechPresident noted this morning that "Here in these doggiest of August days, Sarah Palin's Facebook page has accumulated roughly the same number of brand new supporters in the last week as Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal each have in total."

Now, Inside Facebook has taken a deeper look into the incredible organization Palin is building online:

The Republican Party may not have made the best use of Facebook in last fall’s elections, but If you’re looking to keep tabs on the latest Sarah Palin news these days, your best bet is to become a fan of her on Facebook.

The former Alaska governor’s Facebook Page has experienced rapid growth since her resignation a few weeks ago, as fans rely more and more on her posts to get information about her political views and future plans.

Palin made no secret of her distaste for the media during her final speech as Alaska’s governor, and it appears she’s decided to speak directly to her followers rather than through television and newspaper reports that she claims distort her words.

Palin has amassed a base of almost 800,000 Facebook fans, and it’s obvious that her message is reaching much farther than that. In her critical post on the current debates involving the future of healthcare, Palin struck a nerve by accusing President Obama of creating a system that would involve “death panels.” The phrase quickly caught on with people on both sides of the argument, and the White House even responded to the post through their own online avenues.

This isn’t the first time a politician has turned to Facebook and social media to further his or her message. President Obama was very successful using both Facebook and Twitter to garner support. But unlike her predecessors that have used social media to reach constituents, Palin is not hitting the political trail or appearing on many television shows. Instead, she is currently relying largely on social media to reach out to the public, and so far she’s succeeding.

If Sayfie was Google, Bing or Yahoo! 5:51 AM

Earlier this week, two Florida legislators announced that they would be taking up legislation to update Florida's laws dealing with pay-per-click online advertising after a complaint was filed to the Florida Elections Commission regarding a local candidate's use of Google and Facebook ads.

Justin Sayfie, Principal of NetPower Strategy (of which I am an Associate) is suggesting another possible solution in an interview with ClickZ magazine:

"If I were Google, if I were Bing, if I were MSN or Yahoo, I would think about whether there's a technical solution I can provide to candidates in Florida, because now effectively there's a ban on anything that can be seen as [online] political advertising."

The idea that Google, Facebook and other pay-per-click advertising models such as Bing and Yahoo! could take steps themselves to make sure that political candidates are able to advertise on their sites while still complying with election law is a fascinating one. If it happens, it will serve as proof of the significant increase in spending by political campaigns on pay-per-click online advertising and the growing importance of these campaigns to pay-per-click advertising model sites.

To keep up with this developing story in Florida, I have added a florida pay-per-click ad debacle tag to all of my blog posts focused on this specific subject.

Florida Legislature to take up Google AdWords Legislation 2:25 PM

Huge development today in the ongoing saga over use of Google and Facebook advertising for political campaigns in Florida. State Representative Eric Eisnaugle (R) and State Senator Ted Deutch (D) announced today that they will be introducing legislation "to help match our laws with the next generation of communications." This announcement comes in wake of a complaint filed to the Florida Elections Commission over St. Petersburg Mayor candidate Scott Wagman's use of Google and Facebook advertising. Here's more on the announcement, as reported by the Tampa Tribune:

State Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, R-Orlando, plans to draft and file legislation to solve the problem of Internet “link ads” that led to a state Elections Commission investigation in the St. Petersburg mayor’s race.

The state’s laws “should not be archaic,” Eisnaugle said in a news release.

“Florida’s election laws were written well before the internet became a part of daily life for Floridians and do not recognize the important dynamic of online communications. I plan on bringing together stakeholders in the technology community and state elections officials to help match our laws with the next generation of communications.”

The issue arose with Elections Commission charges against mayoral candidate Scott Wagman’s link ads on Google, Facebook and other web sites.

As I mentioned last week, this case has the potential to significantly impact candidates' ability to advertise on Google, Facebook and other pay-per-click advertising platforms. The fact that the Legislature is taking up this issue so quickly is a good sign as this may be the quickest way to remedy this issue and set a strong precedent for other states dealing with similar issues. I will be watching this story very closely as it continues to unfold, so stay tuned.

Florida: Where Google ads for political campaigns go to die? 8:03 AM

When I began my vacation two weeks ago, this was a blip on the radar screen of local political blogs here in Florida. When I returned to my desk yesterday, I found that it had exploded into a national story which has thrust Florida to the forefront of a growing debate over the legality of pay-per-click advertising by political campaigns on Google and Facebook. ClickZ and TechPresident have both focused on the story as has the Wall Street Journal:

An online twist in a hotly contested race for mayor of St. Petersburg, Fla., could signal trouble for local politicians advertising on popular Web sites like Google, Facebook and Twitter.

The Florida Elections Commission has decided a mayoral candidate's ads on Google and Facebook appear to violate the state's election law because they don't include a disclaimer that indicates who bought them. Many other states, including Texas, Alaska, Connecticut and Ohio, also require similar disclaimers.

The candidate's campaign, however, argues that the messages in question aren't technically ads, but rather links to ads, and that it doesn't pay for them unless a Web user clicks on them. When that happens, it says, the person is taken to a Web site that provides the appropriate disclosures.

...analysts say online ads could become a more crucial part of political campaigns, and the Florida dispute is likely to set a precedent for how state and local politicians advertise on the Web.

Click here to read the entire piece from the Wall Street Journal

While I am not a lawyer and won't comment on the legal issues surrounding this case, this is something I believe all political communications professionals should keep their eye on as the implications on online advertising for political campaigns are potentially significant. Stay tuned for more...

Here's a local news report on this story with interviews with the Wagman campaign:

Facebook's Zuckerberg on Social Networks and Social Revolutions 1:55 PM

Very interesting conversation with Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg (yes, Mark's sister) at the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum on how Facebook evolved into a platform for social revolutions:

My Interview with Florida Matters 1:38 PM

Last week, I had the privilege of participating in an interview with WUSF's Florida Matters. The interview focused on how new technology and the internet changed the 2008 elections and how citizens can continue to use new technology to keep their leaders accountable.