The Intersection of Online and Offline

My Georgetown colleague, author and all-around good guy, Garrett Graff this week wrote a blog posting in the online version of Washingtonian magazine entitled “McCain and the Internet: Why It Matters.”  I respect the points put forth, but Garrett, you are wrong, wrong, wrong — and I am here to help you see the light.

I encourage everyone to read the article, but the point is basically that McCain doesn’t get the Internet, so it is a metaphor for his larger cluelessness, and it should “give us pause:”

The fact that John McCain hasn’t yet learned how to use the Internet himself puts him not just at odds with most of the rest of the nation but, in fact, with many people in his own age bracket. More than a third of Americans 65 and older use the Internet, according to the May 2008 numbers from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Work by Forrester Research, which uses different age brackets, shows that more than a third of Americans over 55 regularly read blogs and online forums, watch videos, or listen to podcasts. This “Internet thing” isn’t some crazy person’s niche; it will be the driving force behind the next half-century of America’s economic growth. That John McCain isn’t part of that group of “wired seniors” should give us all pause coming into this fall.”

I love a good debate, so here goes.

1. There is,  without a doubt, a WIDE gap among online activists and enthusiasts in the Obama and McCain camps.  Before penning this (old school reference), I consulted a friend of mine who, for a while, worked in McCain’s online shop.  He basically confirmed what we can agree upon, and that is that Obama and the Dems do it better.  “McCain Space” was embarrassing.  But McCain, like any president before him, is going to leave the blogs and Twitter accounts up to other people. I doubt that Obama wakes up every morning and checks the Technorati ranking on his campaign Web site.
2. I’ve been in Washington long enough to know that the Internet is such as powerful force, that not even the dumbest of politicians can kill it.  The recent flap between the Dems and Repubs about “blocking” You Tube and Ted Stevens’ 2006 comment (presumably about “Net Neutrality”) -  “the Internet…is a series of tubes..” doesn’t scare me at all.  Not even Congress can kill this. I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in Media Bullseye - Rubes, Tubes and Boobs.
3. Once whomever the new president is steps foot into the Oval Office, I doubt that he will have time to touch a computer.  The Internet is all about getting to the White House, but you can pretty much forget about it when you’re there.  Unless you are Al Gore.  And I concede, and wrote a couple of weeks ago, that this will be the first presidential race in which the online activism will truly cross over into offline.
4. To hell with online.  I want a president who is a Man With a Plan about the economy, the war on Islamic fundamentalists and other critical issues, not someone who is Tweeting with his pals.  I am fine that McCain is “clueless,” just so long as he gets the big issues.  Or Obama.  My point is that understanding the Internet does not crack my Top Ten List for what I care about in a presidential candidate.
5. To your larger point, “…what kind of president would he be in a world where just as much commerce travels over fiber optics as over interstate highways? What kind of president would he be in a world where, for the first time this year, there are now more users of the Internet in China than in the United States? What kind of president will he be in a world where the greatest force for Iranian democracy today is its thriving Persian blog community?” – you need to think past the Beltway.  Washington, DC is the most active social networking city in the nation.  I would bet that there are a lot of people who don’t care about the Internet (Columbia, SC, St. Louis and Chicago round out the bottom), but about other pressing issues as well.

My final point is about the line”…John McCain seems to have missed this [Internet] movement—an oversight that may have profound implications both for his campaign and the entire nation if he is to become president.”  Propeller-heads like us care.  A farmer in Nebraska probably doesn’t.

Campaign?  Yes.

Nation?  Hell, no.

Mark

I’ve been away for a couple of days, but returned to read (online, of course), that Eddie “the Spam King” Davidson “…killed his wife and one of their children before killing himself in an apparent murder-suicide on Thursday.” Without even going into the horrific crime described below, the real “spam kings” won’t ever get caught because they are smart enough to live and work where they cannot get caught.

But on to the facts: Eddie Davidson, 35, was serving a 21-month sentence for illegally sending spam over the Internet and escaped from a minimum security prison in Florence on July 20.

The crime is heinous, but the bottom-feeder of global publications the (U.K.) Inquirer, noted:

Not all stories have a happy ending, but the tale of escaped spam king Edward “Eddie” Davidson sure does. After walking away from prison, he got a gun, killed his family, then killed himself.

While it is hard not to feel bad for his brutally murdered wife and child, not to mention his wounded daughter, Eddie’s suicide itself is the stuff of happy thoughts. Every deceased spammer is a million fewer in-box-clogging, malware-infested mails a day, so lets tip one back for liberal gun laws.

Ok. So a man escapes from prison, murders most of his family and takes the coward’s way out. And that’s an excuse for “liberal gun laws?”

Not much to say on this one, except that, as I wrote last week, if someone would just give me a few mil and three years, I could make spam go away forever.

Mark

OK. Now I have to write about it.

Two people have sent me an article from MSNBC from last week entitled “Beware of social networking overload.” The author is Eve Tahmincioglu (imagine having to pronounce that last name for your teachers), but this article is maddening to me.

I am of the school that increasingly, “traditional” journalism is more about having headlines designed to garner eyeballs or sell papers — and this article proves my point. Among the things that Eve brings up are the following points:

Here’s what people have been asking me lately: “Is it enough just to be on LinkedIn and Facebook?” “I just got an invite from a friend who’s on Plaxo. What is it and should I join?” “Will I dilute my networking effectiveness if I’m on MySpace, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter?”

I know, there’s a hint of desperation in the air because of the tough economy, and everyone wants to have lots of connections just in case layoffs are looming. But beware. You might end up with social networking overload.

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHH.

I have said this in my class before and will say it to anyone who will listen: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “INFORMATION OVERLOAD” IF YOU DO NOT ALLOW IT TO EXIST.

Point #1: plenty of people, myself included, choose to be on Facebook, LinkedIn,Twitter and other social networking sites (I am experimenting with Identi.ca too), and I have a blog too. These are opt-in/optional tools, however. Sure there are some of my Tweeps out there who spend way too much time bouncing back and forth, but no one is twisting their arms. And almost every single social media relationship into which I have invested time and effort has led to meeting someone in “first life.” And I don’t mean dating, I mean things like participating in Blog World Expo (shameless plug, but I’ll be speaking there in September).

Point #2: this is sloppy journalism. There are plenty of aggregator sites out there like FriendFeed that do the work for you and pull all of this together. I check the automatic email or the site once every couple of days to see what the people in my online social networks are up to. Aggregator sites put everything in one place.

Point #3: “There is desperation out there about the economy?” Nice tie in. Sure, there is. But being on a social network is only (if you are lucky) ten percent of what is required to get a good job - and many postings on things like Facebook (keg stands) can have the opposite effect in terms of getting in the door for an interview.

Final point: do your research, Eve. Overload only exists when you choose to let it. And there are plenty of ways to pull everything into one place so you can keep up with all of your buddies online.

Mark

Like a rabid dog with a with the mailman’s leg, I just can’t seem to let go of the whole hand-wringing scenario about media and public relations “professionals” doing bad pitches. In the old days, I have noted, as a young buck in the PR agency side of things, I reporters would screen my calls or just hang up on me. And it was over. I’ve been rejected more times than Kate Moss at Weight Watchers meetings (and I won’t even get into my dating life back in the day).

Now you have things like the “Bad Pitch Blog,” designed to bitch-slap mostly junior or clueless individuals who don’t know how to pitch properly. The tag line is “read our wrath.” That’s telling. I won’t mention any of the creators by name, but you need to get over yourselves. Has anyone keyed your car? Stolen your iPod? Assassinated your penguin? You don’t kill a fly with a sledgehammer, and this site reeks of new media hubris. Bad karma. I loved Jason Falls’ “Friday Frustrations” post in which he stated:

“A-list bloggers have an awfully bad habit of blowing smoke up each other’s asses. I’m probably guilty of it, too, though I don’t consider myself an A-lister, but for chrissakes people, you’re not celebrities so stop acting like them.”

Amen, brother.

I swear this is the last time that I am going to say this, but somehow, I am not that irritated by bad pitches. I either ignore them or have even created a folder in my email programs that pick up on key words, stores them there and I go back and read them when I have time. Maybe I am a softy in this regard because I have been both the pitcher and the pitchee, but I think that most people complaining about this just need to get over themselves (see above).

But in the spirit of “can’t we just get along?” here are just a few fundamental tips that I would provide to people who pitch either in the offline or online environment. Good communication is good communication if it’s a ten page fax or a 140 characters.

1. Identify your target audience. If you are looking to reach a target audience via a publication or blog, your first step should be making sure that the outlet matches up with the audience that you are attempting to influence. Otherwise, as Shel Holtz calls it, it is just “shovelware.”
2. Think about your objectives. Why are you communicating with this audience? I know that in the agency world you are communicating because your client thinks that he/she should be above the fold in the Wall Street Journal, but if you spend some time thinking about the benefits NOT to your client or organization but to the people receiving or potentially reading the information, you’ll go a long way towards happy, shiny people reading what you have to say. And if you work for an agency, the best consultants know when to say “no, this will be a waste of your money.” Courageous conversation for sure, but things will end up better.
3. What messages are your target readers likely to want? Knowing this will make you happy and, provided that you select the right people to pitch, it will make the writers/bloggers happy too.
4. List the types of questions that individuals may ask or additional information they may want. This is how your are going to write your pitch, your press release, or if you are doing it right, putting together your interactive press release. Answer these questions in advance and reflect it in the way that you present your information.
5. What do you want to achieve? Think about this in two ways. If you send a pitch to a blogger or print reporter, what is the action that you want he/she to take? Visit a link with more info (good call). Read an attachment (bad call: Esther Schindler has correctly noted that “attachments merit the death penalty”). If you have spent all of the time and money getting something placed, I am no fan of the statement “raising awareness.” In the age of interactivity, there has to be some action that people reading your information can take besides merely processing it.
6. Surmising that you accomplish your objectives, then what? If a reporter calls you back, you had better have your act together (no “ummm, uhhh,” or putting reporters on hold while you look for your cheat sheet with talking points on it) . And for God’s sake, list your cell phone number on your voicemail. If a reporter/blogger calls you back and gets your voicemail, it drastically reduces your chances.
7. Push vs. pull. Regurgitating information all over people who may or may not want it can work, but a largely ignored pitching vehicle is simply putting information where you want reporters or bloggers to get it. Think: ProfNet, SEO, Peter Shankman’s “Help a Reporter” listserv and Web site. If your information is waiting for people who want it, your chances go up dramatically.

I could go on and on, but given the fact that I keep promising that this will be my last post on bad pitches, look for my next post on bad pitches.

Mark

The title of this post has everything to do with just about every major political race in the country, but I am unfortunately not at NetRoots right now. Jealous, well, yes. Not at Podcamp Boston either. In fact, I am writing this post in my back yard. (Quick note: when I went to find the link to Podcamp Boston, I noted that it says in big letters on the index page: PODCAMP BOSTON IS AT CAPACITY: NO WALKINS PLEASE!). Keep this in mind as you read below.

I don’t get to talk politics much thanks to the Hatch Act (which, as I noted in my final post in my old blog before I erased it) is that the only thing worse than this piece of legislation is Orrin Hatch’s music. And THAT’s bad. But back to my point.

Folks like Patrick Ruffini made this point a long time ago, and David Wescott brought it up again in the context of mommy bloggers as a built-in audience with whom to dialogue. This is the year that we will see a huge impact in political campaigns due to social media. I am not talking fund raising, as much as securing the base; something that John McCain and Barack Obama clearly need to do to win.

Again, with credit to David Wescott who unearthed some research from George Washington University, every campaign manager’s dream is to have a highly networked, connected group of activists just waiting to be mobilized. He also noted in the survey, that politically active people:

“They also tend to visit blogs that share their viewpoint. Think of such blogs as their red meat. Indeed, 94% read only blogs on one side of the ideological spectrum, with 90% of liberals and 90% of conservatives sticking to like-minded blogs. Self-proclaimed “moderates” don’t blog shop either, with 89% exclusively reading either liberal or conservative blogs.”

So think of this: if I am on the political Left and get Daily Kos on my side, it’s a win. On the right, ditto for Little Green Footballs. Everyone waited breathlessly for social media to have an impact in 2004, and it was more of a whimper than a bang.

This is the year, folks. I don’t pay a lot of attention to fund raising on the Internet, because a) I don’t really believe the numbers anyway, and b) it will all equal out on the end on a national scale anyway. It’s about turning out your base, which is how the last two presidential elections were won.

Here we are in 2008, and blogs are hooked to each other which are hooked to Twitter which are hooked to Facebook which are aggregated by FriendFeed. People who read or write political blogs tend to be more politically active and influential - and connected. This is a powerful, new phenomenon that has occurred since the last presidential election cycle. I was a marketing major, and we used to say that you have to touch people five different ways using a marketing mix before you get their attention. See above.

The Perfect Storm is in place, and this is the year.

Curious to hear from folks at Podcamp Boston ot NetRoots on this one.

Mark