The Intersection of Online and Offline

I have not had time to write in-depth about the intersection of social media and the recent U.S. elections, but had some fun doing a Media Bullseye Radio Roundtable (.mp3 file) yesterday.

We talked about:

• An Internet election?
• The dark side of of online reputation management
• Blogging and corporate layoffs

It was, as usual fun, and simultaneously enlightening.  Thanks, Chip and Jen.

Mark

Wrote an article for my pals at Media Bullseye today, questioning if the political conventions are any indications if social media will be game changing or just red meat for the right and the left.

And yes, I know I am going to get hate mail on this calling me either a right-wing fascist or a lefty commie pinko.  But here’s the article:

#RNC08 #DNC08 - Does it Really Matter?

This is the year. Everything changes. The Internet will make a difference in political races. I have blogged in the past that I do, indeed, think that the Internet will finally have the long-predicted impact on the presidential race this year, getting people to cross over from the online to the offline world and get off their duffs and meet up in the “first life.” Maybe.

I still need to be convinced, however, that the plethora of social media tools surrounding this year’s political conventions do anything except provide red meat for the people who really care anyway.

Text messaging

I am not on Obama’s text message list. I am not on anyone’s text message list, hopefully because it costs me ten cents every time someone sends me one (and thanks to my friends texting me from bars at all hours of the night). But to “walk the walk,” Obama announced some time ago that he was going to announce his choice for running mate FIRST via text message. This is a cool concept. It bet it got a lot of people signed up for Obama’s text list.

But, like other predictions that “the Internet is going to change everything!” The story broke before that Obama had chosen Joe Biden before he could send out his text message. Was this a real victory in convincing a whole heck of a lot of people to sign up for Obama’s text, to feel “in the loop?” Sure. Was it a great tactic to connect with younger voters (who have not shown up for the Dems in numbers that they would like in the last few elections) in a way that suits them? You bet your bippy (there goes that archaic comment from my last article again).

But was this “game changing?” No way. I live and work in Washington and have for more than 20 years and this place leaks like a sieve. If Obama thought that he would keep the secret before his announcement, he was naïve. If he and his advisers saw it as an opportunity to connect with potential voters is what will be a tight race, he was dead on.

Twitter

This has been the Twitter Week From Hell for me. I am fortunate enough to have friends on both sides of the political aisle (including far left and far right) and have seen WAY too many breathless posts directed to #dnc08 (for the Democratic convention and Obama supporters), #rnc08 (for the Republican convention and McCain supporters). Reading some of the Tweets, you would think that there were two different Obama acceptance speeches that took place on Thursday night. Here are a few of my favorite tweets (leaving them anonymous):

• “Just filed my last #dnc08 dispatch via Blackberry en route to the airport. What a night! I was lucky to be at Invesco.”
• “This is why McCain wanted to wait. Less than 12 hours after Obama’s speech, the cable networks are focused on the veepstakes. #rnc08″
• “Eight is enough! . #dnc08″
• “C-SPAN caller says Obama is a socialist. Says he didn’t spend his life fighting communism to watch America go down this path. #dnc08″
• “Drudge now showing picture of McCain and Lieberman. That would be cruel. #rnc08″

Let’s think about Twitter and the conventions right now. Most of the tweets for the Dems were coming from folks on the ground in Denver and were being read by people who are interested in the knowing what’s going on on the ground in Denver. Good for them.

Most of the #rn08 tweets were either slamming Obama’s speech or talking up McCain’s “Veepstakes.” Good for them too. (Ed. note: This article was written prior to McCain’s announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate.)

My main point is for this to be the year in which the Internet does actually have an impact on the elections, it needs to be more than feeding red meat to your supporters. It’s great to have a bunch of echo chambers for each party as well as extra vehicles to rally supporters and increase voter turnout, but my political instincts tell me that what really matters is the middle - the people who have yet to decide in the states that are toss-ups. According to Real Clear Politics’ delegate count, there are 125 electoral votes up for grabs.

Are those people tweeting? Are those people texting? Maybe. But traditionally, most voters make up their minds in the last few weeks of the elections largely through a barrage of earned and paid media as well as presidential debates.

This year may be different, but I can’t wait to get my Twitter back and return to the serious business of who went out where last night and who forgot to feed their cat.

Mark

No comments

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

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