Winning the U.S. Senate Social Media Election- CA, IL, NV, WA, WV Edition
Since our 2006 report on the quality and content of campaign websites, we have seen a marked improvement across the board in sites that incorporate multimedia content, personal fundraising, the Spanish language, and of course, candidate presences on social networking websites. With the 2010 midterm elections just a week away, one would assume that given the wide praise and success of President Obama’s 2008 campaign website and social media presence, that senior members of his own party in tough campaigns would be the most adept at online communications and social media.
Surprisingly, one only need do a quick Google search for “Harry Reid” to find out this is not the case, as Angle supporters own the keyword “Harry Reid” on Google AdWords. If you do manage to find Senate Majority Leader Reid’s website, with the exception of the splash page, his official website is almost exclusively devoted to Sharron Angle. Conversely, Angle’s website splash page and Facebook fan page are all about President Obama. Call me “Old School” but I find this strange. When you spend more time attacking your opponent than pitching your case, perhaps voters can be forgiven for selecting “none of the above” on their ballots.
Given that the majority of polling fails to account for voters who only have cell phones and the general fact that membership in social networking sites is younger, we conducted some brief research into the quantity and quality of online support for five very competitive Senate campaigns. Although the raw number of a candidate’s Facebook fans and Twitter followers is a quick and easy metric that is useful for gauging momentum (see the Facebook Ratings: Election 2010 post on AllFacebook), we used Slurp140 over the last 7 days to track activity on Twitter and combined the results with Facebook’s ad targeting tool.
By The Numbers
In examining the closest five Senate campaigns in which the Democrats have to win at least two to remain in control of the Senate: Boxer vs. Fiorina, in California, Murray vs. Rossi in Washington, Kirk vs. Giannoulias in Illinois, Raese vs. Manchin in West Virginia, and Reid vs. Angel in Nevada; our team came up with the following results:
Facebook- Most in-state supporters:
- Boxer with 20,560 over Fiorina’s 9,320
- Murray with 15,460 over Rossi’s 3,460
- Giannoulias with 10,520 over Kirk’s 6,020
- Manchin with 3,140. (Stats for Raese N/A- Manchin’s total count is 1,710 higher)
- Angle with 8,780 over Reid’s 6,880
Facebook- Most out-of-state supporters: Of Sharron Angle’s 87,880 fans over 18, Only 8,780 claim Nevada as home on Facebook. Perhaps this race is getting some national attention? While Harry Reid isn’t doing much better, he is benefiting from a flaw in the algorithm as Facebook’s Ad Manager shows 22,020 supporters for Reid, 6,680 of whom list Nevada as home.
Most Educated Supporters: Those who self identify as college grads prefer Boxer, Murray, Giannoulias, Manchin and Reid.
Most Engaged Supporters: Sharron Angle, by a landslide. Since 10/18, things posted to the Angle campaign wall have attracted an impressive 24,841 total ‘likes’ or comments. Otherwise Fiorina (3,686) tops Boxer (2,716) Rossi (4,713) over Murray (3,578) Giannoulias (1,629) over Kirk (1,377) and Raese (984) over Manchin (846)
In terms of how Facebook statistics correlate with presence on other social networks, for whatever reason the GOP seems to be more adept at Twitter as:
Most Twitter Followers: Fiorina, Rossi, Kirk and Angle are all ahead. In West Virginia, neither candidate has put much time or effort into their accounts.
Highest Volume Twitter: On October 20th we set up Slurp140 to track all mentions of official candidate accounts in California, Illinois, Nevada, Washington and West Virginia. Here both the total volume of tweets and number of people tweeting is generally in line with national media coverage. Given that since October 20th, only 950 people have referenced the WV Senate campaigns, perhaps the candidates there can be forgiven for not devoting time or resources to this medium. While there are certainly a large number of anonymous accounts and trolls, a quick look at the leaderboards indicates that with the exception of West Virginia, those on the leaderboards are predominantly against the Democrats.
1. Nevada: 11,490 tweets by 3,292 people.
2. California: 10,838 tweets by 4,365
3. Washington: 9,595 tweets by 2, 253 people
4. Illinois: 4,390 tweets by 1,166 people
5. West Virginia: 2,795 tweets by 950 people
Most YouTube Views: Perhaps due to the intervention of some Demon Sheep, Fiorina is way ahead of everyone with 857,007 total views. GOP also seems to be winning the YouTube war as with the exception of Manchin, Angle, Rossi and Kirk are all ahead of their opponents.
Conclusions:
1. While all politics may be local, modern campaigns are now national.
2. Many campaigns, despite having substantial resources are failing to follow the basics.
3. As we noted in our 2006 report- challengers, regardless of party affiliation are still the most adept at using new and emerging web tools. While the Democrat’s strength on Facebook in these specific races might be the exceptions that prove the rule, overall when you compare the national party committees candidates, the GOP is proving to be the most versatile producer of social media in 2010.
DC Government Apps Store
Was opened last night in time for the O’Reilly Gov 2.0 summit and expo here in DC. The apps store has both web-based and mobile phone applications. One that caught my eye is the Are You Safe? Washington, DC, iPhone application. Kind of like walking around the city with a Geiger counter for safety.
These first-wave attempts at pulling government data and information are impressive. And I expect we will see the day when the data behind these apps, and much more information about a city, are accessible in a standard format so citizens can build their own applications — where government becomes more of a data platform.
For instance, the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC attracts huge crowds, and many foreign visitors, each spring. I could easily foresee a powerful application for trip planning, day walks, and event attendance. With live data you’ve know where to stay (for those inveterate procrastinators), know what’s available in real-time (like parking, event tickets), and draw walking maps on-the-fly. Could include audio snippets much like a guided museum tour since your phone will know where you are.
That would be “augmented reality,” to borrow the phrase from Tim O’Reilly.
A Partial Answer to How Stimulus Funds Were Distributed.
In yesterday’s Washington Post, there’s a good article by Alec McGillis about the power of senators from sparsely populated states.
Toward’s the end there’s this: “And then there’s the Senate’s age-old distortion of distributive politics, in which goodies are doled out on anything but a per-capita basis. California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey are among the 10 states that get the least back per tax dollar sent to Washington; Alaska, the Dakotas and West Virginia are among those that get the most. ”
And look at the graph below (my post of 8/6/09) regarding the distribution of stimulus funds to the state. This statement helps somewhat to explain the pattern — especially in the case of New Jersey; and of Alaska, the Dakotas, and West Virginia.
So How Did They Decide to Allocate the Recovery Funds to the States?
This post is a bit different from the usual on The Bivings Report. But I’m a big believer in transparency in government, and watch with interest what ProPublica, a new non-profit investigative newsroom, is up to. It’s an important experiment in contemporary journalism. ProPublica has been keeping tabs on the stimulus funds; yesterday they posted a database of allocations to the 50 states and DC. You can find it here. As they asserted, there seems to be little connection between a state’s unemployment rate and the amount of funds it receives. You can see it by staring at the numbers, but it’s a little easier to catch it when plotted graphically. Here’s a graph showing per capita fund allocation by unemployment rates.
To reiterate there doesn’t seem to be any relationship between unemployment and per capita funding. The state with the lowest unemployment, North Dakota at 4.2%, received $534 per head, significantly more than Michigan at $366 per capita and an unemployment rate of 15.2% (the highest of all).
Alaska stands out all by itself. It received $1,024 per person which is more than 4 times as much as New Jersey’s allotment of $247 per head (the lowest of all). And their unemployment rates aren’t that different at 8.4% and 9.2% respectively.
So if it’s not unemployment, which would seem a plausibly fair and objective way to divvy up the funds, what criteria or formula was used to allocate these funds?
Buying a Website. The Seven Costly Questions That Are Often Overlooked.
The proposals are in. They include some great designs; features that meet requirements; and maybe even some novel ideas. Budgets get compared, references checked, and a selection is made. Yet all is not well. Several months down the road, after the new site’s public launch, problems arise that weren’t contemplated during the proposal process.
This year alone, we’ve had a half dozen or so organizations contact us expressing dismay with their current web development partner. The complaints: deadlines are frequently missed; simple changes to the site aren’t made; and requests for new additions to the site seem way overpriced. And they don’t know how to move the site to a new partner.
What’s going on?
Answer: the proposal process didn’t take into account two key factors, a) the platform on which the site was built, and b) the web partner’s experience with it and its dedication to client service.
So before throwing good money after bad in building a site, make sure you get solid and verified responses to these seven questions:
(1) Don’t get fooled by a great design. Turning a mock-up into a real web site is where the rubber meets the road. Demand that the potential web vendor demonstrate previous experience. You don’t want to be a guinea pig. This leads to the next question:
(2) What platform will the site be built on, i.e., is there going to be a robust content management system (CMS) housing the site’s content? If not, you’ll be looking ahead to lots of slow, manual labor in making changes and additions to your site.
(3) Is the CMS well supported, with a growing list of new modules and refinements? In other words, are there lots of people behind the CMS, and is the CMS growing in popularity? You want a CMS that’s successful, and that will grow with your evolving requirements. Make your prospective partner demonstrate that.
(4) Is the CMS easy to use? Most clients want to take charge of their content. With a few hours training, a serious CMS will enable the client to do just that. Make your prospective partner prove it.
FACT: There are a number of FREE (open source) CMS available today, such as Drupal and Joomla. They are powerful, easy for the client to employ, and used by all sizes of organizations and companies. They enable basic changes to be made with little effort, and new site additions (blogs, video, social media) to be incorporated without costing an arm and a leg. DEADLINES MET, BUDGETS KEPT.
(5) Just how adept is your web partner with the recommended CMS? You want a partner with thousands of hours on the CMS, a partner that knows every detail, no matter how small. You want an expert, not a vendor who sees your project as a chance to build its own CMS – a disaster in waiting.
(6) What happens in the event that you need to end the relationship with the web partner? You need to make the break as seamless as possible. The client owns the content and the transition is very simple with the right CMS – if the contract has provisions for this eventuality. Web partners worth their salt will help with the move.
(7) What the web vendor’s record of client support? Research this carefully. Ask lots of question from references. How quick are they to respond? Do they make simple changes as a matter of course? How accurate are their time and budget estimates for site customizations? Do they keep their word?
So next time you’re in the market for a website, no matter its size, keep these questions in mind. You want to make management of the site as effortless as possible. And you want a web partner who knows what it’s doing and values your relationship. You need both together otherwise you’ll be wasting money. And not in a real party mood.