I’ve dedicated today’s space to a cross post from Patrick Ruffini.  Ruffini first posted this piece, on his conservative blog THENEXTRIGHT.com, under the title, Stop Talking About “Technology”.

Ruffini, who is a top Republican online strategist has posted several pieces since last November’s Election, providing constructive strategic input on best methods for getting the Republican Party back on track and  in position for regaining strength in the future.

This particular post is an interesting take on Ruffini’s views on new methods and the future of party building.  I agree with most of his assessment of the changing way people view and react to media and information, however, I disagree with his strong negative view of traditional advertising methods.

I am an ardent supporter of digital marketing and online message dissemination, especially through social platforms, but I believe traditional forms of communication are extremely powerful in connecting with and impacting most audiences.

My belief lies in full multi-media integration, with targeted audience behavior dictating communication methods, not selecting one method over another for blanket communicating.

One area where I completely agree with Ruffini is in message delivery.  Effective messaging, that is compelling, delivered by a strong messenger has a major role, if not the most important role, in creating intended impact, despite technological advantages or medium selection.

Here’s Ruffini’s Post

The Rebuild the Party plan has often been characterized as a way to remake the party through technology. Though we’ve sometimes slipped in using that word to describe certain elements of the plan — I generally feel uncomfortable with it being pigeonholed as a “technology” plan. I’ve generally struck “technology” from my vocabulary, taking instead about “new media” or simply, the “Internet” or when talking about a generational shift in fundraising or a 435 district strategy, wholesale party reform. Why? Because the word “technology” reinforces old siloed habits of thinking and implies that the solution is spending money on cool tech toys, rather than a quantum shift in approach.

If there is one thing the Republican Party is actually pretty good at right now, it’s investing in “technology.” From Voter Vault to the tools on GOP.com, the Republican Party has invested millions of dollars over the years in building the best political data-mining, microtargeting, and GOTV applications in politics.

This is vitally important. And it must continue. But the Rebuild plan focuses for the most part on something wholly different than these vital campaign technologies (where the GOP has to date held an advantage): getting the warm bodies who will actually use the technology and volunteer and donate.

The difference between the Bush ‘04 campaign and the Obama ‘08 is simple: the Obama campaign did the same thing, but with ten times more people. Technology was the instrument, but message was the impetus behind this shift.

Getting people to participate by the millions is the biggest job of the next RNC Chairman. That will require a wholesale overhaul in our message and how we communicate. First, the leadership and the grassroots will have to collaborate to shape the message. However one felt about the immigration debate, imposing change from the top as an elite project hatched at the White House was never going to fly politically. Ditto for spending, Medicare Part D, and to a lesser extent, education. The days of a leader deciding a message in a vacuum without grassroots input are over. There has got to be some buy-in from the grassroots — or else you’ll have a hollowed-out party with no boots on the ground. This is a pragmatic matter of survival as much as it is one of principle.

It also means changing our style of communication in a new era. Leaders have to be accessible, open, aggressive, and willing to throw the playbook out the window when necessary. Technology has made it easier to filter bottom-up input so that the good ideas rise to the top, so there is no excuse for at least some personal engagement with new media. Unless you’re the guy with the nuclear launch codes, you’re not too important to Twitter or blog at least every now and again.

Some of these reforms are substantive (changing the message) and others are meta (making people feel invested by applying a personal touch). And none of them are really dependent on technology — I consider the Internet, blogs, Twitter, and YouTube to be media not technology per se. Here are a couple of other paradigms to think about in evaluating this fundamental shift in politics:

 Push vs. Pull

By far the biggest mindset-change the RNC Chairman must — and I reiterate, must — wrap his arms around is that media is moving away from “push” to “pull.” An inordinate amount of time at the committee — and by political conultants everywhere — is spent on shaping, testing, and coordinating messages that are pushed out to voters. As in, how many pieces of mail can we push out there? How many phone calls or volunteer door knocks can we push out there? And ultimately, how much media can we buy — which is the push equivalent of the magic sin button. The messages themselves don’t always have to be very interesting, as long as they’re proven and poll-tested.

(more…)

I recently found this very informative blog / podcast site, boagworld.com, produced by Paul Boag, who lives across the pond in the UK and spends time producing podcasts on web and marketing subjects.  I found this particular post to be of interest, as it illustrates some of the key fundamentals for  providing a call to action for visitors to websites.

I am an ardent supporter of providing a clear and distinct call to action in most media and materials in the corporate or political world.

This is a great read, not just for digital folks, but for anyone in advertising and marketing.

Here are the essential techniques for an effective call to action:

1. lay the groundwork
2. offer a little extra
3. have a small number of distinct actions
4. use active urgent language
5. get the position right
6. use white space
7. use an alternative color
8. make it big
9. have a call to action on every page
10. carry the call through

Boag’s post is long and is peppered with a lot of art…..so head to his site for the read!

I’m back – after a few days hiatus.  This one will be of interest to all you Facebook friends.

You know a communication medium has officially made it when you begin to see political attack ads being sponsored and purchased within it’s purview.

EMILY STEEL reports in an article for the Wall Street Journal, titled FACEBOOK POLITICAL ADS TEST LIMITS, that the notorious Moveon.org has started the practice of purchasing ad links on Facebook made to appear as legitimate news story posts.

Read below:

“AP Says: Palin Lied,” reads one ad, accompanied by an unflattering photo of the vice presidential candidate. Another ad — accompanied by the same photo — reads, “Washington Post breaks ANOTHER Palin scandal. Charging tax payers for her sleeping at home.” Another with a picture of John McCain grimacing reads, “Time’s Joe Klein has had enough of McCain’s dishonorable campaign lies. A must read.”

Clicking on the ads takes visitors straight to a story on the Web sites of those publications. People who click on the ad that reads “WSJ Says: Palin Lied,” for instance, are directed to a story on The Wall Street Journal Web site about the contradictions in Gov. Palin’s record regarding the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

But none of the publications cited in the ads bought them — or even was aware of them. The buyer — though never identified anywhere on the ads or on the pages that you land on after clicking on them — is the liberal group MoveOn.org. It’s the latest example of fuzziness about who’s behind what when it comes to political ads online.

I support political communications on social networking sites. Where there is speech there is debate and that is good for a democracy.  If we limit speech in budding communication mediums, we will be forever doomed to mediocrity and meaningless chatter.

However, this form of misleading communication is dangerous and wrong.

Proper and reasonable notification of whom is responsible for any political communication is absolutely necessary.  Any medium where mass communication is accepted, and paid political communication is present there must be proper disclosure.

Otherwise, people and will be subjected to harmful, misleading and slanderous claims that are irreversible.

Faceless groups and movements can appear to morph into any halfway legitimate entity and lay false claims intended to mislead people – This is exactly what Moveon.org is doing.  

They are hiding behind the tiny legal exception given to groups or candidate committees so that they do not have place a long silly disclaimer on pens and other small knick knacks.

They are also heading down a path, which will open up a Pandora’s box of veiled Facebook attacks, undoubtedly leading to an FEC ruling or some other government action to limit it or force disclosure.  This is what happened with mail and television commercials that were sponsored by smear groups in the ’80’s and ’90’s, which led to forced strict disclosure giving us the awkward disclaimers you see and hear at the beginning and end of TV spots.

Groups like Moveon.org always test the limits of political messaging, in attempt to mask their identity.

Why? Because their identity is meaningless, and in some cases, very negative in the minds of average Americans. They don’t represent businesses, union members, or people with one legislative agenda.  They are a group that was created on fighting Republicans.

They have a right to exist and communicate, but they continue to force needless action against other groups in the political arena because of their hidden agenda.