At this stage, I have no idea how many people have signed up for the Edwards's SMS campaign, but even if it's just a handful, you've got to expect that they're hoping for some interaction in that realm.
And while things got off to a rocky start, in the past month or so, I've learned that I can count on my Edwards text updates to keep me involved in his campaign progress. I can even count on them to find out about his wife's health, or her call into CNN to address Ann Coulter about the comments she's been making about her husband.
The latest text came today, and it read:
"During tonight's debate @7pmET you can send John Edwards your questions. Reply to this txt with your question and watch his response on JohnEdwards.com @ 9:15."
The mobile text campaign is hitting the public on two points of engagement. A message is sent requiring a reply, and then for follow up, one has to visit the Web site to view the responses. It's a full circle engagement strategy.
Right now, a visit to JohnEdwards.com reveals a large promotion for a live Webcast with Edwards after the campaign. Also on the site, a Community Counts grassroots campaign to have the presidential candidates answer the questions you want answered, is in use. Now that's viral.
]]>The latest message, posted 21 hours ago:
"Thinking we can cut oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels of oil per day and take 50 million cars’ worth of pollution off the road by 2020."
Sounds like a lofty goal, but doable perhaps. Unfortunately microblogging through Twitter doesn't enable Obama the opportunity to discuss the steps necessary to make this cut of oil consumption happen.
]]>This is what she found:
Republicans:
John McCain: No pagetagging WA
Tom Tancredo: No pagetagging WA
Rudy Guiliani: Google Analytics
Mitt Romney: SiteCatalyst
Democrats:
Hillary Clinton: Google Analytics
Barack Obama: Google Analytics
John Edwards: Google Analytics
Dennis Kucinich: No pagetagging WA
Joe Biden: No pagetagging WA
As important as the Web 2.0 tools (MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, etc.) and other Web tools (blogs, newsletters, etc.) that the candidates are using to gain voters, are their Web analytic tools in helping their ecampaign managers with converting site visitors into contributors and voters. Without a good Web analytics tool, campaigners can't tell why visitors are coming to their sites or what they're doing while they're there. Without a good analytics tool, it's also hard to identify the navigability of your site. If you can't see the paths that visitors are taking around your site, you can't analyze how they're using your site or even if they're using it the way you intended.
For example, if I were in McCain's camp, I'd think long and hard about adding an analytics tool, primarily because the site doesn't even display in a Google search for the search term John McCain. It's only ancillary to another site (www.straighttalkamerica.com) for McCain that comes up in the search. Fortunately for McCain, the straighttalkamerica site has an effective
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, John Edwards, and his Web savvy team have already laid a foundation there. At the time, Edwards had only 68 Twitter friends, but now, just two weeks later, he has made 1389 Friends and has made 18 updates informing his friends of his activity, such as:
"Great event at Benedict College, Columbia SC today. Lots of energy. Headed to Iowa tonight."
If this isn't the neatest tool for updating the public of what's happening on your campaign trail, I don't know what is. Though it still doesn't appear that other candidates have found a need to use the service as of yet. For instance Barack Obama has a page, but there are no updates and no friends, only followers--people waiting for something to happen. And Hillary Clinton also has a page, with no friends, or updates, or even followers. In fact, it's tricky to determine whether anyone in either of those camps even created these Twitter spaces for the candidates.
Perhaps Twitter has not caught on in the MSM enough for the candidates to think it matters. And though, the Wall Street Journal has written about Twittering, it's not like the company is owned by Rupert Murdoch or Google, who own MySpace and YouTube respectively. As you've read at techPresident and elsewhere, the candidates have all done quite a bit of campaigning in these Web spaces. But then again, Second Life isn't backed by heavy cash, and the candidates, or at least their supporters, find it necessary to set up shop there. So what's the deal with Twitter?
Though a year old, it's still too new and it's uncertain how many people are actually engaged in the community, unlike MySpace, YouTube, and SL. There's hard data to prove those services as viable options for campaigning. But still...
It's the early adopter crowd, the influential bloggers, and ones who pick up on sites like Twitter early, who will have the most impact on what happens with this campaign, from the perspective of swinging the Web vote.
As I said before, I'll keep watching Twitter and look out for any other fringe Web 2.0 services to see how the 2008 campaign is playing out in those spaces.
]]>Edwards has made 68 friends at Twitter to date, and has updated his status four times since January 8. The cool thing about Twitter is that it allows your friends to receive your updates via IM, mobile text, or just by making you a friend and viewing your updates on their own pages.
For instance, if you befriended John Edwards on Twitter yesterday, you would have received this message via text or IM:
"In Seattle. In about an hour, I will participate in a recorded interview with Chris Matthews, which will air on tonight's Hardball (5/7pmET)"
Not to be left out, it appears that the Barack Obama camp has also set up a Twitter profile, but he currently has made no friends there and has 0 updates on his page.
It'll be interesting over the next couple of weeks to see if any of the other candidates start to use Twitter to gain grassroots support. I'll keep searching for other candidates who have set up profiles at Twitter and provide updates on how they're doing at making friends.
]]>Yet interestingly, I didn't originally find out about John Edwards text campaign through the YouTube video. I found out about the text campaign after learning about the work of the Rights Group, a company that builds tools that enable its clients to reach existing constituents and enlist new supporters through mobile marketing programs.
Well, I joined John Edwards, at least I've signed up for his text campaign, and I must say I'm a little disappointed. Since texting hope to 30644, and initially receiving a confirmation message, and then a welcome message that says: "Thanks for joining our campaign to change America. Please text us your email. Start changing America at JohnEdwards.com," I've received no other alerts or updates.
Perhaps I'm supposed to start the dialogue, but I really think this service would be better used by the Edwards team to stay connected with supporters and provide them with updates. For instance, why did I have to go to the John Edwards blog, or subscribe to its RSS feed to find out that Edwards had released a public statement in response to Ann Coulter's comments? Wouldn't the text program present itself as an opportunity to connect with supporters—to message that statement, or a shortened version of it with a text link back to the blog?
If the candidates are going to employ the technological tools available to them, I think they should use them to their best advantage. Maybe that's not the intention of the text campaign, but I can't honestly say that at this point I know what it is.
]]>I've been resisting creating an identity in Second Life, that is up until this past weekend when I read an announcement about a meeting that the Obama for President group would be having today. The announcement read:
"Come Join Obama supporters around Second Life to plan our exciting campaign to make Senator Obama America's 44th President! We will discuss how to best spread the word on Obama's positive, progressive campaign throughout Second Life and into RL. The meeting is at the Silicon Island Pavillion. Time is 6PM SL Time (8PM Central Time, 9PM Eastern Time). Contact Cubsfan Pugilist."
Unfortunately,I've been having technical problems with teleporting to the SLURL (Second Life URL) for Silicon Island. Hoping to visit the location before the actual meeting, so that I'd know how to get there once the meeting began, was my initial intention. Now I suppose I'll have to wait for someone else to tell me about the activity surrounding Obama's campaign in Second Life.
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