As the 2012 presidential campaign continues to heat up, Election Day 2011 is just around the corner. In less than twelve days, Americans will head to the polls on Tuesday, November 8th to cast votes for various state and local candidates. And, we’ll be almost exactly one year away from voting to determine whether President Obama will serve a second term.
This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Holmes Report’s ThinkTank Live event here in Washington, DC where I discussed the evolving media landscape and the role of social media in shaping politics and public policy. In preparation, I got to thinking about how social media was impacting the election process this early in the race. Between the Romney-Perry video battles and the buzz around Herman Cain’s “smoking” ad featuring his chief of staff Mark Block, it was a perfect week to perform a little deeper analysis.
Today, Edelman released the findings of our 2010 Capital Staffer Index during an event hosted in the Washington, DC office. Edelman’s Public Affairs & StrategyOne teams interviewed senior legislative staffers around the globe in several capital cities including Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris and Washington to determine the role and influence of various communications channels both online and off. Below are some of my initial — and personal — thoughts about the U.S. survey results.
2009 will most likely be remembered as the year that the Internet expanded beyond the tech set as more people flocked to the web to search and share information — largely due to the growth of social media and the rapid advancements in mobile handheld technology.
Whether in news, entertainment, sports or politics, just about everyone launched a Twitter account this year. At the time of this post, Ashton Kutcher topped the list with 4.2 million followers with Britney Spears, Ellen DeGeneres, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, John Mayer, CNN, Twitter, Ryan Seacrest and Kim Kardashian rounding out the Top 10 Twitter users.
Facebook, with 350 million users, was the top search term in 2009 and hit #1 for the first time as the most visited site in the U.S. on Christmas and Christmas Eve.
This week, Edelman released TweetLevel, the latest web-based tool designed to measure one’s “importance” on Twitter.
For those who haven’t given in to peer pressure to join the site yet, Twitter is a “microblog” that enables users to share thoughts, activities and news via 140 character text updates.
Twitter’s founders had a pretty basic, yet novel idea. They wanted to create a platform where users could connect with each other online to answer one simple question, “What are you doing?”
I’ll admit that when I first joined (@almacy), I just didn’t get it. Besides a few close family members and friends, I remember thinking, “Who really cares what I’m doing?” In fact, my first tweet isn’t exactly going to assist in solving global strife.
From Moldova to Motrin Moms, Twitter has become the arena of coordinated, widespread revolution several times over the last year. Still, when we look back on how the microblogging platform has evolved into a low-barrier tool for grassroots organizing, these will only be footnotes to the events of the last few days in Tehran. As protestors took to the streets of Iran to voice their discontent with the 2009 presidential election results, people from around the world were attentively watching updates from the ground on Twitter, long before hearing reports from any major news outlets.
The collection of status updates on Twitter provided the world an inside look on the dire situation within Iran from firsthand accounts, each message deeply personal and compelling to a worldwide audience. But when the masses turned to their favorite cable news network for more information, they were met with Mike Huckabee talking about credit cards or other irrelevant programming. With no recognizable coverage in mainstream media as events unfolded, it led users to cry foul on the news networks, demanding more information than 140 characters could deliver.
A friend of mine on Twitter @MelaniePhung sent me a few interview questions to answer and asked me to post here on CapitalGig. She’ll post hers on her site, All About Content. Enjoy!
THE QUESTIONS
1. How long have you been working in public relations? What attracted you to it?
I officially entered the public relations industry when I joined Waggener Edstrom Worldwide in May 2007. However, I have been working in the communications arena for the past 15 years including the Republican National Committee, Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Washington Business Journal, C-SPAN, GovTech Solutions, U.S. Department of Education and most recently, the White House. I have always been fascinated by the power of communications, meaning the ability to effectively disseminate and consume information through valuable channels of influence. Whether it’s by word of mouth, print, radio, television, the Internet, or a convergence combo of all the above, methods are quickly evolving to keep pace with societal needs for 24-7 news and information. It is as exciting to watch as it is to participate.
Motrin ran into a bit of trouble with their new ad campaign this weekend. They did a nice job with the creative, the script is tight and the animation in the video itself is pretty well done but there was just one *minor* problem. Their message angered their primary target audience: Moms!
Basically, their campaign is centered around the premise that “wearing babies” (carrying i.e. BabyBjörn style) can be, well, a pain – in the neck, shoulders, lower back, etc.
I love Austin, Texas! Seriously, what’s not to like? It’s both a powerful capital city and a happening college town with great food, terrific music, historic films and, of course, the craziness of 6th Street! I have been there several times over the years for work and conferences, as well as a couple visits with close friends who live/work in the area.
A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of making another trip to the “Live Music Capital of the World” (as well as a side visit to Dallas) for work and to visit WE’s Austin office. On Saturday afternoon, Social Media Club Austin and Waggener Edstrom kindly hosted an event at Scholz Garten to welcome me to their town. I met some terrific folks, including David J. Neff, who then introduced me to … his house.
Last year at Blogworld, I attended a session entitled, “Just the Numbers: Understanding Analytics” with Google’s Avinash Kaushik. It was an outstanding discussion and Kaushik is a terrific speaker. Not only is he brilliant, he is super nice and even hung around to answer questions from those who flocked to meet him after his presentation.
Kaushik’s blog, Occam’s Razor, is a must read for anyone looking to crack the Web analytics nut. After all, it’s all about metrics, right? In fact, I hear this ALL the time: “Dave, I get the Web, but I can’t seem to sell it to those above me. All they care about is the return on investment (ROI).”
I agree. Some things are fairly quantifiable like traffic referrals, page views, media download numbers, and blog rankings. However, other things aren’t as easily measurable such as specific actions that may result from those who read a blog post, watch a YouTube video or join a Facebook group.
Kaushik is currently traveling and sharing some of his latest thoughts. At a recent stop last week in Columbus, Ohio, Kaushik spoke with roughly 200 including marketing execs from Procter & Gamble, Victoria’s Secret, Coca-Cola and Timberland. Advertising Age covered his remarks and ran this piece, Google’s ‘Analytics Evangelist’ Explains Why Websites ‘Suck’.
In today’s Fortune Magazine, David Kirkpatrick asks ”Is Facebook worth your time?“ He argues that many adults probably won’t find utility in the social network and need a reason to sign up.
One reason, he suggests, is the “news feed” which is a running list of what your friends have been up to since you last checked in. Agreed, that’s pretty useful. I value my friends, which means that I value their opinions and am interested in their activities. So, for me, it’s a passive way to keep up with them in a fast-paced digital world.
For example, in my feed today I saw some terrific photos that friends uploaded from the Papal visit to the White House earlier this week, found out that 20 of my friends and I are all attending the same conference in June, saw a congratulatory note from one friend to another for a job well done, and learned about three new groups that had formed on issues where I have interest.
I recently saw an ad on Facebook asking viewers of NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” to sign an online petition to convince the network execs to change their decision to cancel the show. As a fan, I have FNL listed among my favorites on my profile and assume the ad appeared as a result. So, I obliged and added my name to the list of supporters.
This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Holmes Report’s ThinkTank Live event here in Washington, DC where I discussed the evolving media landscape and the role of social media in shaping politics and public policy. In preparation, I got to thinking about how social media was impacting the election process this early in the race. Between the Romney-Perry video battles and the buzz around Herman Cain’s “smoking” ad featuring his chief of staff Mark Block, it was a perfect week to perform a little deeper analysis.
Whether in news, entertainment, sports or politics, just about everyone launched a 
A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of making another trip to the “
I recently saw an ad on Facebook asking viewers of NBC’s “
