Social Media Wrap:  Obama Retweets His Own Iraq Speech

So far, the most prominent politician to comment on President Obama's Iraq speech is President Obama.

Doesn't anyone else care?

After the Click: Give Your Landing Pages Some Love

Sometimes, our discussions about optimizing email campaigns can make it seem like our subscribers' shopping process is all about the email. In reality, having an awesome, engaging email program only takes us so far -- if our landing pages don't do just as much work to woo subscribers, we'll lose them. Subscribers often abandon landing pages within three seconds. Would they abandon yours? Below are some rules of thumb to help you create landing pages that make your emails proud.

Share This Starts Measuring Social Reach

When it comes to measuring how content is shared across the Web, the approaches we use today are still pretty primitive. People count how many times a link is shared on Facebook or retweeted on Twitter, but nobody really knows what percentage of those links are clicked on to drive traffic back to the original sites. ShareThis, which offers an all-in-one share button across tens of thousands of sites, is trying to address this issue with new metrics across its network that measure not only how many times a link is shared, but also how many times people act on that and click back to the article or Webpage. It calls this new metric Social Reach.

What Does Gmail's Priority Inbox Mean For Political Emails?

Google's new "Priority Inbox" for Gmail is the company's attempt to help the 175 million or so people who use Gmail to manage their messages by bubbling up the important ones while downplaying the rest. Powering the thing will be a filter created by Google, but one that can be molded through user feedback. So what does it mean for the many people in the political world who rely upon email to campaign, fundraise, and orgnize online? Creative director Elliot Ross has some early guidance...

Blogging by the Numbers: How to Write Headlines that Get Retweeted

There is an art and science to getting blog posts to travel like wildfire.

This post will look at both, based on number crunching with 281 posts, 39,000+ comments, and almost 2,000,000 click-throughs via my Twitter profile and Facebook fan page in the last six months.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well…

Gmail Priority Inbox Launches: Your Email Will Never Be the Same

Today, Google will begin rolling out Priority Inbox for Gmail, a new feature for managing massive amounts of e-mail. Your inbox will never be the same again.

Priority Inbox is Google’s() attempt to solve the e-mail woes of Gmail() power users. At its core, the feature is an algorithm; Priority Inbox uses information such as keywords, the people you e-mail the most and your e-mail habits to select the most pressing e-mails in your inbox. Those e-mails are brought to the top of your Gmail and marked as important so you deal with them first.

10 Pitfalls to Avoid in Social Media Marketing

I recently attended the Digital Media Conference in Washington, DC and participated in the Social Media Marketing panel (check out video from the panel here).

One question Elizabeth Shea, the panel moderator, asked participants was about social media pitfalls to avoid. Here's a recap of my answer...

Building a Facebook Page Following via Email and Vice Versa

It’s an old idea on Epolitics.com, but a good one still — email and social networks work well together, no matter how many people try to predict (for instance) that Facebook dooms email to irrelevance. Two good examples popped up today, the first in an email from the Center for American Progress...

Check out Burson-Marsteller and Proof Integrated Communications Report on the State of Mobile Communication.

Report Says Congress Needs Lots of Help With Websites

Although a few congressional Web sites are exemplary, many are “suboptimal,” and Congress needs to do more work to improve Web sites and share best practices for Web 2.0 technologies, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution think tank.

Using Google Mobile Advertising to Catch Voters Waiting at the Polls

Politico’s Morning Tech column has highlighted a clever use of mobile advertising in last week’s Florida primaries...

...Talk about in-the-moment targeting — these ads were aimed at people getting ready to vote, quite possibly as they were standing in the booth and looking up unfamiliar candidates on their cell phones at the last minute.

Twitter & Facebook: Fraternal Twins

How-to-Guide for Navigating the Art of Both.

Often we hear “social media,” “the social networks,” and “Twitter & Facebook” used interchangeably. And we have all seen the Twitter and Facebook micro-icons placed next to each other on websites and advertising. Yet, there are key differences between the two sites that have revolutionized the way we communicate. Recognizing these differences is critical to mastering your social media strategy.

MySpace Now Lets Users Post to Facebook

MySpace seems to be adopting the old adage of “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” when it comes to relations with its social networking rival Facebook. Or perhaps it’s more a matter of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.

The News Corp-owned MySpace has announced Sync for Facebook, which allows MySpace users to sync their status updates with their Facebook profile or Page. The tool also gives them the ability to share content such as music, videos, game apps, links and photos with their friends on Facebook.

Older Adults and Social Media

While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older nearly doubled—from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.

Google Moving into Facebook Territory

The tweet sent a quiver through the blogosphere: "Google to launch Facebook competitor very soon." That line from Kevin Rose, the tech entrepreneur who founded the content-sharing site Digg, unleashed a sense that the online world as we know it was about to fundamentally change. 

Internet May Phase Out Printed Oxford Dictionary

It weighs in at more than 130 pounds, but the authoritative guide to the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary, may eventually slim down to nothing. Oxford University Press, the publisher, said Sunday so many people prefer to look up words using its online product that it's uncertain whether the 126-year-old dictionary's next edition will be printed on paper at all.

Twitter Pumps Up Follow Notification Emails with Social Graph Juice

Remember back in the day when Twitter follower email notifications basically only told you a person’s username? Yeah, those were pretty useless. Luckily, we’re far beyond that. And a new addition today makes these notifications more useful than ever.

Learn a thing or two from the private sector -- 

Honda Takes Social Gaming For a Test Drive

It’s not unusual for a large car company like Honda to advertise its newest release on a billboard — unless, of course, that billboard exists in a virtual gaming community on Facebook.

To promote the U.S. launch of its latest sport hybrid coupe, the Honda CR-Z, the company initiated a two-month advertising campaign in Car Town, a newly released Facebook (Facebook) game that allows players to use virtual currency to purchase, customize and store hundreds of vehicles in their own virtual garages. Players can then use these vehicles to take road trips and complete challenges to earn points to purchase additional vehicles and car-related products and services .

I dive into this topic a little bit over at the Daily Caller, but want to ask y'all here as well...do you agree/disagree? Is Florida leading the way online this cycle?

Here's a snippet:

To be fair, it’s not only Republicans who are “getting it” in
Florida. Emails from Kendrick Meek have the professional look and feel
of the messages from Organizing for America. Democrat Alex Sink was
driving her message through keyword-based search advertising the day
after Rick Scott won the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Independent Governor Charlie Crist isn’t shying away from the web
either. Crist is running content and search ads on Google, which from
the looks of it are changed out frequently, and while his campaign is
behind Marco Rubio’s in terms of web presence, he isn’t ceding the
web-race to either of his opponents.

With California having roughly 20 million more citizens than Florida
and numerous political companies calling Silicon Valley home, it would
seem a logical leader on the web. However, I would argue that Florida
had led the way online this cycle, and it may well continue to through
this November’s elections.

I don't know of another state coming close, but could be persuaded. 

7 Awesome Foursquare Infographics Showing How Users Are Collecting Badges and Checking In

Earlier this week I posted 9 location-based infographics showing how and why the mobile world is checking in, not including a series of Foursquare infographics I’ve seen around the web. Foursquare data and how people are using the platform ranges from how many checkins are created by various communities to what if President Obama used Foursquare. It seems people who love createing infographics love Foursquare too therefore I deiced to have a separate post for Foursquare infographics. If you’re a data and/or Foursquare fanboy/lady here are seven awesome Foursquare infographics showing how users are collecting badges and checking in.

Am I A Mayor Yet?

We made a quick yet long-awaited tweak to our apps today. When you’re getting close to winning a Mayorship (within 10 check-ins), you’ll now see how far away you are from ousting the current Mayor. You’ll see the count in the post check-in screen when you check into a place. Take it for a test drive tonight and see if it fires up the flames of competitiveness for you!

Technology Evangelist O'Reilly Worried About Consumer Privacy 'Witch Hunt'

Digital publisher and technology evangelist Tim O'Reilly on Wednesday told The Hill he's worried about the implications of lawmakers getting involved in consumer privacy.

They may not consider the potential impact on future innovation, he said: "There's a witch hunt around consumer privacy."

Are You Throwing Money Away?

Advertisers want people to remember and have a response to their messages. Even hating an ad is okay if it’s persuasive and memorable. What advertisers don’t want, however, is to squander money. Yet a team of researchers discovered that’s what some expensive campaigns are doing.

Promoted Tweets are Super Effective Advertiser Says

Online brokerage firm Zecco is one of the participants in Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program – currently in beta – and this morning announced that the ad platform has proven to be very effective for the company to date.

The company says it sampled 50 Promoted Tweets over the past two months and measured their effectiveness, seeing a 50% increase in engagement on average as compared to regular messages posted on Zecco’s Twitter account.

And do you have your official Foursquare gear yet?

Mophie and Intuit Launch Credit Card Processing System for iPhone

Small business owners who are looking for a cheap, simple solution for credit card processing, take notice: Mophie and Intuit have launched an all-in-one package that lets you accept payments and process credit cards on your iPhone 3G or 3GS.

Named the Complete Credit Card Solution, it consists of Mophie’s iPhone case with a credit card reader at the bottom, and Intuit’s GoPayment app, which takes care of the software side. It also integrates with Intuit’s QuickBooks software, which lets you track invoices and payments.

Mining Mood Swings on the Real Time Web

Many companies are turning to social-media sites to gauge the success of a new product and service. The latest activity on Facebook, Twitter, and countless other sites can reveal the public's current mood toward a new film, gadget, or celebrity, and analytics services are springing up to help companies keep track. Social-media analytics startup Viralheat, based in San Jose, CA, is now offering free, real-time access to the data it is collecting on attitudes toward particular topics or products. One of the first customers for this new service--called Social Trends--is ESPN, which plans to use Social Trends to show live popularity rankings for different NFL teams.

Call Phones From Gmail

Gmail voice and video chat  makes it easy to stay in touch with friends and family using your computer’s microphone and speakers. But until now, this required both people to be at their computers, signed into Gmail at the same time. Given that most of us don’t spend all day in front of our computers, we thought, “wouldn’t it be nice if you could call people directly on their phones?”

Starting today, you can call any phone right from Gmail.

Online Advertising to Leap 14% in 2011

Online advertising will jump 14%, to $51.9 billion, in 2011, according to Borrell Associates.

The fastest-growing areas of online will be local, targeting and social media. Local online will grow nearly 18%, to $16.1 billion.

Meanwhile, the overall U.S. ad market will grow less than 5% during the same period, to $238.6 million.

It has become commonplace for campaigns to spend a sizeable chunk of change creating videos, which will be aired on TV, and disseminated via the campaign’s website, its Facebook page and through its e-mail list.  Why? Because video is arguably the most engaging form of communication that campaigns have at their disposal. 

If video is so effective, why should a campaign limit its video content? 

For most campaigns, the barrier is money.  Creating professional quality videos of the candidate is not exactly a cheap endeavor, especially when the task is outsourced to a cadre of consultants. 

But why do most campaign videos have to be professionally produced in the first place? Furthermore, why do campaign videos have to just involve the candidate? 

The answer is they don’t. 

In my opinion, one of the most underutilized campaign tools is supporter videos.  A supporter videois a brief 15 to 45 second clip of a supporter explaining why they endorse a particular candidate.  These videos can then be disseminated on all of the candidate’s online channels (website, Facebook, e-mail, etc.).  Here are a few reasons why supporter videos can be highly effective:

1. Engagement. Like a well-produced web ad, a supporter video can be just as visually engaging for viewers.
2. Cost-Effective.  All a campaign needs is a video camera and basic video editing software.  Supporter videos don’t require music, animation, etc., which means all the editing can be done in-house by campaign staff or dare I say by the supporters themselves. 
3. Person-To-Person Validation. Politicians (especially this year) must overcome the perceived disconnect between themselves and their constituents if they hope to win on Election Day.  Person-to-person validation from an average voter is not only engaging, but it has been proven to be a highly effective technique for garnering voters.
4. Supporters will push the videos themselves. Campaigns regularly struggle to push their online content beyond their immediate followers.  If a supporter has their video featured by the campaign, they are more than likely going to spread it to their friends (many of whom are not directly connected to the campaign) through their personal online accounts.

These are a few reasons why campaigns should make better use of supporter videos.  My advice, bring a video camera to a campaign fundraiser/event and ask attendees to film a short video, or have supporters shoot the videos themselves and send them in.  Either way, in 2010 most campaigns will miss out on a simple yet powerful tool by choosing not to tap their supporters’ enthusiasm through video.

Heck, a campaign may even collect enough good content to make a full web ad of all its supporters testimonials spliced together.

As always, I appreciate any comments (positive or negative) and will try to respond to them as best I can.

--Christopher Walling serves as the Political Editor at ProjectVirginia, “Where Politics Meets Social Media”

7 Facebook Marketing Tips from World's Top Pros

It’s no secret that Facebook is the most powerful social network on the planet. With 500 million active users, Facebook represents a huge opportunity for smart businesses.

To take your Facebook marketing to a new level, here are hot Facebook marketing tips direct from the top industry pros. You’ll want to incorporate these priceless ideas.

10 Crucial Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

While I haven’t been a blogger for an extended amount of time (only since January 2010 to be exact) I have had a significant amount of time to learn about blog writing. To date, I have experience publishing 101 blogs on this site (this is 102), was invited or asked to guest blog on over thirty sites, and I have written well over forty blogs for the company I now work for. This adds up to a little less than 200 blog posts written in just eight months.

Ten Ways to Engage Your Supporters

How
does your nonprofit typically engage with your supporters? Is your
ongoing online communications mainly comprised of action alerts to sign
petitions or donation appeals pleading for money? If you answered yes,
then your nonprofit is missing out on major opportunities on engaging
and developing deeper relationships with your supporters. Here are ten
engagement strategies to add to the mix of your online communications
starting Monday morning.

ICYMI: Social Media Everywhere

Josh Shpayher did the hard work of creating a spreadsheet listing all the online homes of all 435 members of Congress, and it demonstrates how ubiquitous YouTube, Twitter, and other subscriptions have become for American politicians.

Flip through The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing

The inaugural AMP Summit is rolling out its star studded programming agenda. Have you reserved your spot for the revolution, taking place September 23-25 in Washington, DC?