Shop Talk: Turk, Henke, Dybwad Join New Firm

Seasoned new media veterans Michael Turk, Jon Henke and Matthew Dybwad have signed on to the budding GOP media firm Craft Media Digital, which launched less than two months ago.

The firm's two founding partners, Brian Donahue and Justin Germany, count among their clients Republican Reps. Joe Wilson (S.C.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), and Thad McCotter (Mich.).

Yahoo Partners with Twitter to Boost Social Features

The partnership will allow web surfers to view the short, 140-character messages created by Twitter users, dubbed Tweets, directly within Yahoo sites as well as to publish their own Twitter messages without leaving Yahoo.

The move, which Yahoo announced late on Tuesday, comes a couple of months after Yahoo announced a similar deal with Facebook, the world's No.1 social networking site.

Facebook's Capitol Presence

Facebook doesn’t just run itself — especially not in Washington.

At the helm of the D.C. bureau is a three-man team with one goal: to expand the site’s political presence in  Washington.

And this operation is not just about amassing friends. Tim Sparapani, director of public policy, says politicians are learning to see Facebook as “a tool that continues communications both to their constituents that they’re serving and from their constituents that they’re serving.”

How to Use "Us v. Them" Stories to Create Social Media Envangelists

Us vs them is one of the oldest, and most powerful marketing ideas. Apple is a quintessential example: from their beginnings they’ve portrayed themselves as the small guy against the big powerful bully. In 1983 it was IBM and more recently its been Microsoft. The company turns customers into evangelists who are more than happy to spread the word about the good fight, but how exactly does it work?

13 Ways to Move Your Facebook Fans to Action

Perhaps you have a Facebook Fan Page and even some fans.  But now what?  How can you encourage your fans to act and interact?

In my prior post I covered the various sources and types of content you can post on your Facebook fan page. I also talked about the importance of consistent updates.

And if you're in the DC area, you won't want to miss this Heritage Foundation event taking place tomorrow, Thursday, February 25th at 12:00noon in its Lehrman Auditorium.

Telecosm Revisited: Why the Government Should Not Set Rules of the Road for the Internet

Speaker:

George Gilder; Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute

Host:

James Gattuso; Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy,
Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies,
The Heritage Foundation

Details:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski warns that we are at a crossroads and should act now to set "rules of the road to protect the free and open Internet."  George Gilder - author of Wealth and Poverty and Telecosm - argues this is exactly the wrong prescription.  Instead, he maintains, that the Internet will only fulfill its promise of freedom and prosperity if government does not intervene.

As the FCC and Congress move forward with plans for Internet regulation, we hope you can join George Gilder for a look at the evolving technology of the Internet and its implications for competition, innovation, and the future.

Be sure to RSVP.

New Battlefield, Old Guard

Leslie Graves emailed me earlier today with an interesting point: The institutional Right is finally spending money online, but there's still a mis-alignment between the organizations and the Rightroots.

[L]egacy orgs are starting to be active online...like righty e-activists have always wanted them to do ... but for the most part, they are not doing the things online that we wish they were doing. ... Thus, there is no love lost between the conservative e-activism community and the orgs.  [A]ll this money being spent ... finally ... online but generally not doing the things that e-activists probably would prefer be done.

Facebook Users Can Afford to Pay

Facebook is the new king of social networking. But the site is stuck with an old business model that prevents it from cashing in on the increasing affluence of its users and the monopoly it has over their attention. Simply put, Facebook should charge.

A recent study by Nielsen Claritas indicates that the top third of lifestyle segments measured by the researcher relative to income were 25% more likely to use Facebook than the bottom third. Meanwhile, less-wealthy segments were 37% more likely to use MySpace.

Americans Not Sold on Twitter?

Twitter may be the rage on Capitol Hill, but the American public at large is not yet sold on the microblogging site, according to a new poll.

Only 15 percent of Americans believe that Twitter is an important new tool for mass communication, according to a new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll conducted in late August. 

Can Petition Tweets Change the World? An act.ly Quarterly Report

What has surprised Jim Gilliam most in the three months since he launched act.ly, the rather clever Twitter petition gizmo that, with a few clicks, creates a pivot point for tweet-based social action? Good question! And one I put to Gilliam, now that act.ly has 589 petitions and 16,000 tweet "signatures" under its belt.

The Fighting Four

Erick Erickson is right.

Let’s be honest. One of the reasons the left is so head over heels in love with the online left   is because of the moonbat ability to turn on the cash. [...] [I]f we want to be taken seriously, we need to step up to the plate.

As he says, "the establishment of the Republican Party will keep ignoring us" until the online Right has a tangible impact on the measurable metrics of politics: messaging, mobilization and money.

Friction

Stamps (remember those?) make direct mail work. Because it costs money to send a piece of junk mail, you'll think two or three times before you mail something to a million people.

Email, of course, is free.

Except it's not. The friction that slows down sending email to everyone all the time is the cost of all the people you'll lose. 

@Bivings is Hiring

We are hiring a project manager in our Client Services division to help us manage the web programs of some of our clients.  We’re looking for someone who has a passion for the web and social media, knowledge of Drupal/Wordpress and two years of relevant job experience.  You can apply via our job listing on Craigslist.

Brazen Careerist on Getting Starting With a Blog

It seems like everywhere you go these days, whether on the web or in your local grocer, you hear about blogs. It is true that there are many of them out there, about 112.8 million according to Technorati and more starting up every day. So what is the deal with blogging anyway, and how do you go about starting one?

First of all, do not reinvent the wheel. There are so many resources out there that beginning a blog as become as easy as typing the word blog into a Google search. When you do that you are immediately overwhelmed by the massive number of responses. So to make things easier, let’s take a step back.

One of the highlights of attending the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota was a conservative bloggers luncheon hosted by Captain Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com.

Indeed, the Kurdish food at Rodwan Nakshabandi restaurant, Babani's, was authentic and incredible. No blogger left hungry. And the conversation with A-list bloggers and modern blogger relations experts was even better. But what I want to talk about are the nuts-n-bolts which brought this event together and why I think it was a great example of effective blogger outreach.

First and foremost, credit where credit is due. The event was engineered by current New Media Strategies employee and The Next Right co-founder, Jon Henke. Henke organized the event with the sponsorship of a client, Verizon Communications. The event was hosted by Minneapolis-native, Captain Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com.

@JonHenke is a known and very well-regarded quantity in this space. He earned his blogger stripes years ago at QandO, and was thrust in to the professional blogger outreach scene when he was tapped by former Senator George Allen's campaign (post-macaca gaffe). Henke then went on to work in Sen. Mitch McConnell's communications staff before he left public service for the private sector. Wisely, Henke has remained a relevant force in the scene partnering with a few of the GOP's best to launch a conservative activists focused group blog, The Next Right.

Professionally, Jon and I sometimes find ourselves working on opposite sides on issues, particularly with regard to Open Internet/Net Neutrality. Personally, Jon is a colleague and friend that I respect deeply. I consider him one of the best in the industry with an honest heart of gold and I'm really pleased when I find him in my corner on other professional/political issues like Slatecard, the need for smarter conservative online infrastructure, and the rise of the New Guards.

Without a doubt, Jon could have easily pulled off a successful bloggers luncheon that everyone in the room would have attended. Given the backing of Verizon, he could have held the luncheon at the swankiest joint in town.

But, he didn't.

Jon made the smart move of reaching out to one of the blogosphere's finest, HotAir's Ed Morrissey, who no doubt welcomed the opportunity to help pull together the event in his neck of the woods and expose us to some truly unique food. Indeed, in an email inviting bloggers to the luncheon, Morrissey's tone was perfect:

Welcome to the Twin Cities, fellow convention bloggers! I'm Ed Morrissey from Hot Air, and like you, I'm excited to have the opportunity to cover the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. As one of the credentialed bloggers to the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City, I can tell you that meeting and working with fellow bloggers from around the country was the best part of the experience.

In order to facilitate that same kind of atmosphere, I'd like to invite you to a private blogger's luncheon, sponsored by Verizon Communications, at Babani's in St. Paul, right around the corner from the Xcel Center, on Wednesday at noon CDT. Babani's is a Kurdish restaurant owned by Rodwan Nakshabandi, who has a tremendous life story.

By reaching out to Morrissey, Henke was able to accomplish two goals with one stone. First, Jon extended an opportunity to the influential Morrissey to let him pull the event together how he thought it should be done. It was easily one of the best events I attended. And secondly, Henke was able to softly associate his client with Morrissey and the attending bloggers. This subtle approach to client/blogger relations was the right tone and has now opened the opportunity to keep that conversation going over the next days and weeks. Heck, I work against Verizon on some issues and here I am writing about the event. That's gotta be saying something.

Smart move Jon. To you sir, two scoops of porridge.

Jon Henke's blog post, "New Guards," is one of the most important pieces I've read regarding the next stage of the Revolution of which we fight. You need to read Henke's post before digging in to this series.

Henke accurately notes how the Left effectively uses its online infrastructure to provide three things to progressive candidates: Messaging, Money, Mobilization.

Henke concludes that the Rightosphere can catch up, but it's going to take, among other things, a changing of the "guards." He writes:

The Right can accomplish the same thing, but it cannot start on third base. The Right has to develop the gravitational pull before it tries to pull the political system into its orbit. That may be complicated, but I don't believe it is actually difficult to do. However, it is not something that can be done simply by funding more of the same Old Guards. If the Right is to do something about the current long train of abuses and bad government, it must, to borrow from the Declaration of Independence, "provide new Guards".

After reading Henke's post, I was immediately reminded of the first blog post I wrote announcing the launch of this group blog where I said:

One thing which has become increasingly clear to me and many others is that the Republican Party - the establishment - has failed to effectively engage and embrace Web 2.0 strategies. While the Internet has grown rapidly, the Party apparatus and its top officials are operating in a disconnected, Web 0.5 world. The result is that our message is failing to penetrate the modern world where millions of independent voters and modern Republicans spend a majority of their time.

It was true a year ago when I said it and to some degree is still true today. Some colleagues in the politics + technology liken pointing to the deficiencies in the Right's online effort as unhelpful. Constantly harping on the issue would indeed be hurtful to the overall effort, but sometimes it simply makes sense to take a step back, analyze the effort, note areas of success and those needing improvement, and move on. That is what this series seeks to accomplish.

WHY MOVEON MATTERS

There are many elements on the Left which comprise what is referred to as the "Netroots" that are making an impact that I won't be discussing in this piece. Some of these include Talking Points Memo (especially TPMuckraker), Huffington Post (Off The Bus), ActBlue, Media Matters, Kos-FiredogLake-MyDD-OpenLeft, Brave New Films, etc.

However, the focus of this article is to discuss MoveOn in the sense that it is making the largest impact on the space and is trying to be replicated on our side of the aisle.

* MoveOn [501(c)4 & PAC] *

To be sure, MoveOn is the most convincing force which is making a difference on the Left. It contributes more than any other political operation to Henke's three M's: messaging, money and mobilization.

Ironically, MoveOn is not a competitor to activism organizations on the Right. It's members would never cross-over to support an organization on the Right. Indeed, it's market is vertical with a defined niche and audience. Indicative of this is the fact that for as long as I can remember they have been saying they have more than 3.2 million members - the organization's growth is static - at least for now.

In my opinion, MoveOn's success is due to several factors.

1. First, MoveOn is a brand encompassing a "family of organizations" that includes both a political arm (MoveOn.org Political Action) and a non-profit arm (MoveOn.org Civic Action / 501(c)4). This yields it the legal leverage it needs to do whatever it wants (take massive donations through its 501(c)4 for use on "education and advocacy" and pay costly operational expenses, and use its PAC to play in political races, make contributions to candidates it supports, and raise money from its membership for those candidates.

2. Its large membership is extremely wired, active, can afford to drink fancy coffee drinks, and loves being a part of MoveOn because they constantly put points on the board.

3. MoveOn has always been an organic effort which focuses on member initiatives. They branded MoveOn from the beginning as an inclusive, member-driven community of grassroots activists coordinated by a nimble team instead of being a staff-heavy, top-down operation. That's important.

For example, pay close attention to the messaging in the smart deployment of a DonationTube highlighting their accomplishments in 2007:

The take-away from this video is that you, the member, are "MoveOn." It is the passengers riding the bus, and not the bus driver, who are responsible for helping change the political landscape and forwarding their liberal agenda. Organizations on the Right would be wise to honestly shift more control over their efforts to its community. Doing so would leverage a stronger, more cohesive team approach.

4. Their emails and online campaigns are thoughtful, interesting, and effective even to the outside observer like TechRepublican. Yeah, this point seems obvious, but it's not obvious to everyone given the fact that I'm constantly barraged by email newsletters on a Friday at 7 PM that I never read.

So where is the Right's MoveOn? Are the "New Guards" already on the scene? Which organization will get the formula right for the Right? The answer is not an easy one but we can take a close look at some of the competing forces trying to be the one.

To do so, I'm going to take a broad look at many of the entities on the Right -- some old, some new -- which are all working independently on the Right to help further, generally, Right-leaning efforts.

Parts II and III will be available soon.

Why do you think MoveOn is successful?

* Read part II of the New Guards series, "The Players."
* Read part III of the New Guards series, "An Empowered Rightosphere

Jonathan Martin of the Politico is reporting that TechRepublican contributor and modern media guru, Patrick Ruffini, has left the Giuliani campaign to start up his own consultancy. Best of luck Patrick.

In other news in the growing field of online political operatives, Jon Henke, New Media Advisor for the Senate Republican Communications Office, has also jumped ship for a gig which he won't tell me -- even after three emails.

Via email:

This past six months has been a hell of a ride, but I’ve been offered an intriguing opportunity elsewhere – about which, more in due time -- so tomorrow will be my last day in the Senate. I owe you all a great debt of gratitude for your help, your kind words and your patience. I hope this office has been of some help to you; I believe it will continue to do so. This role will be filled by somebody else before long, and I intend to help them – and you – in any way I can.