At the recent Modern Media Strategies workshop at the Heritage Foundation, Patrick Ruffini focused his entire presentation on the eternal killer app: email (see here).

"Eyeballs" are everything for your online presence. As Ruffini put it: "Email is still the closest thing we have to mass communication on the web." He rightly notes that the famed Dean online revolution actually happened via email.

In May of this year, the Harvard Business Review published an excellent piece by Duncan Watts and Jonah Peretti entitled: "Viral Marketing for the Real World". In it they examine the elusive phenomenon where a single email thread or online piece replicates like wildfire across the Internet.

They point out that this type of "viral" event is really accidental, difficult to reproduce, and impossible to predict. Instead they advocate "big-seed marketing." Essentially, big seed marketing:

combines viral-marketing tools with old-fashioned mass media in a way that yields far more predictable results than “purely” viral approaches like word-of-mouth marketing.

They note that true viral marketing involved a "reproduction rate" of 1 or greater. That is, for every personal that receives the message he or she spreads it to more that one other person, thus leading to exponential growth. As the authors note:

By contrast, viral messages with an R of less than 1 are generally considered failures. That’s because purely viral campaigns, like disease outbreaks, typically start with a small number of seed cases and quickly burn themselves out unless their R exceeds the epidemic threshold, or tipping point, of 1.

Not everyone is into "forwarding like it's hot" (ala Michael Scott). Instead, your email send will slowly peter out to zero generation after generation.

However, the authors tell us that this "failure" can be seen as a boon if the initial seeding is large enough. For example, if you have a list of 10,000 and a email infection rate of 0.5 each generation would pass it on to half as many recipients. The math goes like this 5,000 + 2500 + 1250 + 625 + 312 + 156... After 6 generations your email infection burns out but you've reached an extra 20,000 in the process! Not a failure after all.

The authors note several examples of this type of viral marketing. An excellent read with great advice for any blogging marketeer.

Brian Solis, one of my favorite PR bloggers, penned a Social Media Manifesto that's worth keeping handy.

A co-worker literally handed this updated white paper to me last week. Trevor Cook and Lee Hopkins, Australian new media and PR gurus, updated their Social Media or "How I learned to stop worrying and love communication" primer to include new developments like Second Life, Twitter and Facebook.

It's a great piece that takes out the fear and intimidation that many outside of this field encounter, but still explains the logic behind each technologly and weighs the pros and cons.

As we've seen with the Hillary video this week, online videos are only growing in popularity. Campaigns aren't alone in creating videos for the Internet. Every industry is scrambling to add a video component to their overall strategies, but who's watching?

Earlier this week, Magid Associates released survey results on the demographics of online video viewers:

Overall, among 12- to-64-year-old Internet users, daily usage of online video rose by 56% over the last year. This year, 14% reported using online video every day--up from 9% in 2006. Weekly usage also rose 18% over last year, with 52% of the Internet users viewing online video once a week or more, compared with 44% in 2006.

In all age groups, Magid reported, males are more regular viewers of online video. Among females ages 18 to 24, weekly use of online video is 53%. The population that has the lowest rate of weekly online video usage is older women. Among females 55 to 64 years old, 39% report using online video weekly.

When 50% of Internet users are watching videos weekly, it's a strong arguement to somehow fold this tactic into the web.

But is this a fad? If the iPhone takes off, there's a good chance that YouTube will remain a top web destination for while. Furthermore, YouTube is increasing globally. A Guardian article yesterday highlighted YouTube's expansion in Europe on the web and mobile devices.

Last week Patrick Ruffini wrote about benefits of using the web to mobilize grassroots and reach opinion leaders and early adopters. Young Voter Strategies at George Washington University recently released a new study that shows e-campaigns aren't just added bonuses, but crucial to winning tight elections.

Something changed in 2004 and again in 2006. Suddenly, voters aged 18-29 started turning up at the polls. Millenials, those born between 1977 and 1997, cast 4.3 million more votes in 2004 than 2000 with 49% of the age group voting. In 2006, Millenials increased their votes by 2 million from the 2002 mid-term election. If this trend continues, our youngest voters will be the deciding factor in many elections.

The bad news is that Millenials largely favor Democrats. In 2006, 60% of 18-29 year-olds voters cast ballots for Democratic candidates. The picture gets a little more scary when factoring in research that voting is habit forming, and once an individual supports a particular party for three elections, they are likely to form a life-long loyalty to that party. However, not all is bleak for the Republicans.

According to YVS,

Today's young Republicans are very loyal Republicans--but they need to be targeted and turned out. ...young Republicans are more loyal and more intensely Republican than older Republicans. 60% believe the country is headed in the right direction. President Bush has a favorable rating of 76%, and the Republican Party has a favorable rating of 85%.

Young supporters of the Republican Party are out there and excited about being a Republican, but they won't show up on their own. They need to be asked, and the best way to reach them isn't through more paid advertising.

E-campaigns are crucial for reaching these eager, young voters. If asked, not only will they turn up at the polls, but they'll volunteer and work long hours to help out. The key here is reaching out to them on their terms. Millenials are more tech and media savvy than any other generation. Broadcast campaigns won't reach them. If tight races mean turning out every potential vote, campaigns must invest resources in the web.

This requires creating a strategy that goes beyond candidate blogs. Social networking is the hub that Millenials' lives revolve around. A Harvard Institute of Politics study in 2006 found that 97% of all college students logged onto Facebook at least once a month and that population is quickly entering the workforce. According to Facebook numbers, average users log onto the site at least 10-12 times a day.

While Facebook may seem like the silver bullet of the youth vote, it takes personal interaction to reach these voters. The tactics aren't expensive but are labor intensive. The key to recruiting new Republicans is developing one-on-one relationships. Facebook works to recruit, identify and gather these supporters. It's up to the campaigns to invest the manpower to reach them.

YVS sums it up pretty well:

For Republicans, the past two elections should spur them to devote resources to stemming the flow of today's youth to the Democratic Party. Not all young adults vote Democratic, and plenty of those who did in 2006 are not yet wed to the party. In 2008 and beyond, Republicans should develop a strategy to win back many of those young voters and build their party for the future.

It's no secret to readers of this space that uber-popular video-sharing website, YouTube, will remain one of the top tools used (and misused) on the campaign trail.

Since my company is the first to offer high-quality, affordable web videos to our clients which will largely be distributed through the site, I wanted to give five essential tips on how campaigns can and should be using web video and the site more effectively on the trail.

This essay takes a close look at the following five techniques and strategies for use on campaigns which face a decent challenge and have a reasonable budget:
1. Two-camera strategy at all times.
2. Watch the footage. Archive well.
3. Monitor opponent's channel / organic search results.
4. Prepare known hit responses early / “flood the zone.”
5. Several different campaign YouTube accounts.

Due to the length of this essay, you can read the full post at my company blog.

Bravo's ad in the Cynopsis daily newsletter this morning is a strong example of how to use Berry and Keller's The Influentials. While the ads exist to promote their TV and web programming, they represent exactly how campaigns need to microsegment and target potential voters.

   

The Affluencers display the multi-demensional view that campaigns should take. Voters consume news and entertainment across many mediums and points in their day. For the Millenials, life and the web are one thing. Campaigns need to analyze their voters from all perspectives and see where they can target messages on the voter's preferred medium.

This can be done on the local level too. Combining voter files with Census information and tools such as Claritas' Market Segmentation allows any campaign to paint a vivid picture of who they need to reach.

Wondering how your social media strategy ranks? Are you lost in a sea of new buzz words and not quite sure where to start? Ogilvy PR created this neat little quiz.

While it's geared towards the corporate sector, it can easily be translated for government offices, campaigns and nonprofits.

It's also a good evangelism tool to help push that supervisor or manager who hasn't seen the 2.0 light yet.