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Facebook Rising
One day while surfing Facebook.com, Retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely met Annie Hamilton, a 30-year old California conservative. Their encounter began as simple online socializing, but it sparked a strategy that would help unite activists across the country.Gen. Vallely is widely known for his military analysis on Fox News. But this year he decided not to limit himself to analysis; he wanted to start a grassroots movement to protect America from enemies, both foreign and domestic.
With the help of some political writers and columnists he met on the Internet, Vallely started a grassroots association called Stand Up America USA (SUA). He describes the project as a multimedia organization that involves radio, television, speaking engagements and web and print writing by Vallely himself as well as other columnists.
"We are Standing Up for America and its proud traditions and values,” Vallely said. “And we're spreading the word on the Internet.”
Since their inception, public sites like MySpace and Facebook have been seen as a meeting place for high schoolers and people with too much time on their hands. The sites provide millions of people with an opportunity to communicate with like-minded souls. But today, Facebook is viewed as an excellent means to network from the comfort of one’s own home—pajama networking, if you will.
The power of pajama networking is exemplified by Vallely and Hamilton's Facebook meeting. Impressed with the young conservative, Vallely quickly installed Hamilton as SUA's communications director. And in that role, Hamilton's primary strategies have revolved around the site where the two met. Hamilton used Facebook to gather an enormous following and receive a great deal of publicity without depleting their fledgling budget. Members in turn contacted colleagues, relatives and friends and within two months membership grew to over 750 while, according to Hamilton, visits to the SUA website almost doubled.
With the ease of a standard email, articles written by Vallely, Gen. McInerney and others are released via Facebook's messaging system, which allows the user to send out multiple notifications. His Facebook page also links directly to Stand Up America’s web page.
Facebook is quite democratic; members have the option of participating or declining to participate in mailings or activities. Hamilton says that Stand Up America only distributes articles and announcements to members signed up through Facebook or through premier membership on SUA’s web site. So without having to worry about federal and state laws regarding spam, Vallely and Hamilton are able to contact thousands with organization news and updates. The site is also helping the organization prepare for a conference scheduled for this autumn. Via Facebook, Hamilton and Vallely are inviting potential attendees, discussing the conference agenda and planning events for the gathering.
Gen. Vallely and Annie Hamilton agree that communication—especially with the sympathetic audience social networking allows—is an essential part of marketing. So as a marketing tool, Faceook is arguably the most cost-effective available for non-profit associations, publicists and political activists. There is no financial cost for setting up a webpage for an organization or linking the Facebook page to an organization's web site.
Hamilton believes that without Facebook, Vallely’s organization would have had to rely on more traditional marketing tools such as direct mail, costly advertisements, hiring an in-house or contracted publicis, even cold-calling by telemarketers—expensive and time consuming projects that don’t provide immediate feedback as to their effectiveness.
And so an increasing numbers of business leaders, journalists and political activists—Vallely included—are using the site to network with one another, sometimes going as far as creating non-profit organizations with tens of thousands of members and associates.
Nathan Tabor is President & CEO of TCVmedia.com, a professional full-service Internet and branding firm that specializes in social media optimization, website design/application and consulting.
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© 2010 Politics Magazine