Down Home Digital: Don't Tweet Alone

By Steve Pearson and Ford O'Connell

Since Twitter now claims more than 100 million users, you’re pretty much guaranteed that someone will hear you on Twitter. The trick is figuring out how to get the right message to the right people (and listening to what they are saying back to you).

 

But first let’s touch on why Twitter matters to you. After all, with its cutesy blue bird icon, its silly vocabulary (tweets, tweeps, twitterati, etc.) and its “fail whale,” Twitter can sound more like a goofy game than a serious campaign tool. And the social and personal entertainment aspects certainly do dominate the medium. But look beyond the technology and the celebrity. Twitter is another step in the trend toward the flattening of the news media and the shift to self-service communication. Welcome to the world in which journalists are reading blogs to get their stories and bloggers are scanning Twitter for their leads.

 

The foundational principle of Twitter is authentic personal communication. Right—just like everyone believes that professional wrestling is real. Being authentic and personal has an elastic definition in the context of the politician’s use of Twitter. It doesn’t have to be the candidate’s thumbs actually pressing the keys, but a campaign’s tweets need to reflect the candidate’s voice. Bob Dole may have been able to speak in the third person, but your candidate will look silly or stiff if the campaign’s tweets sound as if someone else is talking about the candidate. Think of Twitter as writing a speech for your candidate in 140 character segments and delivered one sound bite at a time.

 

Just as a candidate’s speeches are crafted for specific objectives and target audiences, your campaign tweets need to be more than just a random collection of 140 character thoughts. A few personal observations are humanizing. But candidates and political causes are not celebrities per se—We don’t care about their socks, allergies or digestive issues. You want to avoid the approach taken by Creigh Deeds while running for Governor of Virginia in 2009 —a study released after the election classified roughly 44 percent of his campaign tweets as “pointless babble.” For a campaign, the most useful tweets will have a link, most often to a specific page on the campaign website (a blog post, an event, a call to action page). Make sure the linked page displays properly in mobile browsers —nothing screams “dumb campaign” more than a link for a page I can’t see delivered directly to my smart phone where I’m reading your tweets.

 

So how do you get all those followers anyway?

 

First, pick a Twitter handle that reflects your campaign and lets potential followers know about it. Every time you tweet, include a relevant hashtag: #GOP, #DEM, #TeaParty, #Obama, #politics are examples of the short tags that you can include in your tweet to tap into communities who are searching for information about that topic. Your best bet is to look at people who are already tweeting in your community or about your issues and see what tags they use. You can also follow these individuals as well. Like we said up top, Twitter is a community effort, get involved and reciprocate and you won’t be left to tweet alone.

 

The next step up the Twitter curve is to use it to listen to the community. Make an effort to respond to direct messages that are sent to your Twitter account. Watch who is re-tweeting you and thank them. Understand what the community is talking about by scanning the Twitter posts with the hash tags relevant to your campaign. You might get some ideas yourself. Watch what your opponents are tweeting—who knows, they might let something slip. On that note, make sure everyone tweeting for your campaign (including the candidate) thinks before they tweet. Back to the analogy of the campaign speech: Off the cuff riffing is not recommended. We know several politicos who found an ill-advised tweet to be a very effective job termination tool.

 

Used properly, Twitter can give you a broad network of connections and real time insights that rival the NSA. Start out with where you’re comfortable. When you’re ready to plunge deeper, take a look at Mashable’s Twitter Guidebook (mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/) for additional tips on tools and services to make your Twitter presence more effective.

 

Steve Pearson is President of CivicNEXT, which provides practical networking, communications and fundraising solutions for political campaigns and organizations. Ford O’Connell is President of ProjectVirginia, winner of the 2010 Reed Award for Best Use of Twitter and whose blog reports on “Where Politics Meets Social Media.”