It’s not my idea, I’m not that original, but a vlogger, JoeFelice, is making great use of YouTube to increase the number of registered voters in this year’s presidential elections. In what he calls the Voter Vlog Project, Joe has tagged his favorite vloggers to register themselves, friends or even strangers, and to tag others when they’ve done so. We’ll have to see if this picks up, but it could be another way to increase voter turnout, especially among social media savvy youth.

Here’s Joe in his own words:

And one of the responses:

According to a recent Maclean’s article (which isn’t available online yet, but can be found on pg 45 of the July 7th issue), marketers are struggling to find ways of making millions from online social networks. No one has successfully penetrated these walled gardens successfully enough to translate them into cash. Which is why advocacy campaigns have a huge advantage over corporate campaigns. Social networks represent a change in the way we interact with media. It’s a shift from one-way (broadcast) communication to two-way (conversation) communication, and the reason we don’t click on ads on our Facebook profiles is precisely because we’re using it to have a conversation with our network of friends and family. We don’t want that conversation interrupted by an invasive ad that has no relevance to our discussion — the commercial approach to social media to date.

By comparison an advocacy campaign — one that promotes a point of view — can join the conversation, or start one altogether. Authenticity is key to this. Facebook users have little tolerance for spam, even with it comes from friends, let alone fake friends or ads. They’ll only pay attention if they’re being sent information on matters that are relevant to them, and they’ll only take it from people in their network that are influential on that particular matter. Advocacy campaigns, by their definition, attract passionate advocates (influencers) who sell an idea, and do so usually with nothing in it for them. They do so because they care about a cause, or a candidate, and making money is usually of little concern, lest they partake in fundraising efforts.

While commercial campaigns are more interested in making a profit, most advocacy campaigns are about mobilization - attracting volunteers, donors, and getting people to respond to some kind of call-to-action. Social networks, through the use of features like supporter pages, causes, groups, and event calendars, are very useful for mobilizing people, not only to push online efforts, but also in translating that support into tangible, offline support. Barack Obama’s campaign is a prime example of this: the ground war has been very successful to date because the mybarackobama.com social network has given that campaign a way converting online support into votes.

While deep-pocketed corporations had the advantage with traditional media advertising, today’s advocacy groups can be just as big of a fish in the pond because of the advantage they have in the social media realm.

And it’s brilliant. “The Dion Tax Trick” is a marketing campaign that warns taxpayers “about being tricked by Stéphane Dion into paying a permanent new carbon tax that will destroy jobs and drive up the cost of gas, electricity and everything else Canadians buy.”

The Conservatives are running three English and three French radio ads, two fuelcast ads that will run at gas pumps (which can be viewed at the website) and a “volunteer-based guerrilla marketing campaign that will hit numerous communities over the summer.”

The radio ads are exceptional, and the fuelcast ads will effective at grabbing the attention of motorists and reminding them that Dion’s a tax and spend Liberal.

The CPC continues to demonstrate that they’ve got a better understanding of how to use the web than the Liberals. This campaign has a viral element, asking viewers to spread the word, but like any good modern online campaign, there’s a game. “Reach out and Tax someone” lets you trick your family and friends into paying a permanent new tax on everything. You can send a custom email to your friends/family or use one of three sample texts, for example:

Did you know a 2006 United Nations report found that cattle-rearing generates more global warming green house gases than driving cars? We have to do something about it. I hope you’ll join me in fighting back by putting a price on beef and dairy”

The recipient gets an email with that text and says “if you agree, click here” The user clicks on the link and gets a message telling them they’ve been tricked into paying more taxes, explains how Dion wants to put a tax on everything, and encourages them to check out the site and watch the ads.

The campaign is cheeky - but still makes the point - and is worth spreading around. Could be a long summer for Dion.

I know it’s completely unrelated, but it’s too shocking not to post. A colleague alerted me to this: Effective immediately, CBC will cease using the Hockey Night in Canada Theme.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (”CBC”) has advised the composer, owner and administrator of the musical composition that it is not prepared to enter into a new license agreement with respect to the use of the theme. The current license agreement expires at the conclusion of the 2007/08 NHL playoffs.

The CBC has been offered a new license on terms that are virtually identical to those that have existed for the past decade (the cost to CBC to use the theme is approximately $500.00 for each game broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada). However, the CBC has chosen to move in a new direction.

After 50 some odd years, it drops Canada’s second anthem? It’s mind-boggling.

Update: Facebook group started: “Bring back the Hockey Night in Canada Theme!”

Update 2: And there it is, no surprise here: CTV/TSN have bought the rights to the theme and will start using it in the fall.

Found this at Wired Magazine, and agree wholeheartedly:

Obama owes his victory to the internet. He used the web more effectively than any prior national candidate, harnessing its organizing power to vault over party favorite Hillary Clinton and become the first black presumptive presidential nominee. With an enormous internet-driven donor base of 1.5 million people, more than 800,000 of whom have accounts on Obama’s social networking website, Obama is the first internet candidate to win mainstream success. His online supporters have created more than 30,000 events to promote his candidacy…

Highlights of Obama’s innovative use of the web:

• His team used Wikis to coordinate and churn out precinct captains in California and Texas, and to build a list of undecided super delegates for targeting.
• They set up policy pages to solicit ideas from supporters.
• He dealt with the smear campaign alleging he’s a radical Muslim with counter-viral e-mail campaign, and subsequently kept an updated fact check page on his site.
• His campaign constantly kept its YouTube channel updated to counter smears, and to promote his message of hope.
• The social network his team created on the site made it easier to wage the offline campaign as supporters built the infrastructure needed to find each other and to coordinate the ground war.
• Most importantly, Obama wouldn’t have made it this far without an effective fundraising effort. Half of the $265 million raised came in increments of less than $200 - most of which came through the internet.

Of course, Obama didn’t win strictly because of the internet - he still had to inspire people to rally behind him, but when he convinced them he was worth it, he used the web to keep them engaged and to get them to work for him.

Watching coverage of the final primaries this week on CNN, you couldn’t avoid pundits speculating the extent to which Clinton’s supporters would act out against Obama. Well, they’ve started their campaign - and they’ve started it online: http://hcsfjm.com/. It’s an awkward url — an acronym for “Hillary Clinton Supporters For John McCain,” and the design grotesque, but they’ve managed to get attention.

The site was launched Saturday by Ed Hale, a 63 year-old rancher from Texas. He claims to have 7,000 supporters already. According to Wired Magazine, the site’s already received close to 40,000 visits as of yesterday.

It’ll be interesting to keep on eye on this in the coming weeks.

Found this line over at Social Times:

[Politicians] are not using social media tools to provide the public with more insight or better connection to government. Instead they are using these tools as a way to flash a smile and show the public how ‘new age’ their campaigns are.

Spot on. Anthony LaFauce’s post is interesting, but I can’t agree with the first half of following statement:

Politicians should only use social media to educate, not to sway votes. Like no time before politicians on every level have a chance to connect with the people they represent

Some would say that swaying votes is education. You can’t expect a politician to not use all the tools available to her to explain why she deserves the vote, and why her opponent doesn’t. (Her opponent will certainly make use of them). Of course, it would be nice if she would continue making use of social media after winning the campaign to educate her constituents, but she would be foolish not to use it in the campaign.

The point of using social media is not to shove talking points and policy platforms down people’s throats. Yes, it’s important to spread the message, but at the end of the day, the purpose of social media is to connect with people; to talk with them; to share stories. What ambitious politician wouldn’t want to do those things?

The McCain Team has missed the boat with its latest blog strategy. It gives supporters a mission: spam targeted liberal blogs with talking points. Their website lists some well-known liberal blogs that could use a stronger Republican voice in the comments section. That’s all fine and dandy - there’s nothing wrong with mobilizing you’re supporters, but it’s the whole supplying of talking points that’s off base.

It demonstrates complete ignorance about how to run a social media campaign: you need to listen to the conversation, and engage in it. You can’t simply push a message down bloggers’ throats. They’ll likely delete your post, assuming it’s spam, or ignore you altogether. But even if they don’t delete the post, your users stand out for having hijacked a conversation. You stand out for demonstrating a complete misunderstanding of what it takes to shift public opinion with today’s ruthlessly savvy web users. (Take a look at the comments section at the Politico, which first broke the story).

There’s only one strategy that works effectively online: authenticity. Advertisements and propaganda camouflaged as user comments are not authentic. You can’t fabricate support. It reeks of desperation — and like many single guys have learned over the years — when you’re oozing desparation, it’s her cue to run the other way. Quickly.

This is the best news I’ve seen all week: Facebook is planning a re-design. It appears Facebook is reaching out to users like me who have grown fatigued by the super walls, cluttered third-party extensions, and cumbersome navigation.

In what will be the first major overhaul in Facebook’s history, the popular social networking site is planning changes to its core profile page to make it “simpler, cleaner, and more relevant.” the gradual roll-out begins in June. To cut the clutter, Facebook designers are introducing tabs - breaking the profile page up into five separate pages, all accessed by clicking the tabs at the top of the screen. The wall is expected to be it’s own tab. Third party apps will also have their own tabs - thank God.

It’s no secret what makes conventions tick; what drives people to fly hundreds — sometimes thousands — of kilometers to attend dry policy plenaries and eat awfully catered food. They do it for the hospitality suite. Without hospitality suites most conventions — especially non leadership-selection ones — would be a snooze-fest.

For the uninitiated, hospitality suites are a very simple idea: leadership candidates, party stalwarts and executives rent a hotel room, stock it with beer (the fancy ones have wine and hard liquor) and entertain convention goers. Of course, everyone drinks responsibly, but as you can imagine — unless it’s Belinda Stronach’s suite — convention-goers must subject their bodies to cheap and flavourless beer. (You know the ones: Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue, Coors Light…).

Of course, beggars can’t be choosers, so it’s a bit rich for me to complain about beer selection at conventions, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help point people to a new social networking site built for those who appreciate damn good beer. I guess I can only hope future hospitality suite organizers will leverage this important online tool: beersuggests.com