Leveraging Campaign Yard Signs Online
In a tight race, you are always trying to get the edge over your opponent. One way to stand out is to combine offline campaign tactics with online ones. When field and the campaign’s web team are working together, great things happen. Campaigns can even leverage the humble yard sign to connect with voters.
Run a Contest on Facebook
Contests are a proven method to increase engagement on social networks. It is easy to set up a contest using campaign yard signs. Here is the basic process:
- A contestant takes a picture of the candidate’s sign on their lawn
- The contestant inserts the picture on your fan page. Be sure that your page’s settings let fans insert pictures. A variant on this contestant would be to ask contestants to upload a photo and tag the candidate. It’s important to note, however, that users can only tag personal pages.
- At random, choose one of the photos and offer a prize such as a complimentary admission to a high dollar fundraiser or to “star” in the next commercial or radio spot.
- Finally, follow up. Send an email announcing the winner and plug the fundraiser that the contestant won a complimentary ticket too!
A contest like this will increase the candidate’s exposure online because the campaign’s yard sign will show up on many walls and news feeds. Unlike many pictures of the candidate or events on the campaign trail, a voter gets a clear message of who the candidate is and what office he or she is running for when they see a yard sign online.
Will Tweet for Yard Sign
A lot of campaigns are announcing that their yard signs are available on Twitter. This is a great opportunity to get some valuable mentions. Instead of just announcing that yard signs are available, tell your followers that there are a limited quantity of signs, the campaign expects them to go quickly, and that they can reserve a campaign yard sign by tweeting why they are voting for the candidate and mentioning the campaign’s Twitter account. It’s a small price to pay to ensure that they are going to receive a yard sign and will result in a number of supporters tweeting to their followers why they are supporting your candidacy.
Experimenting with Hashtags, Like “Buttons,” and QR Codes
The best campaign sign designs aren’t cluttered. Great signs generally only include the candidate name and office the candidate is seeking but it’s okay to add some graphics so long as they don’t detract from the candidate name and office sought.
For example, consider using a yard sign to promote a Twitter hashtag. Simply put a pound sign before the candidate’s name on the sign and Twitter users will understand that when referencing your campaign they can use that hashtag.
Likewise, consider putting a like ‘button’ on the yard sign so that voters know that they can connect with you using Facebook. It worked for Victoria’s Secret limited edition “you like this” panty, why can’t it work for your campaign?
Finally, candidates in residential districts might consider using a QR code on their campaign sign. A voter with a smartphone, like the iPhone or an Android phone, could scan the QR code and be directed to the campaign’s website. QR codes were once popular, then fell out of usage, and have recently become popular again for marketers of all types.
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Conclusion
This is just scratching the surface for ways you can integrate your online and offline organizing to get the edge over your opponent. While this post offers a number of ways that campaigns can connect yard signs with technology, you should get creative to integrate all forms of traditional campaigning with the web.
Tracking Your Campaign Video Success
Larger political campaigns have been using video for years now, but now even smaller campaigns are getting into the multimedia act. With the rise of YouTube and other video sharing sites, it’s easier than ever to store and share content.
The most common video uses for political campaigns include:
- Personal messages from the candidate
- Campaign Ads
- Events and rallies
- Broadcasting legislative sessions and meetings
Once you add video to your site(s), how do you know how successful they are? How many people are watching them, passing them along, or donating after viewing them?
YouTube provides some pretty good analytics for your video channel. YouTube recently enhanced its reporting tools. Besides number of views, referrers and basic visitor demographics, you can also track audience attention to measure your video’s ability to retain its audience.
Tracking your video usage data can help your campaign create more engaging content which can help increase click-through and conversion rates. For example, if one particular ad is being heavily forwarded to others, you might want to consider making a follow-up. On the other hand, videos that are not being watched at all may just need something as simple as a different description and image to attract interest.
Another video hosting/tracking service is wistia.com. This site allows you to track viewers in real time with video analytics. They provide video heat maps, which can tell you how long and what part of the video was most watched. It also features:
- Share videos by email or link
- Embed video into your email campaigns and track who’s watching.
- Create a play list
- iPad support
- Email alerts of activity
- A 15-day trial.
If anyone gives this service a try, let us know how you like it in the comments below.
Adding video to your Online Candidate website is as simple copying & pasting a few lines of code directly into your page source code . Check out our Campaign Site Demo!
Preparing for Candidate Name Searches
When voters begin searching for your campaign, are they finding what you, as a political candidate, want them to see? If you are not actively laying the groundwork of online content about yourself, you’re leaving it up to others to define you online.
Ideally, when a candidate’s name is searched, the best search results that a candidate can hope for will include the candidate’s campaign website, profiles about the candidate (Facebook, LinkedIn, candidate profile pages, professional affiliations, etc.), positive articles and press releases. A good mix of those items on the first page of search results provides a good overview of the candidate (that’s actually controlled by the candidate) and helps push down negative listings to the second page and beyond.
Starting early with specific pages tends to help ‘cement’ those results over time. For example, having a campaign website and a Facebook page over a series of months will likely show up in search results for just about any search phrases related to the candidate. Google tends to favor ‘established’ content and – more recently – ‘fresh’ content.
Fresh content includes updated content on your web site, press releases and recent articles. That’s why it’s important to capitalize on recent events. Say, for example, a scandal of some sort erupts during the campaign. It’s important to immediately put out a press release and address the issue on your website. Events trigger searches, so when voters start searching about this scandal or event, they will find your content right away in addition to anything else out there.
Keeping track of what is being said about you online is important, as is your ability to provide a rapid response to events.
The key is to define yourself through as many online channels that you can control. Cross-link and have them reinforce each other. Don’t wait until a week before the election to start creating online content about your campaign. By then, it will be too late!
Free up your valuable time! Our political brochure templates can add a professional edge to your campaign materials and handouts – or view all of our digital products.
Political Campaign Strategies That Stink
It’s something most voters claim to hate, but negative campaigning and mudslinging seems to rule American politics – from national campaigns right down to local elections. Unfortunately, these negative political campaign strategies and dirty tricks tend to work. If they didn’t, politicians wouldn’t use them.
Lies and Misrepresentations
It seems a lot of campaigns spend more time digging up dirt on political opponents than actually addressing the issues. All too often, election campaigns break down to a (s)he said/(s)he said over trivial matters.
Scandal Mongering by Machine
Robo-calling, or automated pre-recorded calls that dial potential voters, has a mixed reputation. Some studies show that they have no effect on an election outcome, while some political consultants believe they work. Robo-calls are often used to deliver last-minute attacks – legitimate or not. Our advice is to keep aware of what your opponent is doing right up and including the day of the election.
Counting on Ignorance
Some years ago, we were involved in a grassroots campaign to prevent an inappropriate commercial project from being constructed. Our state representative did not take a side at the time. Her opponent, however, helped us greatly by providing advice and helping to bring attention to the issue.
However, right before the election, the incumbent sent our area a targeted mailing stating that she had helped our community by ‘joining the fight against inappropriate development’. This, of course, was after the issue had been long resolved without her help. Needless to say, her blatant dishonesty did not earn our vote.
Rising Above it All
How do you fight the negative? It’s tough, but here are some tips that can help.
1) Don’t overreact. Keep cool and don’t say or write anything while you are angry.
2) Take the high moral ground. Let your surrogates take down your opponent.
3) Focus your messaging to special groups. For example, if your opponent is trying to scare seniors about your proposals, send them a direct mailing addressing the situation.
4) Address EVERYTHING through your campaign website. Cover every negative article, ad and rumor through your website. Let nothing go unaddressed. Updates should be announced via email, RSS feeds, social media and any other means you use to connect to voters. This strategy will also help with the local media. If they know that your website provides rapid-response to the issues of the day, reporters will keep an eye on the site – and it may even help influence your campaign coverage.
In the end, the political campaign strategy that works best is to simply target your resources at getting more votes than your opponents. You’re not looking for gossips and political bystanders – you’re looking to turn out real voters on Election Day.
In the end, it’s the only way you can win!
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Political Campaign Link-Building Tip: Related Blogs
Looking for links that will bring traffic and a positive mention? Consider reaching out to like-minded blogs and websites. With a little work and luck, you can help boost your campaign website’s rankings and pull in some additional visitors who may be interested in your campaign.
To start, run a search for “political blogs” and your region or state. You should find some sites or even a page with a listing of relevant sites. Searching for blogs related to a particular campaign issue may also yield results, though you may find more sites that deal on a state-wide or national level.
Blogs of a similar political affiliation or goal tend to link to one another. Once you’ve found prospects, you’ll likely find more just checking what other sites they link to.
Once you’ve found your sites, you’ll want to reach out to them with a brief, personalized email, mentioning the blog and how your campaign or issue relates to them. Depending on the site, you might want to have campaign staff participate in online discussions through the comments section of the posts.
However, this should be done carefully and the participants should have a good knowledge of the site and its ‘rules of the road’.
Linking out is a great way to get their attention and provides a great opening when contacting them. “Thanks for the article on XYZ. I linked to it from my campaign site at…” Directly reaching out and getting to know local site owners and writers is a good way to influence coverage and possibly suggest story ideas which could help your or hurt your opponent.
Sending a tip or story is a good way to get noticed. Be selective here, and only send information to bloggers who have a specific interest. In other words, don’t just send a stream of press releases. That’s a sure way to get a bad reputation. You may get mentioned, but not in a nice way!
Keep in mind that a niche site may get the same tip from multiple sources, so it’s nothing personal if they don’t specifically mention you. Also, make sure the recipient has not already posted something about the story.
Another idea is to offer to do an interview, either as a series of questions you answer or a series of blog posts or recorded podcasts. If it is an issue-based site, you may even want to provide a guest post. In any case, you’ll want to have the material link back to your own website if you can.
Blog owners typically follow related blogs. Once your candidate or campaign has appeared on one blog, don’t be surprised if other sites start reaching out to YOU!
Online Candidate’s website packages are affordable for any campaign. We also offer a variety of popular campaign guides, including our book, Running for Office as an Online Candidate.
Who, What and Where of Your Campaign Site Visitors
To find out how many people are visiting your website, how they are finding you, and what they are doing once they arrive at your website, you’ll want to set up some sort of website analytics program. It’s not as hard as it sounds, and tool we recommend has the best price of all – free!
Most servers come with basic analytics tools, such as Webalizer or AWStats. These programs use server log information to generate results, but they only provide basic information. For example, in some instances they tell the difference between a human user and search engine robots. High-end packages, such as Omniture, are out of the price reach of most political campaigns.
A popular alternative is Google Analytics. This is a free web analytics service offered by Google. It’s easy to set up and even the default reports can provide a wealth of website traffic information. Google Analytics can track website visitors from all sources, including search engines, banner advertising, pay-per-click, email marketing and even links within documents, such as PDFs.
To create an account, visit www.google.com/analytics and Click ‘Sign up now.’ You will be asked to sign in to your current Google Account or to create a new Google Account if you don’t have one. If you are already using Google Adwords for your campaign or you use Gmail for your campaign, you might want to use the same account for analytics.
The signup is fairly simple. Once you have added the site you want to track, Google provides you with a block of code. Copy this and save it to a file.
The final step is to add the tracking code to your site. You’ll need to copy and paste the HTML code directly into each page of your site. For Online Candidate websites, go to the Site Setup > Site Settings section and paste the code directly into the ‘Custom Code’ tab.
That’s it! If everything is set up properly, you’ll start to see visitor activity in your reports within an hour or so.
You can drill deep into reports to find all sorts of information and insights. For example, your ‘Traffic Sources’ report will show you direct visits, referring sites, search engine and keywords used. The ‘Content’ report will give you an overview of what pages visitors are first arriving at, what pages they look at and for how long, and top exit pages where visitors leave your site.
Even with the most basic setup, you can benefit from know where your site traffic comes from and what your visitors do when they get there. If knowledge is power, having analytics for your site will give you plenty to work with.
For more information on setting up Google Analytics, visit the Google Analytics Help Center.
Need help setting up Google Analytics? Analytics setup is included in our Site Launch Addon service. This can be added with your campaign website order or at a later time.
