Ever since elementary school, part of me wanted to be involved in politics. Last week, I got my first taste of what it was like to be on an official campaign trail.
Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra retained Identity Marketing & Public Relations in early March to help launch his campaign to be the next Governor of Michigan. While our work was primarily focused on connecting Pete with members of the press and raising awareness of his announcement, I was given the chance to help fine-tune his social media strategy.
Lucky for me, I wasn’t starting from scratch. Prior to my involvement, the Hoekstra team understood the importance of possessing a strong digital presence and was incredibly active on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and on many other niche communities. Additionally, Pete had already succeeded in building an impressive community of 6,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 4,000 friends on Facebook.
If you think about it, social media has made quite the impact on the political arena. It has presented politicians with a number of new channels for informing and interacting with constituents. Members of congress now share their reactions to speeches and debates in real time. For us citizens, this means the men and women who represent us in Washington are now more accessible than ever.
When I finally got the chance to get my hands dirty, I found a lot of similarities in the tactics used for building corporate social media strategies, with measurable short-term and long-term goals guiding our efforts. However, since we were talking about social and economic issues instead of products and services, we needed to tread lightly.
Our initial strategy sessions involved discussing how to set our social media “tone” early, ensure transparency, quickly influence reactionary conversations, thank die-hard supporters and engage skeptics. You know… the good stuff.
However, the big X-factor in our strategy planning was that our team would be mobile for nearly the entire day. Yep. We had ourselves a caravan.
After my day-long, 450-mile road trip, with stops all over Michigan including Detroit, Fraser, Southfield, Royal Oak, Lansing and Holland, I took away a few pointers when it comes to working social media on the road. Don’t think of these squarely as suggestions for those in politics. These might help with major corporate announcements and activities where traveling and updating on the fly is necessary.
- Ensure that your communities are accessible from mobile devices and can quickly be viewed and updated. Facebook Mobile, Twitter Mobile, etc. were incredibly helpful when looking at community reactions to recently posted videos, pictures and status updates.
- Have multiple phones available if traditional media relations is playing a big role in your announcement and designate one device for interviews. The others should have access to email and keyword/conversation alerts (Google/Twitter).
- Plan out stops at locations that offer WiFi so content can be quickly uploaded. It also helps to check with your event locations and ask if you can use their network for a short period of time while on site.
- Purchase an AirCard or mobile device tethering plan for the duration of the event. I used a Verizon USB card and having full Internet access on my laptop at all times was totally worth it.
- If you are in charge of distributing content and managing updates, don’t get stuck driving. Lull moments in the car are the perfect time for uploading photos and short videos, as well as ensuring every item is keyword/SEO friendly. You lose those precious minutes if you are behind the wheel.
Those are some of my suggestions. What are your tips? If you had to run a social media program from the road, or have already done so, what other recommendations would you add to the list?
Bonus: Pete’s team put together this great video from the announcement day. You can see me with my Flip at 3:29.
(Disclaimer: I’m still learning about Pete Hoekstra and his campaign platform. Just because I’m working for him doesn’t mean he has my vote. When it comes to our next Governor, I’m still very much undecided.)
Filed under: Michigan, blogs, detroit, marketing, public relations, social media, social networking, twitter , Facebook, Flickr, Identity Marketing & Public Relations, Michigan Governor, Michigan Governor Race, Pete Hoekstra, Politics, social media, Social Media on the Road, Social Networks, Strategy, twitter, YouTube
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