Managing the Gray - Marketing for the New Media Professional

I’m ALL about influencer outreach programs. I WANT politicians to figure out how to leverage new media in their campaigns. I love seeing them experimenting and I applaud them for that. BUT, the Edwards campaign just totally swung and missed in my general direction. But, just like I tell my son when he strikes out in baseball, I’m hoping they will do better next time.

I got a Twitter yesterday from Edwards camp asking me if I’d be interested in helping with a new online program they were going to do. I was curious and he’s one of the candidates I’m very interested in so I responded and the conversation switched to e-mail where I gave them my number and said I’d love to talk and find out more.

A few minutes ago I got a call from someone on the staff. Not the person that I had chatted with and agreed to talk with (bad move #1, don’t pawn me off onto someone else without telling me). This kid was good, but it felt like he was reading from a script. Worse part was they had not done even a five second search on who I was or what I was about. I had assumed the Twitter was because I had written about the campaign in the past, but now I’m thinking it was just a generic message to followers.

On the call I was actually asked if I had ever used MySpace or Delicious before? Are you kidding me? Come on. Do a little bit of homework and find out who you are talking to. I don’t mean this in a cocky sort of way, but at least find out if the person you are talking to has a blog or a podcast or anything. Know a little bit about them before getting them on the phone.

Then I was actually asked “so do you think you can push out some information and content to all your friends?” No direction, just get the information out there. Huh? You are kidding right? PLEASE tell me you are kidding. I wanted to school this kid on the phone but realized he’s just doing his job and it’s really the people heading up this outreach that I need to talk with.

It pains me that this felt more like a band’s street team approach then truly embracing new media. They are doing it right by going to where the conversations are happening, but they fall down in their outreach and approach. If you are going to just blanket reach out to people it is NOT going to work. Figure out who you are talking to and then talk to them appropriately. Find the people who are already talking about you and then tell them you’d love to give them more information.

I had made an assumption that they were reaching out to me because of my political views and because I’ve talked about how politicians can use new media. In the end it turns out I was another random face to them.

I hope the campaign (and all campaigns) can learn from this. As I’ve said before you can fall down in this space, get back up and be better for it. That is why I call this “the new media playground” because we are all learning how to play with the toys and the only way to get better is to keep trying and take advise from the other kids who might have been playing a bit longer.

I don’t want to share what they are doing behind the scenes, but it is a GREAT first step. Every campaign should be doing what they are doing and a lot more. We’ve got to move beyond baby steps and really get things going.

What will be interesting to see is if they will even notice this post and react? I guess it’s a little test for them. *grin*

Posted in Politics, Rants, New Media | Comments(27)

I want to extend an open invitation to all of the candidates running for President in 2008 that they are welcome to come on Managing the Gray to discuss their new media tactics with me.

I just watched what Senator Edwards did on Twitter and I’m still smiling from it. I was happy to see so many candidates announce their running via YouTube and such, but what’s next. Where do you take the campaign from here? How do you FULLY leverage the conversation and embrace the community? That’s what I want to talk about.

I don’t want to talk politics. I’ll talk to Republicans, Democrats or Independents. I want to talk new media campaign strategies and I want to talk about it on my podcast.

Any takers? The offer stands until until election day.

Whose campaign manager will allow it to happen? That’s what I’m most interested in. I sure hope at least one of them does!

Posted in Politics | Comments(5)

I had an interesting conversation with some friends about this topic the other night. It’s been on my mind for a while.

What it boils down to is that I want to work with a political candidates campaign to leverage new media. I want to help them effectively use the space to the fullest and not look like a fool doing it. I want to help them set up an appropriate campaign headquarters in Second Life. Get a podcast up and running where they actually embrace the conversation and engage the viewer/listener.

There are two specific candidates that I’d like to work with. John Edwards already gets the space, but I’d love to work with him. Barack Obama is another one who I’d love to help and I think is taking the steps in the right direction. I still reference his podcast episode when the White Sox won the World Series as proof that he understood the medium. There are others on the blue team that I’d be interested in working with and a few that I wouldn’t as well.
What makes me stop and ponder is what if another candidate approached me to help? I truthfully want to help as many people as possible understand new marketing and this big social playground that I love so much. But, could I do it for someone that I don’t support politically? That’s where I stop and really question things. I don’t think I could. I’m too stuck to my guns.

What about a company? I don’t know the politics of lots of the people I work with at crayon. So would we be able to take on any one campaign as a client? Not sure how that works. What does happen when your company takes on a client that you don’t believe in? Raises a lot of hmmmm moments in my brain. Noodle on it for a while and see what you come up with.

So this is a call out to the Obama and Edwards campaigns! I’m here to help.

Posted in Politics | Comments(5)