Give (more) and ye shall receive

In a recent tweet in Innovate AZ’s Twitter stream, the author seemed compelled to explain the defriendship of Facebook connection. Citing “Far too frequent” and “impersonal messages” from a particular campaign staffer, at least one door was closed on that campaign’s social media message. For Innovate AZ, that begs the question: even for candidates you support, is there a point at which the use of SM as a megaphone rather than interactive tool becomes counterproductive? While the tweet described above could be an isolated incident, the tech savvy certainly have appreciation and respect for those whose SM presence is marked by genuine participation and a value-added contribution. And while it is still in its infancy and effective strategies are ripening, it is difficult to deny that there are two (albeit ambiguously outlined) camps in the SM marketing world: those who participate and those who shout.

It turns out, it doesn’t take a Herculean research effort to find others who are asking similar questions. In a recent eye-opening SM experiment, Phoenix Children’s Hospital Marketing Manager Jessica Catlin tested the virtual ears and eyes of her 50 incumbent and candidate Facebook friends. Jessica explains, “I'm so grateful to get status updates from elected official/candidate Facebook friends, but I'm hoping more will embrace the ‘social’ aspect of social media.” So she asked them to respond to her post. Her prize: glowing public accolades to the first ten respondents. As it turns out, ten responses was an aggressive goal as she only received comments from five candidates. Of the five who responded, three currently hold office and are running for a statewide office, one is a legislative candidate and one is seeking re-election to a city council seat.

It seems fair to say this is a territory where many campaigns have room for growth. Tamar Weinburg, in her book The New Community Rules, states that too many view SM as a goal-achieving tool. She argues that like conventional communities, SM communities are built on giving and receiving. Since political campaigns, like businesses, live and die by goals, whether fundraising, signatures or votes, many are susceptible to overreaching on this platform to achieve those ends. While national level candidates can get away with using SM as an information distribution and a high level goal seeking apparatus, local candidates should be especially cautious of over-asking and under-participating. Bombarding friends and followers with requests and not participating could, in some cases, be worse than not participating in SM at all if your method is turning off current or potential supporters.

In a less than scientific survey, Innovate AZ has been asking local social mediaphiles the following question: What is the perfect mix of genuine participation and SM marketing to keep a cause or message relevant instead of automatically sifted out with the “chatter,” as one person described it? While the responses have been mixed, it is a pretty safe bet that if a campaign or organization’s ratio of participation to message marketing is 10 to 1, they are in the 98th percentile of successful SM message conveyors. Yuri Artibise, a Phoenix SM media guru and policy enthusiast, made the following observation: If you get a 1 to 1 ratio [of participation to SM marketing], that’s something noteworthy. If you find a campaign with a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratio, well, that’s amazing.

So who's amazing? We would love to hear from you about political campaigns whose SM messages are not lost in the crowd. Please share examples of the shining SM stars and the methodologies they are employing to keep you engaged.