With the notable exception of Hawaii — where standing at major intersections to wave at passing cars is still a requirement for those seeking elected office — to win your campaign this November, you will need to engage your voters online. A large part of the 2008 Presidential election’s 40-year spike in voter turnout was fueled by both sides’, and their supporters’, increasingly sophisticated use of social media.



For local candidates without the luxury of dedicated social teams, the five social media strategies you need to use are:



1. Launch your online campaign headquarters

One of the realities of seeking office, is that throughout your campaign, there will be times when you feel you have lost control of the message. Even more frustrating, is that there will be times when you feel the media has distilled genuinely complex issues down to a single sound byte. Your website is your online bully pulpit. Your website allows you to share your platform in your own words in the level of detail you require to be understood.



The content on your website also empowers your supporters by giving them the text, image, infographic, audio, and video content they need to further spread your messages. Resist, however, the temptation to “broadcast”. By definition, social media is interactive. Ensure that all of your information is presented as initiating conversations. Finally, take advantage of the opportunity your website gives you to address all of the long-tail issues your voters care about, and speak directly to all of the diferent constituencies you want to represent.



2. Open up your online field offices

Once you have launched your online campaign headquarters, you’ll want to open up your online field offices on each of the major social networking websites. At minimum, you need to have an active, dedicated, and dynamic presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, and iTunesU. Note that each site has its own unique culture, personality, and “rules”, and you will need a skilled and dedicated team to continually feed the hungry online beast with fresh, on-message content. Again, think engagement. Every site is interactive, so resource appropriately to ensure you are not just using these sites as one-way broadcast channels, and that your campaign is making use of the analytics and intelligence available on each site.



3. Actively listen to your voters

It is no surprise that campaigners, like their marketing counterparts, find talking comes easier to them than listening. Actively listen, and make the time to analyze what is being said about you, the issues, and your competitors to give you the immediately actionable feedback you need to make the best possible decisions throughout your campaign. Social networks also provide an excellent leading indicator of how voters will respond to your stand on any given issue as it pops up.



4. Participate in your voters’ discussions

Intellectually, you know that the many mall Santas you see each year are not THE Santa (as he’s pretty busy at the North Pole prepping for his big day). Likewise, while it’s fine for your staff to carry the day-to-day burden of voter engagement, find ways, daily, for you to directly communicate with people online. Just as there is nothing more powerful than people hearing you speak personally on an issue at a live event, there is nothing more powerful than people hearing from you personally on an issue online. The added bonus, is that by interacting personally with people online, you create immensely viral word of mouth.



5. Constantly create valuable content online

The issues in your campaign will run from the numbingly mundane to the blisteringly complex. Leverage social media to help all of your voters, including those predisposed to be against you, to educate themselves on the issues they care about most. You have consciously taken the stands you have on each issue because of your [hopefully!] thorough understanding of them. Use social media to both share what you know and continually learn. Not every voter will care equally about every issue, and each site’s analytics will help you to take the pulse of what different audiences’ priorities are throughout your campaign.



Nothing you can do online will take the place of traditional “press-the-flesh” campaigning, but social media matters because it gives you, your staff, and your supporters the opportunity to more deeply engage more people, more effectively, than has ever been possible with traditional in-person and broadcast media strategies. So the next time you kiss that baby, make sure your staffers tweet about it, upload the video of the kiss to YouTube, and appropriately tag the photo opp on your Flickr stream and Facebook page!




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Boston, MA. — February 26, 2010 — SocialGrow Inc., a Microsoft BizSpark program member, today announced that it has launched the alpha release of its patents-pending SocialGrow Application at http://socialgrow.com. The SocialGrow Application automates the search and connection processes across multiple professional and personal social networks. The SocialGrow Application also helps social networks around the world to accelerate their membership growth. At launch, the SocialGrow Application is compatible with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and MySpace, with additional global and regional social networks being added throughout the month of March.



“By automating the process of inviting people to join users’ social networks, SocialGrow makes it easier to connect with people you don’t know and faster to connect with people you do,” said Marsh Sutherland, President of SocialGrow. “Facebook and LinkedIn users know the larger their relevant networks, the more people their professional and personal messages will reach.”



“SocialGrow simply allows Rec.fm to grow our customer base faster,” said John Appler, President of social recommendations website and 2010 SXSW Web Awards Finalist Rec.fm (http://rec.fm/video). “By quickly expanding the number of users creating and using our ‘high fidelity’ product recommendations, SocialGrow has also accelerated our revenue growth. We are very fortunate to be their first business customer.”



SocialGrow was recently named Microsoft BizSpark’s most promising “Start-Up of the Day”, and selected by MassHighTech (The Journal of New England Technology) as one of their “Five Start-Ups To Watch.” Additionally, SocialGrow’s Chief Marketing Officer Ken Herron was named one of the “Top 5 Chief Marketing Officers on Twitter” by Systemic Marketing for his use of Twitter on @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).



Twitter-Friendly Quotes



Microsoft BizSpark @SocialGrow today announced the launch of the Alpha release of its software application at http://socialgrow.com.



“We make it easier to connect w/people you don’t know & faster to connect w/people you do” – @SocialGrow President @marshsutherland.



“@SocialGrow allows @recfm to grow our customer base faster” – @SocialGrow business customer and @recfm President @johnappler.



About SocialGrow



SocialGrow Inc. is a global social networking software, consulting, and professional services company. SocialGrow’s flagship software application helps individuals, small businesses, corporate enterprises, government agencies, academic organizations, and non-profit associations around the world to more quickly and easily grow their social networks. SocialGrow was founded in July 2009 by Marsh Sutherland, Ken Herron, and Charbel Elkhoury. SocialGrow’s mission is to help people realize the value of social networks. For more information, please visit the SocialGrow website at: http://socialgrow.com, and follow SocialGrow on Twitter at @SocialGrow (http://twitter.com/socialgrow).