Advocacy Avenue

Today is my last day at Amplify, after almost three years of being the Internet team’s programmer, the company’s marketing point person, and a client/project manager. I’ve worked on exciting projects, with thoughtful and engaged clients, about issues I believe should get as much attention as we can possibly bring to them. My amazing colleagues are now continuing that work.

My last job is to make sure all those projects continue as smoothly as possible.

I believe in documentation because me-six-months-from-now doesn’t know what I know. And now, all the documentation I’ve written over the last three years can be useful to my colleagues. The team can back each other up, because I’ve made spaces for others to create documentation as well. That increase in our collective capability is the thing I’m most proud of at Amplify.

Last week, Debbie Weil’s Sweets and Tweets (one of the many great after-work DC politics/technology/social media events – the only one with cupcakes) featured several of us talking about the idea of linchpins, people who can make an enormous difference in their organizations: I talked about not waiting for assignments, about documentation, and about growing into new roles. I’m deeply grateful Amplify gave me the chance to grow and learn as I have.

I hope you’ll keep in touch, and I’ll be trying to blog regularly from business school at my personal blog, Information Squid. Schools are starting to think about social media and brand evangelism and all the areas Amplify works in (NYTimes, BusinessWeek), and I’m looking forward to connecting more traditional areas with that mindset.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel at a meeting of the Web Content Mavens, a DC networking group focused on web content from many different perspectives.  This particular event was a casual overview of web specialties.  The discussion revolved around our various web-related job titles, what they mean in real life, and how they integrate with the tasks of the (mostly) content managers and online editors in the audience. The panel talked about everything from user experience and information architecture to social media and communications planning.

The funny thing is, talking about all of our specialties eventually brought us around to a fundamental truth about the online world: As fancy as organizations are now getting, and as many bells and whistles as they are adding to their repetoir, great content is and always will be the core of a great web presence.

Take a website like World Wildlife Foundation (not an Amplify client – I just like their site!). During a time when there are so many issues at play in environmetal news, they manage to promote all of their work and still produce important and well-written content about the Gulf oil spill. Their readers get immediate access to:

• up-to-date news about the oil spill
• information about how they can help WWF take action
• first-hand accounts from organization representatives reporting from the front lines

The updates are timely, and the first person narratives capture the situation in a way that is different from other sources. You can also get great – and somewhat different, for a different audience – information from their Facebook page.

So besides having an attractive site that allows people to find all the things they’re looking for, it’s really their well-written, thoughtfully considered content that sets them apart. In the advocacy world, this is the most basic, crucial thing for you to get right. And all the other stuff – from search engine optimization to Twitter feeds and everything in between – need to be an extension of your great content in order to be truly meaningful.

When I say that content is basic, however, I don’t at all mean that it’s easy. Understanding your audience and finding your voice can be the most difficult things in the world to do, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. That’s why when Amplify’s clients come to us for special projects – ad campaigns, advocacy microsites, social media, videos, etc. – we very often ask them to take a step back with us and first consider what’s already on their site.

By the way, hooray for meetups like the Web Content Mavens for keeping the important stuff in the spotlight.

Here are a couple of interesting postmortems of Bob McDonnell’s online campaign efforts in the Virginia governor’s race:

Colin Delany of e.politics has a campaign outsider’s look at the “impressively comprehensive” Internet campaign, including website, Google ads, Ning private social network, text messaging, and social network outreach.

Mindy Finn has the inside view from the campaign’s online strategy consulting firm Engage, and talks about early investment, an internal audit, what they improved, and the (winning) results and lessons learned. Her first two lessons are particularly important: have multiple people working on online execution (no one person will be able to focus on everything), and budget for continued web development throughout the campaign.

The McDonnell campaign had enough money and grassroots enthusiasm to take the example of the Obama campaign and adapt online tactics to their own race. While their advantage of being one of the few big races this year will be impossible to replicate for Congressional and down-ballot races next year, 2010 candidates would be wise to imitate the attention they paid to using the Internet well.

Alex Howard (@digiphile) posted notes from the CongressCamp session we and Nisha Chittal and Scott Eagle ran, focusing on:

• A list of case studies of elected officials online to check out for ideas and comparisons, and
• a list of tools to check out and consider using for any government office or elected official just getting online.

Take a look at Tools & Case Studies from “Picking Tools & Strategies” Session. I used my usual POST process slides to discuss deciding how to reach constituents. Thanks to all who contributed ideas in the session.

ForumOne’s blog has a nice set of takeaway lessons – #2 (“Congressional use of social media and related Web 2.0 technologies frequently is not guided by an underlying digital communications strategy.”) and #3 (“Congress is in the initial stages of social media maturity – typically leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to broadcast their message and respond to negative PR.”) were definitely part of our session.

Sprout Builder is a new WYSIWYG drag and drop Flash builder that easily integrates with most major content and distribution services.  In about 20 minutes, I was able to make the widget above promoting a new, short video created by Disney Channel’s Playhouse Disney for the Smart Television Alliance. 

Once you have created your widget with Sprout Builder, the tools allows you to easily add it to 18 different social media sites including Facebook, MySpace, Blogger and of course, Typepad (our blog runs on Typepad).

Give it a try. It’s free. 

- Kevin    

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If you’re at NTEN‘s 2008 Nonprofit Technology Conference, be sure to stop by the ice cream social, sponsored by Amplify. My colleagues Kevin and Shana will be there to talk about New Orleans, ice cream, and cutting-edge technology. Don’t miss our handout for a link to best practices tips about blogging, podcasting, and virtual worlds.

The Center for American Progress hosted their most recent Internet Advocacy Roundtable last Thursday.  The topic was online advertising for advocacy campaigns and the theme was definitely TARGETING.  The possibilities are endless – demographics, behavior, geography by IP, search terms, and more.  But as Kerry MacKay of Washington Post Newsweek Interactive commented– "Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should," warning of oversaturating your audience and experiencing diminishing returns.  Definitely something to think about when you are deciding where to spend your online advertising budget!

We would like to wish all of our friends and family a very happy and healthy holiday!

In the spirit of the season, help us raise $3,000 to help 1,000 families in Darfur.

Please complete our short quiz testing your "Web 2.0" expertise. For every completed quiz, IDI will make a donation to Direct Change, a charity that leverages Web 2.0 technology to raise funds for development projects in Africa. Then click through and make your own donation to Direct Change and IDI will match every contribution of $1.50 or more. We are committed to raising $3,000.

Every $3 we raise will buy a fuel-efficient stove for a needy family in Darfur. These stoves help protect the environment while decreasing the risks that women in Darfur face when searching for wood.

Learn more about Direct Change and the amazing work they are doing in Africa.

- Kevin

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Many of you have likely already seen this.  But, it is too funny not to post.  Happy Friday. (Thanks to Cheryl Contee for sending along!)

- Kevin