Online Campaigning
This section comes with a health warning. This is the only page on this site where the content is based not on my experience but on what I would plan to do were I fighting an election campaign today. The Internet and its wide range of online tools was simply not around when I was campaigning. I wish it had been. So with that proviso, here we go.
Your Website.
Your website is more than just an online collection of your leaflets. It is your 24/7 accessibility to your electorate. The people who you can't get to during your canvassing can at least see what you're up to via your site.
Choosing a URL
If you've never bought a web site before the URL (Unique Resouce Locator) is the www.yoursite.org.uk bit. Your site name is very important as it has to be memorable and has to relate to your campaign. A simple www.YourName.com or www.KevinForMayor.org.uk should work best. Something like www.VoteForMe.com simply does not enhance your brand as it is not personal enough.
You need to be aware that people cannot just choose any domain they like; it may already be owned by someone else quite legitimately. Also commercial organisations have to use to .com or in the UK the .co.uk domains as the .org and .org.uk domains are restricted to non-commercial organisations. Fortunately, this can include your campaign as although you can raise funds through your web site you are not running it as a business. Search Engines tend to favour .org sites over .com sites in their search returns so if you have a particular URL in mind and the .org or .org.uk is available I would recommend you use that over the .com or .co.uk but if you do bear in mind its non-commercial status. Your could loose the site if it is deemed to be a business.
So you've picked your site name bought the rights to it and organised hosting, all you need now if content, right? Not quite. When you were looking for your site name you may have noticed that there was a lot of choice about the domain it could be part of. I recommended using the .org or .org.uk domain but you should not ignore the others. You should purchase those domains which could be used to spoof yours. This is known as defensive domain building. Basically if your opponents could use a domain with a very similar name to yours they can use it for satirical purposes and this is considered a legitimate use and there would be nothing you could do about it. Consider if this is likely and if so purchase the most likely domains that are available even if you aren't going to use them yourself. You can always set up a simple re-direct to the one URL you are using.
Content.
It's allright having a web site, the world and his brother has a web site these days, but what is on it and what does it do for your campaign. The first things is that it can act as a contact point for supporters so make such there is a form on it so that people can leave you their name, address and contact number. Secondly it can act as a way of telling people what you are doing on a daily basis and where they can contact you in person, a schedued diary or blog if you like. The other main use is as a resource for your election material. Put your manifesto on your site in an easily accessible format, put window posters on it as well so that your supporters can print them off and put them up themselves.
Most importantly, tell people what you're doing, let them know how to join your campaign, how they can help or contribute.
Other Online Tools.
Use the online social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with your supporters and to let them feel that they are not alone in supporting you. These tools are becoming more popular and are very effective. A FaceBook group for instance can mean you don't have to host a discussion forum on your site and members can recruit other supporters for you through their FaceBook friends. Twitter can keep people updated on the progress of the campaign and can be used on Election Day to remind people to vote in conjunction with your knocking up.
FaceBook Groups
These work by organising people with a common interest together and allow for group organisers, called 'Admins' to publish information about the Group and also provide discussion spaces. Have a Group enables admins to email every member of the group. You can see how this would be useful.
There are two types of FaceBook Group relevant to elections. One would be a Public Group, where anyone can join and the content is viewable by non-members. The other is a 'Private' Group where membership is controlled either by invitation or by application.
In the context of an election campaign you may want to consider using both types of groups.
Public Groups would be for organising general support, notifying people about your campaign, publicising public meetings etc. All the activities that generate support. Your Group name could mirror your web site name. Groups can also hold files for the campaign including photos of events or campaign graphics. One thing some campaigns do is produce medium sized graphics for supporters to use as their FaceBook avatar in the run up to the election, a simple 'I'm Voting Smith on the 5th.' or 'Bob for Bromsgrove' seems to work well as these graphics sometimes appear very small. The graphics appear across FaceBook when your support using them carry out activities such as updating their status, even playing games can spread the message across their FaceBook friends who can be up to 5,000 in number, although most of those are likely to
live outside your constituency.Private Groups would be for activists. These are people who are known to you personally. I don't want to make people paranoid but your Public Group is like to be joined by activists from other parties who just want to keep an eye on what you're doing. If this happens take it as a compliment as no one infiltrates a group they do not see as a threat. Having a Private Group will enable you to set up discussions about tactics, canvassing schedules, polling station rotas, concerns about how your campaign is going; all the things you might not want to discuss in public.
Blogs.
A blog of the campaign if hosted on say Blogger can feed a FaceBook status update. A number of candidates from all parties now blog regularly and it seems to be successful. Don't make it to Gung Ho, make more of a insight into your thought processes, experiences, hopes and fears for the electorate and don't give too much away as your opponents will be watching. If your opponents blog, have a read now and again at what they are saying.
I've only recently been converted to using Twitter and it has proven itself to be invaluable. As a way of sending out a quick update, possibly with a link to a web page with more information to a lot of people who have subscribed to your tweets it can't be beat. What surprised though, although it shouldn't have, was its usefullness as a networking tool, linking people with similar interests, through shared connections.
What I have found is that once you build up more than just a few contacts with shared interests Twitter becomes a news feed. During live events, and these can be anything from a demonstration to an episode of the X Factor, Twitter is more up to date than any of the news outlets. You can use this up to the minute feature to your advantage during campaigns to drum up support, organise events and report developments.
This http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/19/alan-rusbridger-twitter is an excellent report by Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian on Twitter's strengths. It's written, as you would expect, from a journalists' perspective, but this can be easily applied to an election campaign.
Sending out a tweet with a link whenever you post an entry on your blog causes a spike in your page impressions and the main blog hosts have build this into their formats to make it easy for you.
On election day of course regular tweets can be sent out to your followers reminding them to vote. This should work in conjunction with your other Election Day activities and not replace them.
This page is incomplete. I will add more but if you can think of anything let me know at contact@howtowinelections.co.uk .
Continue to Eve of Election....