Listen
The Internet has taken the public square and made it more accessible. There's a good chance that people are talking online-in comments, on blogs, and on forums-and providing real-time about your campaign. In some cases, this online chatter is drives the public debate.
"Listening" to social media outlets helps you understand what conversations are happening online and allows you to measure your response (if any) appropriately).
Here are a couple of suggested ways to tune in:
- If you're not already using one, start using an RSS aggregator. I use Google Reader, but there are plenty of others out there. Use the suggestions above to find local blogs in your state or area and subscribe to their feeds. Visit those sites and click on the sites they link to, and if it's relevant to your district or race, subscribe to those, too. If your opponent has a blog, subscribing to their feeds will ensure that you know what they're saying .
- Set up Google News Alerts for your name, your opponents name, your race, or whatever else you want to be kept informed about. Google supports alerts from both traditional news outlets and blogs. TIP: Use the Advanced Search feature to specify the geographic location of the articles returned.
- Depending on the race, you may also want to track what people are saying on Twitter, a micro-blogging site. You can subscribe to RSS feeds of "tweets" meeting various criteria, from words to the location of the poster.
Among new media types, the phrase is "participation in marketing." Join in on these conversations and add your own meaningful contributions.