Raise Money, and Rally Your Supporters

February 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Check The Ways Rally Can Tell Your Story.

Regardless of The Issue, Rally Will Make It More Powerful

Social media is changing the way we communicate every day. It’s also changing the breadth and reach of those communications. From Facebook likes to re-tweets to youtube videos, a deep thought, a clever quip (or even an embarrassing moment) can be shared with more people more quickly than ever before.

Social media also has an incredible multiplier effect. With one click of the mouse, a person shares with hundreds or even thousands of others, then those people do the same. Pretty soon, one single communication is cascading across the Web.

What drives this phenomenon? What makes people WANT to share? Though the technology has changed, the answer to this question hasn’t – content. Even though the methods and modes of communication have changed, content is still king.

But that begs the question – what kind of content drives sharing? Sure a pithy quote or a funny video might drive some sharing or lead someone to 15 minutes of internet fame.

What people are really after is something that isn’t just compelling once, they’re looking for something that is compelling on a sustained basis; something that keeps them coming back for more.

What people are looking for, quite simply, is a story.

The best blogs, the best facebook timelines, the best twitter accounts are the ones that tell a story. People not only want to know what’s coming next, they want to see where you’ve been.

Every campaign, every issue, every candidate has a story. Those stories humanize and personalize what in a lot of cases are just facts, disjointed observations, and statistics.

That’s where Rally comes in.

Rally is a new social networking tool being utilized here at Donehue Direct. But Rally is more than simple social networking. It’s much, much more.

Think tumblr, twitter and pay pal all rolled into one.

At its most basic level, a Rally page functions like a blog. So automatically, it’s a great tool for storytelling. But it uses those stories to drive donations, right there from the content. And every new piece of the story is delivered to the audience at large via text, email and video alerts. The stories are shared over social networks as well.

We’re having incredible success with Rally, and getting great feedback from our clients for its simplicity and effectiveness.

It was a creation of the Piryx team. Piryx stormed onto the scene just a couple of years ago, and quickly gained renown as the best donation system for causes on the web. Donehue Direct started working with them during the Congressman Joe Wilson “You Lie!” controversy, and raised literally millions for Wilson online in just a few short days.

But Piryx was just the donation hub. And Congressman Wilson had the advantage of a very public news event to drive donations. In most cases, you need other means to push content, which is where Rally comes in – you can now do that alongside a donations platform.

Simply put, it’s a one stop shop for TELLING THE STORY of your campaign – and even more importantly, getting people invested in what comes next.

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A New Age: Net Activism

January 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

We’ve mentioned before how this digital age has influenced and crafted the ways in which messaging, dialogue, and strategy is delivered to the voting base. We’ve talked about the methods, strategies, techniques- all that jazz- that tends to affect how voters perceive a candidate, and how social media can influence an election.

This week proved to be one of the greatest achievements for our industry, proof that our craft has shown its’ full potential, and is now a vital tool to the democratic process.

Whether you were for, or against SOPA and PIPA, new media was the shepherd of its’ demise. Last week, over 1,000 protestors showed up to the Capitol. That didn’t kill it. Congress received 200,000 phone calls. That didn’t kill it. However, between the 200,000 phone calls that were made through Tumblr and Craigslist- and the 7 million online signatures on the Google petition AND the 2.4 million tweets….That might have killed it.

In this election where Super PAC’s have unlimited tools to relay their message, Tweeters do as well.  Even media companies themselves are stepping up their representation in Washington.  Federated Media Publishing  chairman John Battelle wrote on his blog, the Valley has realized that it “can’t afford to not engage with Washington anymore … Silicon Valley is waking up to the fact that we have to be part of the process in Washington — for too long we’ve treated ‘Government’ as damage, and we’ve routed around it.”

Twitter and other online industries never saw themselves as a political force. Now, they are truly stepping up as the vox populi.

Where will this take our company? Who knows We recognized that new media was a political tool long before we put out this blog post. We sort of…started business as the bridge between politics and technology. That’s our niche.

It’s great to see that our country is willing to rise up. For years, the sentiment has been that youth is too lazy to rise up and challenge, or fight for what they think is right. With avenues like this, it’s easy for lazy folks to send out a tweet, and organize through a loose network of opposition that on the whole, sends a very loud message.

Welcome to the age of Internet opposition. Does your campaign have what it takes to weather the storm of opposition? Or are you prepared to mobilize your online forces to support your interests? While there’s a world of net insurgents out there ready to shut you down, every coin has another head, and you can use it to your advantage.

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Get Out And Be Somebody

January 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Reality: You Can Own It, Or It Can Own You

IT’S the solar eclipse of politics, and it only happens once every 4 (or 8) years.

It’s the time when importance and relevance is finally cast on the great state of South Carolina, and our opinion truly matters.

Eight years is a long time span, with four seeming to be just as much. For someone in their formidable years, it can mean the difference of pursuing a career (or life) path that they wouldn’t normally pursue, or taking the easy corporate route. Something about the lights, the cameras, and the action can truly leave one in a stupor.

Fortunately for me, I had Barry Goldwater on my bookshelf when I was 15. But for others, the primary season can be the catalyst for recognizing an unfound love. When you’re in a room at arms-length with important Senators, news anchors, and ”movers and shakers”, it’s easy to look to your left, right, and say, and “what do these people have that I don’t…I’m doing this.” It’s the hyperactive grind of the political beat that can literally blindside you into a career that until that moment, you least expected.

The next couple days in S.C. are important for the election, and with that, there’s ever-important things going on every day. If you aren’t already involved, go be. Campaigns are being run, debates (like the FREE FOR STUDENTS SRLC DEBATE in Charleston) are being held, and media is all over Columbia like white on rice. In our age, it’s even easier to get involved. Tweeting, blogging, and putting your opinions out there is a first step. There’s opportunity around just about every corner. Why don’t you do it? It could possibly start a love affair with politics that got hold on me years ago.

That love died for a while, but it’s coming back. Slowly. Politics is about finding the right people, and being loyal to them. It’s a pretty simple concept, and who knows- one handshake backstage could set it off for you.

So, get out of bed and get involved. Expose yourself to new surroundings. Then, decide what to be and go be it.

-RAS

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