The fourth webinar in the Train The Trainer (T3) program of the Association of State Democratic Chairs (ASDC) expands on the email webinar into using social media to add clicks to knocks in our arsenal of democracy. With clicks, we have the opportunity to maximize our time, get people who can’t knock on doors involved in spreading the word and actually create new conversational opportunities. In short, revive what caucuses used to be for a new age of grassroots politics.
In a former age of the Democratic Party, caucuses were opportunities to gather like-minded people together to talk among themselves and hammer out differences so they could have a unified effect on the elections around them. We’ve lost touch with that neighbor-to-neighbor opportunity as more families are occupied with more activities which fragment our communities instead of unify them. The Democratic Party, in particular, is diminished by this fragmentation because we really do represent diverse communities; more so every election cycle.
As the Republican Party descends into single-minded devotion to their fascist moneybags and expect obedience from their chattel voters, we have the opportunity to redefine the caucus and the community with netroots activism. Social media tools provide us with the opportunity to do just that, and we must rise to this challenge for our national experiment called America to thrive in this new century.
T3-Session Four: Social Media Organizing — Make The Democratic Party Stronger, On The Internet
Aired: April 26, 2017
DNC Department: Digital
Presenter: Heather Reid
Senior Content Manager, DNC
Outline:
Why is having a digital program important?
- Traditional media are fading in influence and reach
- People are going to social media, and we need to follow
- A digital program tightens synergy among three keys to effective political action:
- Messaging
- Fundraising
- Organizing
Getting started on social media and types of content to post
- Post about what you are doing
- Who are you?
- What do you do on a daily basis?
- What do you care about?
- How can people who care about the same things get involved?
- Facebook
- Positive content
- What’s happening to elect more and better Democrats?
- What local Democrats are doing good work?
- Local & statewide campaigns & initiatives
- Negative content
- Trump (obvious)
- Republicans — what they are doing to you and your neighbors
- What are our legislatures doing to us?
- Images & videos do well on Facebook
- Encourage clicks (“asks” as in email)
- Learn more or Watch are easy ones
- Keep it brief (100 words or less, 30 with graphic)
- 1200 by 1200 pixels for pictures is best
- Managing a page
- Fan pages for leaders in the party & campaigns are a good start
- Connect with other pages
- “Like as your page” helps create synergy with other Dem pages
- Post about all levels of government
- More local impacts of legislation is better
- Post photos of events you are attending
- Post selfies of you and your friends in action
- No more than three sentences when sharing a link
- Tag party leaders and candidates
- Facebook events are not reliable, but a good “soft” way to invite people to events
- Don’t ask someone to do something without giving them a way to do it
- Facebook Live — from your phone, not your computer
- Add some text to tell the audience what they are looking at
- Film in landscape, not portrait
- Film events to share what is happening (use a tripod to provide stability)
- Turn off notifications while filming
- Adjust the audience from friends only to public as appropriate
- Twitter
- Choose a handle
- Write a bio
- Link to a web page
- Hash tag targets of your writing focus
- Pick a profile and a cover photo
- How to tweet
- Text, twitter handles, photos, videos & GIFs
- giphy.com for GIFs is a handy resource
- Shorten links with web sites dedicated to serving Twitter writers like bitly.com
- What should you tweet?
- Tweet about relevant articles
- Information about your work & stories
- Links to volunteer & event pages
- Be sure to ask people to attend events
- Up to 4 videos, up to 2’20” each per tweet
- Best to upload to Twitter directly instead of linking to YouTube for short subjects
- Using hashtags
- Use hashtags for local entities
- Events: tweet about upcoming events, then after the event as well as at the event
- Make people want to be there
- Take selfies as you are canvassing, going to rally, etc..
- Help people feel special by inviting them to use hashtags on their tweets
- Be sure to use the correct hashtags, and be sparing and selective with them
- Make yourself relevant to people keeping up on specific issues you are passonate about
- Search on new hashtag to make sure there isn’t anything wierd associated with it
-
- What good content looks like
- Regularly share great content
- Quote good tweets, but use sparingly
- Add your own commentary
- Add other hashtags to amplify their reach
- Retweeting
- Replying — no longer takes up characters
- Trim participants in extended conversations
- Amplify supporters & key accounts
- Quote and retweet
- Tag yourself in pictures
- Use posters in the background with your accounts
- Emphasize our shared values
- Be authentic and generous to others
- Raise up people who need more attention
- Recognize people for the time and work they are doing
- County and precinct chairs, organizers and activists
- Use the same hashtags others are using to build synergy
- The more you follow others, the more they follow you
- The people remember when you engage with what they say
- Be social
- Instagram
- Good to reach young people
- Very different than other media
- Good place to highlight your supporters, volunteer
- Use quick, candid photos — don’t use staged photos
- Supposed to feel authentic and unposed
- Hashtags are important in Instagram
- Links do not work — people will have to retype them
How to add a digital program
- The virtuous circle of digital organizing
- Online promotion of pending actions
- Offline action
- Online report on the offline action
- Add digital to your work
- Make sure you plan on more time to do this work right than you think at first
- Plan on spending time gathering materials, taking your own pictures and organizing posts
- Ask others to provide a specific number of posts per week
- Make sure someone at each event is taking pictures and posting material
- Find a volunteer digital coordinator
- Make sure they understand the medium
- Have them manage the posting calendar
- Make sure they have help with copy editing and reviewing materials
- You need other people to check your work
- Use open groups to lower barriers to people joining in
- Use closed events only for logistics and planning large events
- Create a plan
- Use common calendars
- Always tell your story about the work you are doing
- Give credit to volunteers and supporters
- Ask others to get involved
- Report back on what actions you took
What not to do online
- Do not link Facebook to Twitter — they do not address the same audiences
- Don’t hash-tag on Facebook
- Don’t post from strange web sites
- Don’t throw off tweets without enough details
- Do not feed the trolls — simply ignore trolling
- You can block, or mute them
- You can hide comments instead of blocking them
- Give people some space who spout off, but aren’t really trolling
- Fake news detection
- .com or .org sites tend to be US-based
- Click through the article
- Does it look like the source is legitimate?
- Search on the site name and read about it
- Don’t just add accounts unless you can really curate them properly
- Don’t overextend your resources managing too many media
Metrics
- Your engagement rate is great measure
- Facebook reach is good for the breadth of the messaging campaign
Resources:
Twitter: #ASDCT3
Email: asdc@dnc.org
For information on how to register for these webinars, see my introductory diary in this series.
And, of course, there’s Daily Kos! All the blogging sites can be woven into these social media initiatives with links and quotes. And there are new social media emerging all the time. If you find yourself using one of them, think about how to weave into this new mosaic.
Social media allows us to have conversations, at various levels of engagement and requiring various levels of involvement. It allows everyone to celebrate and commemorate the actions they have taken or seen others take; to whip up the “animal spirits” of their community; and to create momentum toward goals we wouldn’t even think possible to achieve on our own. Exactly what the word “caucus” means:
a closed meeting of a group of persons belonging to the same political party or faction usually to select candidates or to decide on policy a presidential caucus; also : a group of people united to promote an agreed-upon cause
Merriam Webster Dictionary
Indeed, in states where official caucuses are in use, we can further expand digital tools to make the chaotic and exhausting aspects of these meetings flow faster and better for everyone who makes it to the physical meeting. But this sense of gathering together and celebrating progress and picking each other up after defeats is needed far beyond caucus states, and needs to be re-established within caucus states.
Of course, that is going way beyond this webinar, or any official initiatives by the DNC or the ASDC — but as a blogger, I don’t have to limit myself to just what passes their muster.
What they are teaching us to do is enough to start building the party outside specific candidates. As Chris Reeves observes in his Nuts & Bolts series, candidates can’t really expect any substantial financial support from the party any more, because we have allowed the party itself to become hollowed out and a shadow of its former self. We can change that dynamic for the better if we exceed the expectations of our own party at this point in time.
With digital media, we have the opportunity to change that drift and make the party gain relevance and power, particularly at the local and state levels of government. With digital media, candidates can make presentations to each and every small caucus in their area and weave their campaigns into the fabric of a vibrant and progressive community of like-minded citizens.
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the focus here because they have proven themselves in the past few election cycles. They will not be the last of new opportunities, and they may actually become “long in the tooth” in a few more cycles. We are just beginning the immersive power of digital technology write large in our public sphere. As advocates, and as activists, the race is one to bring these new media to the task of political organizing and empowerment of every citizen.
Ironically, we pushed ahead on this front with the Dean (whence Daily Kos was born) and Obama campaigns, but lagged in the Clinton campaign. Our innovation in the last Presidential cycle actually came from the Sanders campaign, and is gaining power in this year of special elections: small-dollar donations. The most effective battle to end the Citizens United fiasco is in this forefront of digital politicking.
But we must not rest on these trends and assume we will lead in the future. The Republican Party has lots of money, and now has the backing of fascist hackers from all over the world spreading false news and propaganda on a scale we couldn’t even imagine before. But now we know those actors are out there and spamming our media channels with vitriol and hatred. This battle is just beginning, so we all need to master it and take it to the next level.
It is interesting to note that the Trump insurgency was able to spend only $.60 on the dollar, and confound state-level polling, through the efforts of a small web shop in San Antonio, Texas. This ragtag team was actually fighting internally with the billionaire-backed Cambridge Analytica, who nearly lost the election for Trump with their arrogance. What this little shop did was combine Facebook and Twitter with voter data from big-iron cloud services, like our VAN, and create a synergy that made a difference in the Electoral College. This shop realized that Trump’s rallies could be synergized digitally by locating the rallies where Facebook clusters were ripe for tickets, making the attendees feel exclusive and connected to the celebrity power of the Trump media brand.
We need to recognize the Republican Party really failed in their digital methods, but rode the coattails of the Trump insurgency into power — at the national level. At the state level, the Republican Party has been eating our lunch for decades out here on the rural edge of the electorate. They are actually ripe for defeat in thousands of small races because they are bereft of real issues.
It is time for the Democratic Party to transform itself from gate-keeping and top-down organization which has paralyzed us more and more in rural areas, exurbs and suburbs. We can, and must, throw off the blinders of the DNC and force them to change to assert our rightful place as the leading advocates for freedom and democracy in the 21st century. I am working on a series of diaries about this new vision of our party which will build on the ideas and innovations in these webinars, and I hope you will, too.
In the comments, let us know what social media you are using, and how you think we can use it this year in local and state races to build upon what we are being taught in these webinars, which are already of the past. It is time to innovate because necessity is truly the mother of invention, and we have the necessity in spades right now.
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