Presentation to the Alabama Federation of Republican Women designed to help political organizations and candidates understand and use social media.

1. In Style With Social Media Susan Fillippeli, Ph.D. Holly Lawler AFRW 2009

2. What is Social Media? Social Media involves the use of communication technologies that allow individuals with a common interest to communicate with one another.

3. Social Media takes the phone tree to a whole new level Some examples: Texting Blogs Twitter Facebook Ning Politcs4All You Tube

4. Advantages of Social Media Social Media are effective in disseminating messages to a target audience They are typically low cost Do not require a great deal of technological expertise Can be effective tools for building AFRW membership as well as message dissemination and GOTV

5. Do you remember when. . . Barak Obama announced his VP choice via text message? Hundreds of thousands of individuals signed up for text updates and gave the Obama campaign their cell phone numbers Those numbers gave the Obama campaign a tremendous database of cell phone numbers that could be used to turn out the vote on election day More importantly—many younger voters only have cell phones. The Obama campaign had the inside line on reaching young voters and turning them out on election day

6. Social Media can perform even more important functions In the days following the elections in Iran, while the government clamped down on the broadcast media, protesters all over Iran were using their cell phones to send messages about the protests to the world via Twitter. Videos posted on You Tube provided a vivid record of the protests and the Iranian government’s attempts to silence the protesters.

7. Text Messages If you can use an Excel spreadsheet, you can send mass SMS (text messages) from your computer. For free. All you need to know is a person’s Cell phone number Cell phone carrier For example, to send a message to a Verizon customer you send the message to 10digitnumber@vtext.com

8. SMS Codes ATT: 10digitnumber@txt.att.net Sprint: 10digitnumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com T-Mobile: 10digitnumber@tmomail.net Nextel: 10digitnumber@messaging.nextel.com Verizon: 10digitnumber@vtext.com For more Google “SMS Email Addresses”

9. Facebook Facebook is THE Social Media site While it was originally created for college students, it is growing in popularity among adults Facebook offers a FREE platform for creating a club page that can be used to recruit new members, announce club events and posting photos and videos.

10. AFRW on Facebook www.facebook.com All you need to sign up is an email address and to be over 13 years of age. Warning: Facebook is ADDICTIVE! You will likely find friends from high school and college as well as some long lost family members. Sign them up for AFRW! If you have teenagers in the family, they may be mortified when mom (or grand mom) signs up for Facebook, but they will survive.

11. Blogs Blogs are the new journalism Anyone can create a blog—that’s both the best thing and the worst thing about blogs It’s the best because citizen journalism can be a powerful counterpoint to the mainstream media It’s the worst because anyone can say anything whether it is true or not

12. Blogging Platforms If your AFRW club has a website, it should also have a blog Blogs need to be updated regularly—try for at least weekly posts There are many free blogging platforms and most web development templates have blog features as well—some examples are: Blogger.com Wordpress.org Typepad.com Politics4all.com

13. Twitter Twitter is a micro blogging platform Messages are limited to 140 characters or less Messages can be sent from cell phones or computers You receive messages from the people you follow The people who follow you see your messages

14. To Tweet or Not To Tweet Only tweet if you have something worthwhile to say To build club and candidate awareness make them substantive—quality over quantity You do need to tweet regularly—but a couple of times a day is sufficient Great way to call your followers attention to interesting articles or videos

15. Did I Mention It’s Free? twitter.com You can sign up to get updates by phone or online You can go to twellow.com and click on “TwellowHood” to find other users in your city or state. It’s a great way to find people in your area who might be potential members and/or voters

16. Ning Ning.com is a platform that allows you to create your own social media site It’s like your very own Facebook Your site can be open to the public or you can limit it to invited members only It is easy to set up and maintain. The basic site is free, but you can purchase upgrades for a reasonable price

17. Auburn Family You may have recently heard about the new Auburn University social network site. Auburn Family is built on the Ning platform Anyone can set up a site that allows members to have their own pages and to post photos and video. This is an excellent way for a club to build a web site for little to no cost. OR AFRW could set up the site and individual clubs could have their own page

18. Politics4All Politics4All is a political networking site It was created in Alabama and has garnered a lot of national attention It is useful for tracking bills in the US Congress and the Alabama legislature It offers a blogging platform Candidates and organizations can publicize events and meetings

19. Politics4All Politics4all.com It’s free and group or individual sites can be set up in a matter of minutes

20. You Tube Every club should purchase an inexpensive digital video camera (e.g. Flip Video makes excellent cameras for under $200) Speakers and club events can be filmed and posted on all social networking sites A You Tube channel allows ANYONE to make a commercial or video for dissemination

21. Social Media Etiquette Post with a purpose—don’t post just to post—information should be substantive and meaningful Verify information before you disseminate it Do not, I repeat DO NOT send every cute joke, funny photo or dire warning to everyone in your address book—we’ve already gotten it 1,000 times already Do not tweet your every daily move—we have a hard enough time keeping up with our own schedules without worrying about yours

22. Questions?