Doing Online Politics Right

Remember when, to get involved in a political campaign, you had to go downtown and deal with a bunch of strangers, in a chaotic rental office? All that is still going on, of course. But when you do online the right way in a political campaign, you vastly democratize political activity, in large part by making it so much easier for people to stick their toe in the water without having to commit themselves to real-world social interaction until they're sure they're ready. In the meantime, they've been taking actions (including making donations) that materially benefit your candidate or cause.

From today's New York Times, news that the Obama campaign raised $52 million in June, a significant share of it online. Online communications and messaging (via email and the Web), reinforced by one of the most active Web social communities ever created -- all powered, like the fundraising component, by the BSD Online Tools -- continue to bring in new participants and drive them to targeted actions.

The press talk about Obama's online "magic," about his "secret sauce," but there's really no magic here.

What the Senator's campaign is doing well is simply leveraging the pre-existing desire to get involved in his movement, by providing lots of easy ways (via the Web site) for people to start. And once they start, the campaign gently and consistently encourages them to continue upgrading their involvement (via donations, via taking part in online groups and circles, via uploading blog and photo and video content, via participating in offline events, and in other important ways), with much of that communication and the resulting action being facilitated by the BSD Online Tools.

It helps, of course, that Barack Obama is a leading part of every news cycle -- the job of the Web site is to manage demand that's already latent, not to create demand out of thin air.  One thing we stress in our conversations with our clients and prospects is that the BSD Online Tools can't create a message for you, can't create excitement, can't create publicity. What they will do, though, is help you channel the energy and excitement that your offline activities are creating, so that people who are ready to get involved have multiple ways to do it more easily than ever before.