italian politics and society - the politician as a corporation, as a startup - giorgio marandola
TRANSCRIPT
Italian Politics and Society
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
University of Pavia
Giorgio Marandola
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The politician as a corporation… as a startup.
The contemporary politician, or political party, has to study the digital landscape as a company, to sell his product and use all the techniques that big corporations use to conquer, engage and retain the customers.
A multichannel approach to the digital communication.
But, nowadays a politician has to be smart like a startup, some examples?Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Uber..
As a Startup
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
A startup is a company designed to grow fast.
Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.
Paul Graham
(He funded companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit )
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The politician, the background.
What do I mean with “background”?
A digital presence on social networks, some remarkable things done that are worth mentioning.
The politician’s background is important not only because of the credibility, but also for digital communication purposes, in particular the right politician background can influence directly the positioning of his website (all the pages of the website) on Google.
Not convinced?
The background and its direct effects on Search
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
SOCIAL SIGNALS
Wikipedia is the most prominent and important site where starting to build your reputation.
And, this is a common trick, it’s the best source of high valuable links to websites and platforms.Every link has a value online, we will see how it works in the upcoming slides.
The social signals are the amount of organic links addressing to a website coming from social networks as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and so on..
They are as important for the positioning of a website as the natural links coming from other websites, forums and so on.
The website… is not so common
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
A politician has some different choices to make when he starts his digital campaign:
1) A website with a little blog, maximum 4 pages and 5 posts.
2) A website with a “middle sized blog” 5 pages and 10 posts + a staff for the social media profiles.
3)A platform for the people recruiting, optimized to attract, convert and transform them in activists (or hacktivists) + an omnichannel strategy with a structured staff.
[Again, as a corporation, as a startup]
The website is OLD.. The hactivism platform is NOW
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
What you get searching “Barack Obama” on Google, as #1 result.
What is hacktivism?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the use of computers and computer networks to promote political ends, chiefly free speech, human rights, and information ethics.
It is carried out under the premise that proper use of technology can produce results similar to those of conventional acts of protest, activism, and civil disobedience.
Some people describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing websites for political reasons, such as attacking and defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology. Others have argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks. Within the hacking community, those who carry out automated attacks are generally known as script kiddies.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
What the website can do to become an hacktivists recruiting platform?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
- Lead the visitors to register or connect to the platform (the main goal) via the call to actions.(As we seen in barackobama.com, there is only a focus on the website, recruiting!)
- Give the users something to do, take part in polls, sign a petition, download materials, spread the voice across the social networks, ACT !
- A CRM based integration to segment, manage and communicate as a corporation.
- Marketing automation (Rss Feeds, IFTT..)
- Open graph integration through social networks.
- A “referral engine” built in the platform, to grow as a startup.
- A blog.
Do you remember Wikipedia? Ok, let’s talk about S.E.O.
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
S.E.O. stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s a series of techniques to achieve a better positioning of the website pages and content in the search engine rankings.
We normally divide the SEO techniques in two different kinds:
-In page SEO
-Off page SEO
What is good, and what is not… test it!
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
A/B TESTING EVERYTHING
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics 1
Let’s go outside the website, the online media ecosystem.
The (external) online media a politician must use to win the elections
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
Not only using, but knowing.
-Social Media services-Forums-Q&A services (Quora, Yahoo Answers..)-Blogs-Blogs as online magazines (a new generation of blogs)-Magazines and Newspapers online-News outlets-Press releases distribution services-Aggregators-Vertical communities
Social Media
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
First of all, the candidate / the politician himself, communicating as a real person, then, the revolution powered by the community.
With a strong focus on keeping them involved 101% in the campaign.
The social media platforms are crucial for a campaign, if they are used wisely.
Some examples? Or revolutions?
How to do it?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
IT’S ALL ABOUT BUILDING A SOCIAL STRATEGY SUPPORTED BY PEOPLE AND TECHNOLOGY.
Again, build a funnel, build a referral engine.
The correct use of social media can be an unlimited amplifier for all the messages.
“Let the people be your media”
Online Monitoring
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
As a corporation you have to consider the Brand Reputation Management, as a politician you have to monitor EVERYTHING !
-Conversations about you-Conversation about the main issues addressed to the country/region government-Conversation about the people expectations
It’s crucial to understand, analyze and build a strong online reputation in the digital contemporary era.
There are several free tools to monitor a brand/politician reputation, but they’re not so good.
There are several premium tools that work perfectly.
Influence
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
It’s crucial to have the ability to influence the media with strategy and tools:
-A monitoring spectrum + tools-A strategy (what to do)-A policy (what to say)