Monday, October 02, 2006
The $100,000 Blog Post - Politics' New Make or Break Media
How one blog post that ranks well can do more damage than $100k spent on a TV mudslinging ad.The idea of the $100,000 blog post is that a single posting on prominent political blog, aided by the presence of search engines and the blogosphere, can propel a candidate can sway more potential voters toward or away from backing a politican than we may have ever imagined. The advent of the internet and the continued saturation of traditional media outlets has left politicians on a new playing field, one that goes beyond radio and television. Rightly, spending $100,000 on a spot on Channel 5 won't go as far as it used to. Some say the televised debates won Kennedy the election back in '60 because the man was a natural in front of the camera . . . will they be saying the same thing about the net and the Senate races of 2008? Or your local congressman? Those with the foresight to prepare to compete in every media outlet available will never be left, rather Nixon-like, asking "what if?".
Long gone are the days of prominence for FDR's 'Fireside Chats', the aforementioned John Kennedy's appealing TV persona, and a former Hollywood star in the White House. The big newspaper headline, the mudslinging radio ad, the 30 second commercial spot on the 6 o'clock news - we as Americans have seen it all, and we've shifted our collective attentions through new forms of media just as surely as they have emerged.
Have you ever seen the episode of Entourage where movie-star Vince Chase has to play up to a nerd with a movie blog that gets "a million hits a day"? The guy had the power to make or break Aquaman's open weekend. It's the same with politicians today. Prominent political blogs and bloggers draw more daily visitors than would fit into the Rose Bowl, and more than ever these visitors view bloggers as the purest authoritative channel of political information available. And with most prominent bloggers posting 1-6 times per day, blogs have become the darling of the Google's and the Yahoo's of the world. So what does it all mean?
More and more Americans are actively using the internet for researching political issues. And if Joe Blogger posts an article entitled "Mayoral Candidate Jim Jenkins Caught on Tape", then chances are within 48 hours any searcher that heads over to Google and types in "Jim Jenkins" and hits "Search" will be well versed in Mr. Jenkins' tape-recorded antics in a few short minutes. No need for us to catch it on the tube, or while in the car listening to the radio, it's all just sitting out there for us on the net waiting to be consumed. $100,000 TV ad? Better to spend those campaign dollars figuring out what the online community is saying about you and to take an active role in it.
It is doubtful that our Founding Fathers harbored a vision of a futurisitc "blogosphere" way back in the 1770's and 80's, but it may be the purest form of the ideas of free speech and "everyone has a voice" to ever emerge. That's right, democracy is recognizing it's fullest potential in the world of Blogspot and Google. The speed with which information travels, accompanied by the unlimited audience the blogosphere provides, is driving American politics into a new frontier. Bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan and sites like Wonkette have more clout and catch more eyes circa 2006 than just about anyone outside of the New York Times. User-generated content (UGC) websites have exploded in the last 2 years, and while we're all aware of the MySpace's of the world, blog search engines like Technorati and social tagging sites like Digg and Del.icio.us have made blog posts / stories easier to find and easier to proliferate on the web. Any web nerd will tell you - a spot on Digg's home page or on the Del.icio.us "popular" page will send tens of thousands of visitors to a given blog every day.
Not to mention our reliance on search engines to find information. Billions of searches are conducted each day. Top placement in a Google or a Yahoo can make or break a company, much in the same way that it can now make or break a politician. While 3rd party sites maintained by bloggers are outside of thier control (but should be monitored), politicians can utilize blogs on their own websites to maintain a consistent, "personal" voice with their audience. Google will reward them for it. Also, maintaining up-to-date information on their campaign and their stance on each issue is a great way to continue to have a first-hand influence on the message being sent about them online, and effectually their online reputation. Properly handled, of course, a managed online reputation will guarantee that a politican's official site and the prevailing blog community which surrounds it will be yet another positive factor leading to their election (or re-election) and their approval while in office.
So I urge you, fair politican (and accompanying political consultants) to ponder for a moment about where that next $100,000 should go(ogle).
