Speaker: Luke Robinson

Connecting with Obama on Facebook and Twitter left a lasting impression - when your students try to connect with you do you connect back with them?  

Technology has always been there in one form or another. For example - FDR and his Fireside chats, the debate between JFK and Nixon. 

By the numbers: 13 million on their email list, 3 million cell phone numbers BEFORE the VP announcement, 400,000 blog posts on the website, 70,000 fundraisers, 8.5 million monthly views, 2,000 official YouTube videos watched more than 80 million times. 

Disclaimers: Technology can’t write, the message is critical, content & conversation are king. 

Obama gave his followers talking points to use to start conversations - are you doing that for your school?

“Fish where the fish are” - my.barackobama.com was the central hub. 

Unofficial and official presence can co-exist - reach out to them and see how you can support them.

Obama joined and facilitated the conversation - he was involved in 15 different networks.  How can you do this as an “army of one”?  

If you’re doing video, post on more than one site.

For Twitter, start out by feeding in a newsfeed, instead of spending a lot of time engaging.  It’s not ideal, but its better than nothing. 

Email is still king!  Obama sent over 1 billion messages.  They had thousands of different versions for different audiences, based on all different types of segmentation. “I’d be hard-pressed to find a single message that didn’t have some type of action to follow” (Obama’s email director).  

Mobile is hot - the first personal mass communication piece. Mobile is there when inspiration strikes. 

Take your core message and integrate it everywhere - you have to be consistent.  

Be persistent - don’t be afraid to repeat messages. 

The web needs to stop being an afterthought - it should be brought to the table right up front. 

If you want to be effective, make it easy

Utilize your thank you pages to push users onto more actions. 

Content should come from the bottom up, not from the top down

Obama did not give up print and traditional tactics of campaigning, but also leveraged what the internet was bringing to the table. This stuff will never replace in person contact. 

Be specific in your calls to action.  Remember the “third ask” (forward to a friend, ask a question, take a survey, etc…)

“Never forget that your subscribers are in it for what they want, not what you want”

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