This bears reading. I’ll be adding new posts as I dig them up.

Fact is, if you’re not on top of new media at this time of the year, you will be swept away by the savvy operators come primary time, folks.

Now’s the time to begin building your network. And raising funds.

Meanwhile, I seem to have missed out on the Michael Jackson hoopla, the Texas Legislature’s special session, the record heat wave, Sarah Palin’s continued stupidity, as well as other media travsties that occurred while I was burning up my thighs on the Austrian and Swiss mountains.

Rest assured, comments ARE forthcoming.

Without going into the redundancy of praise for their corporate culture and management style — and it is worthy of praise — I came to the conclusion that these folks have grown up as a company and have indeed gone from an adolescent, bulletproof bunch of pioneering geeks to a mature, responsible corporation with enough life’s lessons under their belts to finally stand as guardians of the new age. Some of those lessons were pretty painful for them, too, but ya gotta learn the hard way sometimes.

Meanwhile, I’ll be headed across the pond for the next couple of weeks and am curious to see how large a part social media plays in everyday Eurolife. Stay tuned!

But in the coming campaign cycle, the old “TV, mail and phones ploy” just won’t work … on any level. That’s because all three traditional building blocks of a successful political media campaign are on the fast track to irrelevance. And you’re hearing this from a guy who’s made his living producing political media campaigns for decades.

In the year 2010, will candidates and campaigns really keep flushing the lion’s share of their precious (and ever-diminishing) budget down the tube? Will they continue relying on media channels that grow less efficient every day?

The smart ones won’t.

Last weekend I visited with a family member who retired a couple years ago after 40+ years as a media planner, buyer, stragegist, mover and shaker for a couple of the biggest mega-ad agencies in America. He was one of a small handful of ad execs who actually shaped broadcast media over the past quarter century, moving billions of advertising dollars through the world’s media.

It came as a surprise when he said that the big agencies weren’t really worried by the rise of the internet as THE medium; that traditional ad agencies and advertisers were learning to use the web and integrate it into their overall marketing plans. And that, like with everything else, the businesses who can increase sales and build brand awareness by using the web will do it. Those who can’t will design their marketing strategy around other things. That made sense.

So if the internet didn’t scare broadcast advertisers, what did?

I figured he’d say MySpace, Twitter or Facebook. I mentioned that YouTube/Google viewers accounted for nearly 7 BILLION online views in the US during the month of April alone. But that’s not what he said. He said that the TV advertisers biggest fear was TIVO! That most everybody who signs up for cable or satellite TV today gets a DVR of some kind so they can SKIP THE COMMERCIALS! Do a Twitter search of “skip the commercials” and see what you get.

WOW! Now if people are making a habit of skipping the sexy commercials from GoDaddy and the silly ones from E-Trade, then what do YOU think is going to happen during the upcoming campaign cycle when you try and “out-conservative,” “out-liberal,” or “out-Christian” your opponent?

“Tivo killed the video star!”

OK, so it’s your campaign. Would you continue putting the lion’s share of your money down the tube? I know what I’m thinking, but I’m just your Old Dutch Uncle. How are you going to get the word out?

http://endlesscities.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/theorizing-the-cultural-quality-of-new-media/

http://mattdxy.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/social-media-an-essential-marketing-element/

Seems pretty simple. Not even that much extra work.  There’s an intern who can handle that, right?

Well, having been in the middle of some of that “not that much extra work” during the recently concluded 2009 session of the Texas Legislature, I was excited to see a couple of Texas’ best and brightest who got it, and kept us informed throughout the day on business before the House and Senate.  I  saw a few members and associations take advantage of the power of video in their blogs, tweets and websites.  A handful of associations – including a couple for whom I proudly toil – kept their members so well-informed that the news from the legislature dominated conversations in the grocery store, mall and doctor’s office.  Unfortunately, your Old Dutch Uncle spent plenty of time in all of them this spring.  Believe me, there’s nothing like talking health care reform with the guy standing behind you who’s got the latex glove on his hand!At the same time, we saw massive cutbacks and layoffs in news staffs across the country this spring.  I don’t know about you, but I got as much “buzz” from online and social media sources as I did from the newspapers and TV stations.   Ad revenues shrunk and vanished.  One of my old pals in the ad agency business lost almost half of his business in just a few months.   Figured members or their staffs would pick up on that and race to fill the void.  A few did.  Only a few.

Now it’s time to turn our attention to the 2010 mid-term elections!  After the contentious sessions this year in state houses and in Congress, 2010 looks like it might be as hard fought a mid-term election cycle as we’ve seen in generations.  Maybe unexpectedly so.

Nobody’s going to raise Obama-like money for a statewide or district campaign in 2010 (nobody ever had before Obama did it!), I am curious to see who in the political arena will invest the time and intellectual capital into creating an Obama-like social media campaign.  In my opinion, those are the folks who’ll have a leg up on the political fire hydrant in the upcoming cycle.

Those who really understand – and I’m not naming names, but you know who you are – will benefit greatly.  They’ll begin building their social media political network on Day 1 and they’ll do it right.  They’ll build upon the lessons learned in 2008 and work to overcome the “it isn’t that much extra work” attitude that let to their best intentions being buried in 2009 once the bills started hitting the fan, so to speak.  They’ll get in touch with their constituents and empower their constituents as their captains.  They’ll wear out their shoeleather without walking a single block back home.

Those who don’t get it now, just might get it next November.   And nobody – especially the candidates themselves – will see it coming.

Already, I’m hearing rumblings from potential candidates who might just spring forth from the ether with a shrewdly crafted social political media strategy.  I believe surprises are in store.

But what do I know?  I’m just your Old Dutch Uncle!

What do you think?

An enlightening article… but if you’ve thought about this before, then it all makes perfect sense.

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