In The News

According to Vincent Harris, who runs Gingrich’s new media efforts, the team switched to Timeline because it allows the campaign to showcase Gingrich’s “long record of fighting for conservative values” as well as the candidate’s personal side. What are Harris’ plans for Gingrich’s Facebook presence? Even with this new Timeline page up, his old “public figure” page is still running.

The fantastic visual nature of Timeline will allow Speaker Gingrich’s campaign to showcase important events, endorsements, and victories,” said Harris. “We plan on utilizing both the page and Timeline in a parallel nature, at least until pages potentially update to Timeline.

Click HERE to read the full story on Mashable.com

In a January debate, Newt Gingrich said he wished his campaign had been more Internet-based since it launched. A new online ad effort from Gingrich signals a shift in that direction. The ads, aimed at second amendment supporters in upcoming primary states, have Mitt Romney in the crosshairs for waffling on gun rights.
Meanwhile, today the campaign ran ads prompting people to support the former House Speaker in today’s Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and Missouri primary.

“You’re going to see a lot out of the Gingrich campaign online moving forward,” said Gingrich’s digital consultant Vincent Harris, noting the campaign is “willing to put the time and resources into making that occur.”

A new video ad from Gingrich uses past footage of Romney to paint him as too moderate on gun rights. To help drive hunters and gun owners to the video, the campaign is running YouTube pre-roll video ads, display ads in Google’s network and Facebook ads targeting self-identified hunting enthusiasts and supporters of the right to bear arms.

“The ads are all being targeted in accordance with the primary calendar,” said Harris. Some ads are running in states where Gingrich is holding upcoming speaking events.

Click HERE to read the full article on Clickz.com

“Spending on mobile ads by political campaigns this election cycle will take up only a fraction of candidates’ war chests, but the digital teams of GOP presidential hopefuls are busily experimenting with mobile, using it to target specific locations and interest groups.”

Mobile also offers opportunities for targeting more creatively. Before Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped out of the race last week, his digital strategist, Vincent Harris, was targeting mobile ads within a two- to five-mile radius of the center of campus at the University of South Carolina as well as nine Christian colleges in the state, including Furman and Bob Jones University. The ads were uniquely branded with each college’s color schemes and mascots and directed people to a landing page where they were urged to sign up as precinct captains or take other actions to assist the campaign.

Mr. Harris is also currently running mobile ads for another client, GOP Senate hopeful Linda McMahon, to University of Connecticut students in her home state, and he intends to target New York-bound train commuters. Though he wouldn’t ordinarily think of exceeding 20% of his digital budget on mobile, he anticipates spending as much as a third in that particular race, since Connecticut is densely populated and mass-transit-oriented, making people a captive audience of their phones while in transit.

“I think that it’s smart for campaigns to engage in mobile as the cost is lower and engagement rates are higher than with display ads,” he said.”

Click HERE to read the full story on AdAge.com

“As GOP presidential contenders stump for votes from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina, Google, Facebook and Twitter are in a race of their own — for millions of dollars in political ads.

The tech giants are offering candidates new ways to advertise — Mitt Romney has spots on YouTube and Rick Perry’s Facebook ads target Christian college kids in South Carolina — and hiring political consultants, sponsoring debates and poaching from each other’s ad sales teams to jockey for the top spot in political social media circles.

Last week, Perry’s campaign launched a new ad targeting students at Furman University, a Baptist college in South Carolina, according to Vincent Harris of Harris Media, who manages Perry’s digital strategy.”

Read the FULL article on Politico.com

“Dan Liljenquist stepped up his campaign efforts, even flooding popular sites and mobile apps such as Pandora with “Dan for Utah” ads. Rep. Holly Richardson, who resigned from the legislature last week to assist Liljenquist’s campaign, has been pushing the campaign on social media sites. Her resignation was even reported on national Fox News. Richardson was named campaign chair for Liljenquist.”

“Today, Liljenquist’s campaign office announced that Rusty Cannon had resigned Tuesday from his seat as chair of the Davis County Republican Party to aide Liljenquist. Cannon was named as the finance chairman for Liljenquist. ‘It is exciting to have someone of Rusty’s caliber join us. He is both well-connected and well-regarded throughout the state,’ said Liljenquist in a press release. ‘Running an effective campaign means having enough money to get our message out, and Rusty is key to that. He has spent his career in the financial sector and brings the determination and enthusiasm we need.’”

Click HERE to read the full article at The Davis Clipper

“Twitter is already an important platform for political discussion, and if Twitter ads from Rick Perry and Mitt Romney today are any indication, it could be significant for 2012 election advertising, too.”

“To me Twitter is the newest and most different thing this cycle,” said Vincent Harris, who’s heading up Perry’s digital campaign team. Harris spoke with ClickZ Politics this morning from the Google Hangout, a Google-sponsored press room at the Polk County Convention Complex in Iowa.”

“Early media buys from the Romney campaign led to a dearth of online video ad inventory in Iowa. ‘Video inventory is sold out,’ said Harris. ‘We are trying to get whatever pieces there are left.” The campaign is using ad placements like the ones on Twitter to drive video views.’

In addition, Harris said the Perry team is targeting veterans through Google’s network display ads, and aiming ads featuring Anita Perry, Rick’s wife, to Republican women on Facebook.”

Click here to read the full article on Clickz.com

“A new study by Socialbakers presents the pieces of content on candidates’ pages that had the most activity in the month of December….Unsurprisingly President Barack Obama was the most viral with a family portrait posted on Dec. 15 that racked up nearly 87,000 likes….Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s most engaging post was of an image containing the campaign logo and the text, “Perry Wins Debate! Can We Get 3,000 Likes?” on Dec. 10.”

“We posted that image within five minutes of the debate being over and in my experience, asking for a specific amount of likes in a post is one of the best ways to raise interactions,” said Mr. Perry’s digital strategist Vincent Harris, in an email. (The post garnered more than 8,000 likes.)”

Click here to read the full article at Adage.com

“After using Facebook and Twitter in recent months primarily to broadcast their messages and raise money, the Republican presidential candidates are increasingly turning to social media sites and other online tools to mobilize voters before the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday and in the other hotly contested early-nominating states.”

“Striking that balance between old and new is vital for Mrs. Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Mr. Gingrich, who are all vying for the support of the state’s evangelical Christians. While Christian conservatives — and Tea Party activists — now have a robust online and social media presence, it was this collection of Bible study groups, anti-abortion activists, homeschooling parents and other evangelical Christian groups that helped the Republican Mike Huckabee win the Iowa caucuses in 2008.”

“Vincent Harris, digital adviser to Mr. Perry, said he used geo-location mobile advertising to help deliver the Texas governor’s faith message to students at 10 Christian colleges across Iowa.”

Click HERE to read the full article in the New York Times

The media loves writing stories on social media usage in politics. Whether this is because social media is constantly evolving or whether it’s because it’s simply the “shiny thing” to talk about right now, the stories seem to flow like wine. The issue with many of these stories is that they remain centered only on the public number of supporters for candidates and rarely showcase how a campaign is using a specific platform or how their fans are interacting.

Take this recent story by Laura Phelps of the Medill News Service in which she ends the article with a descending list of candidates for President, ordered by their total number of “likes” on Facebook.

I’d like to offer up a different and better metric: the percentage of people “talking about” each candidate. The “taking about” number was released by Facebook earlier this year (2011) and is a cumulative number, updated daily, of people who have interacted with a page. Page interactions include liking a status, commenting on a status, tagging a page in a photo, writing on a pages wall, and various other actions.

This metric showcases the virility of a campaign on Facebook. If we use this metric and divide the total number of “likes”, the candidate in descending order by the largest percentage “talking about” would look like this:

This table stands in stark contrast with the ones the media normally promotes, ones only focused on total public numbers of “likes”. As the table above shows, yes, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are leading the field in terms of “likes” but there are significantly less people interacting with their pages than candidates with less “likes.” This statistic is amazing: Mitt Romney has 33x more “likes” than Rick Santorum, yet only has 5x more people “talking about” his page.

Facebook is set up to reward interactive pages. Its unique EdgeRank system does this by promoting content that is interactive more than stale content. Because of this system, it would technically be possible for content posted on Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, or Rick Perry’s page to be seen by more people than something posted on Michele Bachmann or Mitt Romney’s page, despite them having significantly more “likes.” Let me repeat that so folks can grasp the concept: despite Mitt Romney having over 1 million “likes” on Facebook, a piece of content posted to Rick Santorum’s 36,000 “likes” could technically be seen by more people.

Even Ron Paul who usually gets a lot of props for being a web-friendly candidate has less people “talking about” his page than four of his Republican opponents.
As the chart above showcases, it’s obviously is harder to bring about engagements with pages the larger they become. My best guess as to why some of the smaller pages have a larger “talking about” number would be because those pages are made up of mostly organic “likes.” These are people who are rapid supporters who sought out these candidates on their own on Facebook and opted to “like” a page without needing to be advertised to.

As Facebook has continued to morph itself into an ad-centered model, it has become harder to break through the clutter and reach fans with creative and engaging content. Facebook is not only rewarding interactions on pages but they are in a way punishing non-interactive pages by not showing content to users who haven’t interacted with a page in a while. Facebook’s solution to fix this: advertise!

When the story about Facebook and the 2012 cycle is written, it shouldn’t be about shear total public numbers. Barack Obama may dwarf every Republican on Facebook in terms of total number of “likes” but less than 1.2% of his fans are “talking about” his page and interacting with his content. Obama’s Facebook page is truly a paper tiger, one that has a lot of bark but very little bite. He ran an incredibly impressive social media operation in 2008 but Republicans have caught up and in some ways are doing better on Facebook and Twitter. Reporters would be wise to read up on Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm before writing stories on his campaign’s social media domination. When that story is written, it is the Republicans who dwarf Obama.

Vincent Harris serves as Founder and CEO at Harris Media, a national media and communications firm based in Austin, Texas (www.harrismediallc.com). He ran online operations for Governors McDonnell and Scott, and currently is working with the Rick Perry Presidential campaign.

While Republican presidential candidates exchange barbs at the GOP debates, another battle is developing behind the scenes as digital strategists use promoted tweets to influence voters in real time as they digest the day’s breaking political news. Twitter rolled out its political-advertising products in September with a pilot group of five presidential candidates and national political party committees.. The company is ramping up its political-ad sales effort for the 2012 election cycle, when campaigns are projected to spend a record $6 billion.”

Last Thursday night marked the last Republican debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and the second in which Mr. Perry’s team has deployed promoted tweets. According to Mr. Perry’s online strategist, Vincent Harris, the team has been changing up tweets in the course of the debates based on what’s said. They have seen interaction rates of better than 2% — “which you cannot get on any other platform,” he said.

The primary goal of the team’s promoted tweets on Thursday was to drive traffic to Establishment Insider, a Perry-backed site that accuses Mr. Romney and Newt Gingrich of sharing the president’s propensity for reckless spending.

Mr. Harris said that he ran through his Twitter budget for the debates in an hour but that the @TeamRickPerry account was back up this past weekend with a promoted campaign targeting users through Twitter search and dropping tweets in users’ timelines. (Twitter allows for targeting to an account’s followers as well as users deemed similar to them, then by designated market area within the U.S.) Mr. Harris intends to target more specifically for Iowans with tweets from Mr. Perry’s statewide bus tour.

“These ads are incredibly effective in pushing people through links to some piece of content,” Mr. Harris said, adding that he thinks Twitter’s political-ad products will put pressure on Google, Facebook and Bing to speed up their approval processes.

Read the Full Article on Adage.com