By Austin Lytle, Social Business Strategist, Spredfast

@AustinLytle

A SXSWi Session Recap

Political campaigns, while good at sticking to tried and true methods, are typically early adopters in new technologies that could provide an edge. Unlike businesses slow adoption, the marriage between social technologies and politics in 2008 released unrelenting political adoption of new social technologies.

Social trends that did not exist in 2008 are already proving valuable in shaping the 2012 election cycle. In a panel named “2012: Social’s new role in politics” with Khris Loux, Matt Blumenthal, Vishal Sankhal, and moderated by Ben Parr on the new role for social in 2012, here are some emerging trends that I think political campaigns and business alike should be aware of.

Since 2008, the shear growth of social networks has made communicating to a base viable. It’s also no longer the 20 and under crowd (“non-voters”) who have adopted social. If my Mom and Dad are posting about something so-and-so did, campaigns are in a different phase within social.

Continue reading…

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WOMMA had several reporters in the field at SXSW. We’ll publish their session takeaways throughout this week on All Things WOM.

Croudfunding on Kickstarter is on pace to hit $150 million dollars in 2012, $4 million more than the budget for The National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). Kickstarter’s project guidelines state:

“Kickstarter can be used to fund projects from the creative fields of Art, Comics, Dance, Design, Fashion, Film, Food, Games, Music, Photography, Publishing, Technology, and Theater. We currently only support projects from these categories.”

The Opportunity for Word of Mouth

Research shows that people, particularly Millennials, like brands that support cause conscious and collaborative projects. And anyone can donate to Kickstarter. This could be an excellent way to causally and publicly support projects. Even small businesses can get in on it with small donations.

Read more about Kickstarter’s milestone at Talking Points Memo

For instance, Ron Paul gets the most retweets per follower.

Perhaps this is because he puts links in over 75% of his tweets.

Twitter data may prove to be a very helpful indicator of a candidate’s success. We’ll need to roll through a few more elections to truly understand the impact of tweets on votes. But in the end, candidates are brands in themselves. A solid Twitter strategy could swing a close race.

See the full infographic at HubSpot

And the Twitter buzz-volume grew as such:

The first major spike, coming on Oct. 1, was driven by mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Political movements rely heavily on word of mouth, so it’s no surprise that Occupy Wall Street, much like the Arab Spring, generated so much chatter. And Twitter appears to be the political movement platform of choice.

Read more about the Occupy Wall Street buzz at Attention USA

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Attention USA will present a case study at WOMMA Summit 2011 with Mattel about their campaign that reunited Barbie and Ken. Read the Session Description

Attention USA is a WOMMA member.

Here’s how:

For Small Businesses – This might be the tool that was needed by local brick and mortars to make Facebook ads worth it, especially in high density markets like New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

For Political Campaigns – Local- and state-level politicians who have limited campaign budgets may now see Facebook ads as viable and, in fact, very effective. Simple calls to action will be amplified by their relevancy to the user.

Read more about zip code targeting at ClickZ

Tony DiResta is WOMMA’s General Counsel and a Partner at Winston & Strawn, LLP. He will present “Developing a Compliant Social Media Policy” at School of WOM, May 9-11, with James Dudukovich, Marketing Counsel for The Coca-Cola Company.

Tony blogs about word of mouth ethics and regulation for WOMMA at DiResta-the-Law.

What do legal departments need to consider when crafting a compliant social policy that still leaves enough room for marketers and community managers to still be creative?

It seems to me that a company or brand’s social media policy has to really reflect the culture and soul of the organization. So the way it’s put together; the stakeholders at the table; the way it’s implemented throughout the organization; the way it’s monitored to be sure its speakers comply with its guidelines; all of these cultural factors are very important because that soul of the organization needs to come through in the social media policy. It isn’t a legal document. It isn’t a compliance document. It’s one that requires the input of many stakeholders that reflects the core cultural values of the organization.

Having said that, there are also some core ingredients that are needed in any social media policy for it to be compliant. First of all, if there is a sponsored communication involved, there are required disclosures under the FTC Guides. The social media policy needs to be very clear as to what type of disclosures are needed in what circumstances and on what platforms. In addition, the core substance of a social media policy has to reflect the company’s commitments to transparency, accuracy, honesty, and respect in all of their communications either by their employees or by third parties such as bloggers or agencies.

It’s very important that those four core ingredients are identified in the contents of the social media policy. So in short, a social media policy has to reflect both the culture of an organization and the core content needed to comply with the FTC Guides.

Over the last year, what is the greatest change you have seen in the social media/WOM ethics realm?

I think there are two major issues that are being presented right now in the WOM space. The first is privacy. This is on the front burner. Earlier this month, the FTC’s announcement of its action against Google really tees this up. That is something that is going to be on the minds of everybody in the WOM or social media space. The question is how we appropriately respect the privacy of our customers and how do we be appropriately transparent in letting them know what we’re going to do with their personal identifiable information.

The second issue is the evolution of the FTC Guides. Social media policies are a dynamic process. Just because they were drafted after the FTC Guides came out, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the story. The FTC would ask not only if you have an appropriate social media policy in place, but also if it has been appropriately and effectively implemented. So that requires training, education of employees and third parties. It requires monitoring and auditing of blogs and communications to be sure the social media policy has been honored.

It’s a very dynamic process. The company can’t just draft a policy and place it on the website, intranet or somebody’s bookshelf. It’s important that the company see this as an ongoing process that requires refinement by all stakeholders, not just the legal or marketing team. Everyone from senior executives to customer service need to be involved in that evolution.

What does the FTC’s recent ruling that requires Google to implement a comprehensive privacy program mean for other companies?

I think that this is the first announcement from the FTC that requires a company to bake privacy into the business practices of the company. The bottom line is that every company and brand that is going to receive any sensitive or personal identifiable information from consumers has got to adopt a framework of a program similar to what the FTC is asking Google to do.

You’ve got not only the FTC, but you have other governmental agencies like the Department of Commerce involved in this conversation. You also have the legislative interest. Up on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures, there are conversations about what needs to be done with respect to consumer privacy in this digital age. Then you also have the plaintiff class action attorneys who are going to see a ripe area for lawsuits because customers are going to be really unhappy if they find that companies are using their information in a way that they thought that they wouldn’t be doing. Also, from a PR perspective, you can have all this risk management and legal clouds in the sky, but you better believe that there can be a data breach. Or somewhere there is a group of complaints like at Google where customers were concerned with what they thought was going on with their Gmail accounts. That creates negative publicity.

Negative publicity about consumer privacy is going to affect the brand whether it’s financial, health or other sensitive information. That’s a huge issue for companies. So it’s not only good risk management, it’s also good prudent business policy to adopt a comprehensive privacy program that incorporates some of the elements of the FTC requirements for Google.

WOMMA is working on, through its legal affairs committee and privacy subcommittee, a template on guidance or best practices that we hope to announce shortly that will identify those principles that companies need to adhere to be sure they are moving in the right direction in designing their privacy policy.

Community engagement in politics is critical. But mass market message recognition is also critical, and sometimes a solid YouTube video just can’t live up to that need.

Key Takeaway: Like the private sector, social media has its place in the communication arsenal. But don’t expect a silver bullet.

Read more at The National Post

The recent British elections have once again brought up the debate about WOM, politics and how one person could possibly have a conversation with millions. The traditional media folks argue that WOM and social media works for raising money, which is then funneled into print, broadcast and outdoor media spending.

But Tom Messett of 1000heads argues that not only is the fundraising part true, but you can’t discount the value WOM and social media adds to a political stance. Certainly one candidate can’t have a conversation with millions, but they can start a conversation that extends to millions.

Read the full post at the 1000heads blog

How do you make something as bland as the Census cool? You make it about more than civic responsibility. Data, as a rule of thumb, isn’t a great conversation starter. History, however, is. The Census grasped onto this and developed an app that holds a lot of historical details about every corner of America. This shows users how the Census mapped the development of our country. It also is engaging, visually stimulating, and sharable. They gave people a new topic of conversation that leads them to the end goal. Its effectiveness is hard to determine currently, but many companies that feel they are too boring for WOM can clearly use the idea.

Read more about the Census’ WOM marketing at Inside Facebook

Australia’s tourism industry draws a cool $89 billion into the island nation every year. Previous innovative attempts to promote their country have failed. Some of you might remember the “So where the bloody hell are you?” campaign that got banned on UK and Canadian TV. Now Tourism Australia is encouraging citizens to submit photos and descriptions of their favorite Aussie spots. Instead of relying on a 30 second ad that must contain applicable and accepted content worldwide, they are now relying on their most enthusiastic citizens. This is a great step for crowdsourcing. After a bad experience with a risqué ad, Tourism Australia naturally needed a more reliable method. Crowdsourcing to the rescue.

Read more about the campaign at The Australian