Politics & Elections Blog: January 2010

Politics and Elections Blog

Trends, tools and news from the Google Politics & Elections team

The Digital Playbook: Top 5 strategies for political campaigns

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Editor's note: We're excited to welcome Google's Elections and Issue Advocacy Team to the Public Sector Blog. Since 2007, they've worked with political candidates, consultants and advocates to build online advertising campaigns and fully integrate digital media into political strategy. This post marks the beginning of what we hope will be a regular series from the team. Follow the Digital Playbook label for future posts. posedonline advertising platformshealth care reformRepublican victoriesScott Brown's upset in Massachusetts1. Use search advertising to build your email list and raise money.AdWords2. "Blast" the Google Network when you need to make a big splash.AdSenseVirginiaMassachusetts3. Join social networks to further amass and interact with your list of supporters.TwitterFacebookYouTubeYouTube politician channel4. Use data to inform your campaign decisions.Google Insights for SearchGoogle Analyticsclick-through ratesGoogle Website Optimizerexperiments5. Remember: Rapid response happens online, with or without you.Joe Wilsondeftly used search advertisingmcdonnell thesis
We'll be posting further insights and best practices throughout the 2010 cycle, so keep an eye on this blog and on the Digital Playbook label. And let us know what you think—we'll be using your comments to help determine what we write about next.

Update: If you're a campaign or candidate looking for help on getting started with advertising on Google, don't hesitate to give us a shout. You can get started on AdWords yourself, though—all it takes is a credit card and a few moments to create your first ad.

Posted by Chris Talbot, Elections and Issue Advocacy Team

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Labels: Digital Playbook , Politics & Elections Blog

Google Moderator's World Tour

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Google Moderator makes it easy for organizations around the world to receive questions and input from audiences of any size. Two recent uses of Moderator show how this tool can be useful worldwide.
Across the pond in the UK, the Conservative Party is using Moderator to power their new Draft Manifesto site. They're asking citizens to post questions about their health care plans and vote on submissions from others. Party Leader David Cameron will then answer the top questions in a live webcast this Friday. With three days to go, over 1,300 people have cast more than 20,000 votes.

Moderator was also a key component of the CNN/YouTube Debate at the recent Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Visitors worldwide submitted text and video questions for the debate through Moderator, and the top questions were answered by a panel of climate experts, including Kofi Annan, Thomas Friedman, Yves de Boer, Bjorn Lomberg and Daryl Hannah.

We believe technology can empower citizens to become involved in policy-making at all levels of government. We're excited to see this process take place around the world and across all political ideologies.

Have other examples of Google Moderator or other online tools improving the policy-making process? Let us know in the comments.