Italian Politics and Society, a course of the University of Pavia designed principally for foreign students, but it is also open to Italian students. I analyzed the digital side of an electoral campaign describing a politician as a corporation or a startup. Lecture by Giorgio Marandola with prof. Marco Camisani Calzolari.

1. Italian Politics and Society
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
University of Pavia
Giorgio Marandola

2. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The politician as a corporation… as a startup.
The contemporary politician, or political party, has to study the digital landscape as a company, to sell his
product and use all the techniques that big corporations use to conquer, engage and retain the customers.
A multichannel approach to the digital communication.
But, nowadays a politician has to be smart like a startup, some examples?
Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Uber..

3. As a Corporation? Not so easy..
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics

4. As a Startup
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
A startup is a company designed to grow fast.
Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup.
Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take
venture funding, or have some sort of "exit."
The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with
startups follows from growth.
Paul Graham
(He funded companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit )

5. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The politician, the background.
What do I mean with “background”?
A digital presence on social networks, some remarkable things done that are worth mentioning.
The politician’s background is important not only because of the credibility, but also for digital
communication purposes, in particular the right politician background can influence directly the positioning
of his website (all the pages of the website) on Google.
Not convinced?

6. The background and its direct effects on Search
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
SOCIAL SIGNALS
Wikipedia is the most prominent and important
site where starting to build your reputation.
And, this is a common trick, it’s the best source of
high valuable links to websites and platforms.
Every link has a value online, we will see how it
works in the upcoming slides.
The social signals are the amount of organic links
addressing to a website coming from social
networks as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and so
on..
They are as important for the positioning of a
website as the natural links coming from other
websites, forums and so on.

7. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
Let’s start with the most common thing, the website.

8. The website… is not so common
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
A politician has some different choices to make when he starts his digital campaign:
1) A website with a little blog, maximum 4 pages and 5 posts.
2) A website with a “middle sized blog” 5 pages and 10 posts + a staff for the social media profiles.
3)A platform for the people recruiting, optimized to attract, convert and transform them in activists (or
hacktivists) + an omnichannel strategy with a structured staff.
[Again, as a corporation, as a startup]

9. The website is OLD.. The hactivism platform is NOW
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
What you get searching “Barack Obama” on Google, as #1 result.

10. Can you spot the difference?
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11. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The website is OLD.. The hactivism platform is NOW

12. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
The website is OLD.. The hactivism platform is NOW

13. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
As a startup… designed to grow fast.

14. What is hacktivism?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
Hacktivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the use of computers and computer networks to
promote political ends, chiefly free speech, human rights, and information ethics.
It is carried out under the premise that proper use of technology can produce results similar to those of
conventional acts of protest, activism, and civil disobedience.
Some people describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing websites for political reasons, such
as attacking and defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology.
Others have argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-
service attacks.
Within the hacking community, those who carry out automated attacks are generally known as script
kiddies.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism

15. The controversy
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HACKER ≠ CRACKER

16. A little example Made in Italy
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#Sucate

17. A little example Made in Italy
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#Sucate

18. How do you imagine your website visitors flow?
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19. What the website can do to become an hacktivists recruiting platform?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
- Lead the visitors to register or connect to the platform (the main goal) via the call to actions.
(As we seen in barackobama.com, there is only a focus on the website, recruiting!)
- Give the users something to do, take part in polls, sign a petition, download materials, spread the voice
across the social networks, ACT !
- A CRM based integration to segment, manage and communicate as a corporation.
- Marketing automation (Rss Feeds, IFTT..)
- Open graph integration through social networks.
- A “referral engine” built in the platform, to grow as a startup.
- A blog.

20. Open Graph?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics

21. Responsive, of course
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22. Do you remember Wikipedia? Ok, let’s talk about S.E.O.
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
S.E.O. stands for Search Engine Optimization and it’s a series of techniques to achieve a better positioning
of the website pages and content in the search engine rankings.
We normally divide the SEO techniques in two different kinds:
-In page SEO
-Off page SEO

23. Do it, repeat, do it, repeat…
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24. S.E.O. Ranking Influence
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25. What is good, and what is not… test it!
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A/B TESTING EVERYTHING

26. A/B Testing
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27. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics 1
Let’s go outside the website, the online media ecosystem.

28. The (external) online media a politician must use to win the elections
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
Not only using, but knowing.
-Social Media services
-Forums
-Q&A services (Quora, Yahoo Answers..)
-Blogs
-Blogs as online magazines (a new generation of blogs)
-Magazines and Newspapers online
-News outlets
-Press releases distribution services
-Aggregators
-Vertical communities

29. Social Media
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
First of all, the candidate / the politician himself, communicating as a real person, then, the revolution
powered by the community.
With a strong focus on keeping them involved 101% in the campaign.
The social media platforms are crucial for a campaign, if they are used wisely.
Some examples? Or revolutions?

30. It’s not only about numbers…
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31. Obama did something… HUGE
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32. Revolution tools
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33. Again
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34. Common words are “born digital”
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35. A new standard?
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36. How to do it?
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
IT’S ALL ABOUT BUILDING A SOCIAL STRATEGY SUPPORTED BY PEOPLE
AND TECHNOLOGY.
Again, build a funnel, build a referral engine.
The correct use of social media can be an unlimited amplifier for all the messages.
“Let the people be your media”

37. This is a good point
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics

38. Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics 1
ONLINE MONITORING?

39. Online Monitoring
Workshop on Digital Communication and Politics
As a corporation you have to consider the Brand Reputation Management, as a politician you have to
monitor EVERYTHING !
-Conversations about you
-Conversation about the main issues addressed to the country/region government
-Conversation about the people expectations
It’s crucial to understand, analyze and build a strong online reputation in the digital contemporary era.
There are several free tools to monitor a brand/politician reputation, but they’re not so good.
There are several premium tools that work perfectly.

40. Understand the Sentiment
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41. Real time
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REAL TIME MARKETING

42. Influence
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It’s crucial to have the ability to influence the media with strategy and tools:
-A monitoring spectrum + tools
-A strategy (what to do)
-A policy (what to say)

43. Thank you very much!
Giorgio Marandola
giorgio.marandola@gmail.com