How to build a team, choose the tools,
adopt good practices and get ready to daily work
Bruxelles, 10-12 may 2012
Pes activist ‘Train the Trainers’ event
Best practices on social media communication for political figures and parties
1. Best practices
on social media communication
for political figures la parties
Gianni Florido e and
Provincia di Taranto
How to build a team, choose the tools,
adopt good practices and get ready to daily work
Strategia di comunicazione
Bruxelles, 10-12 may 2012
Pes activist ‘Train the Trainers’ event
Dino Amenduni, Proforma, Italy
2. Who is speaking?
My name is Dino Amenduni
(electronic business card)
I am the new media team leader and advisor for
political communication at Proforma, a
communication agency in Bari, my hometown,
where I studied and live and work
I am a blogger on Fatto Quotidiano, national daily
newspaper (link) and among the founders of
Quink, a collective of satire and media-activism(
www.quink.it)
4. Why invest in social media?
More and more politicians use social media for their electoral campaigns
and official communication
You go online because it is trendy or because politicians sense the
potentialities of a tool that can make them (partially) independent
from the logic of traditional media or even because you hope to be
able to influence the political agenda by means of well-designed
communication strategies
More simply, you engage in social media for pleasure, or interest,
regardless of electoral campaigns. Usually, these are the most
appreciated profiles
5. Why invest in social media?
More on social media, electoral campaigns can be won or lost. A
wrong act of communication during a TV face-off (or on any traditional
communication means) can be turned into a large mobilization through
word of mouth (positive or negative) spontaneously originated on the
Internet and spread without the help of the staff of the candidate or of
the party
Those candidates who apply to the social media the same strategies as
the ones used by traditional communication media are doomed to fail
The Web is paramount when you make mistakes more than when you
interact successfully. It is vital to make no mistake and to magnify the
others’ mistakes
6. Why invest in social media?
Many prominent politicians already have a profile on Facebook and
Twitter. We cannot say the same for local candidates or for the
federations of local parties
We have to ask them to make an effort: it is important to show the
potentialities of team work, also because the level of aggressiveness of
“second lines” is very likely to increase during elections, and along with
that, the complexity of the dynamics relevant to the building up of
online public opinion
7. Why invest in social media?
Those politicians who are web-sceptical must be told very clearly that if
you do not use the Internet, you will end up putting up with it: it is
not necessary for someone to communicate online to make people talk
about them. Moreover, word of mouth can be both positive and
negative, the only difference being that if you are not online, not
“present” on the Web, you cannot influence communication there.
For all the above reasons, nowadays it is inevitable to be on the Internet
Whatever the reason why a politician uses Facebook, Youtube, Twitter
and all the other social media, he cannot confine himself to just being
spontaneous or experimental. This is true according to what it has been
said so far: if everybody is online, you must do more and better to
stand out
9. Building up a work team
Managing the web communication of a political figure requires the same
effort as the one necessary to set up a press office or a team which
deals with media planning and event planning
It is therefore impossible and sometimes harmful to entrust the whole
bulk of the work to a single person, whereas at the same time a single
coordinator can manage all the “2.0” profiles both on the content level
and in terms of political strategy
Therefore, we need to single out a person who is a reference point for
this macro-area
10. Building up a work team
Managing the web communication of a political figure requires the same
effort as the one necessary to set up a press office or a team which
deals with media planning and event planning
It is therefore impossible and sometimes harmful to entrust the whole
bulk of the work to a single person, whereas at the same time a single
coordinator can manage all the “2.0” profiles both on the content level
and in terms of political strategy
Therefore, we need to single out a person who is a reference point for
this macro-area
11. Building up a work team
We think that any electoral campaign staff must include a strategic
coordinator for online communication (who can also act, in case of
candidates with a limited budget or no budget at all), whose objectives
and tasks are as follows:
a. understanding the overall strategic indications of the
campaign: strategy, positioning, key words, opponent’s behavior,
monitoring the content production;
b. having talks with the various area coordinators so that the
strategy becomes homogeneous (the so called “control room” made up
by the politician, his staff, the political secretaries of his coalition and
by their communication experts);
c. passing on the strategic information to his work group
12. Building up a work team
The editorial staff will not be able to know nor will necessarily have to
know every detail of the strategy nor will have to be expert in politics. It
is more important that the social media staff is made up by people
who have communicative and creative skills rather than by political
tactics experts
Therefore, the coordinator has to compensate for the possible lack of
political vision and, in a certain way, to protect his staff so that they
can work well and usefully, only focusing on the technical/creative
components of their role
13. Building up a work team
In order to support the coordinator / person responsible for new media
it is highly recommended to rotate experts who will deal with the “raw”
creation of contents:
1. Videomaker: He must be able to record and video edit the
public speeches of the politician (public initiatives, interviews) and
recordings of TV appearances (debates, news broadcast, talk shows). He
must be able to follow the politician in any of his public activity, even
imprompt (for example, a dialogue with a citizen in a bar) and, at the
same time, be in a position to capture the opponents’ behavior (or their
staff’s or the behavior of their political area) that can bring consensus to
the politician and to his party
14. Building up a work team
1. Videomaker
He also has to deal with possible format specifically designed for the
Web. This task will depend on the strategic evaluation based on the
staff structure, on the will to invest time and resources on online
communication during elections, on the feedback originated by our
intervention and, in general, by the citizens’ reaction to the
scientific impact of communication
The videomaker does not need to have political competence,
particularly if he works in tandem with the editorial staff who will
suggest the video editing strategies and the video upload on
Youtube.
At any rate, a staff who is politically competent is always helpful in
making decisions and is highly recommended
15. Building up a work team
2. Photographer
He can be the same person as the videomaker or another member of the
staff (for example his spokesperson/press agent). He has to give
evidence of the politician’s public appearances (not necessarily in
connection with electoral actions - they can be convivial situations
with friends, colleagues, family), of official meetings, events,
places closely linked to the themes of his electoral campaign. We
suggest opening a Flickr channel (www.flickr.com), which is a
social network dedicated to photo publishing. With an annual $25
subscription fee you can upload an unlimited number of high quality
pictures; this becomes another useful tool for successful 2.0
communication and, at the same time, a practical and cheap
archive
16. Building up a work team
3. Webmaster
He must be able to design a web site, update it and manage its content.
If possible, he must be able to design Facebook applications
These tools can greatly foster the content distribution, especially if
they are associated to “lighter” or playful elements which make
complex topics and themes simpler. These can be videogames,
quizzes, prizes, creativity contests or generative interfaces of the
electoral campaign. A classical example of “generative
communicative politics”, based on the creativity of
users/voters, is the creation of automatic generators of posters,
both for spreading one’s communication campaign and for
denouncing one’s opponents’ contradictions
17. Building up a work team
3. Webmaster
Generative campaigns, particularly if satirical and oriented to attacking
the opponent, are much more effective when they are “open”,
that is promoted by autonomous citizens and not developed
according to our directions which, obviously being partisan, could
be perceived as less credible and genuine
The applications can also be used for specific awareness campaigns or
petitions; the playful aspect can be more easily emphasized
during electoral meetings and situations than during the daily
official/political communication activity
19. Choosing the tools
The internet site has to be suited to the communicative needs of the
period. The user should be able to easily find the politician’s view
on topical themes and on his political fights, biography,
programme, communication literature, interests, photos and videos
uploaded on the social network, the voice of his supporters and of
the activists of his electoral committee
As a matter of fact, the site can be useful to attract volunteers who
support the politician’s petitions
20. Choosing the tools
Volunteers
The internet site has to be suited to the communicative needs of the
period. The user should be able to easily find the politician’s view
on topical themes and on his political fights, biography,
programme, communication literature, interests, photos and videos
uploaded on the social network, the voice of his supporters and of
the activists of his electoral committee
As a matter of fact, the site can be useful to attract volunteers who
support the politician’s petitions
21. Choosing the tools
Volunteers
This recruiting phase is of paramount importance in case of elections
The volunteers can be both party activists and ordinary citizens willing
to support the electoral campaign. This spontaneous energy should not
be dispersed, on the contrary, it should be turned into action. If a
person only has an hour a week to offer for volunteer work, we should
not thwart him but invent activities he can carry on during that time.
A group of spontaneous supporters can even submit contents taken from
the Internet as topics for discussion and food for thought; they can even
make the staff’s workload lighter
22. Choosing the tools
Volunteers
Work to create a valuable network of supports should start as early as
possible since we have to consider (with a bit of cynicism) that a
human resource working in our favour is one less in support of
our opponents, both inner and external, which is crucial dynamics
in case of Primary elections
Volunteers cannot be bought nor co-opted, they are not at everybody’s
disposal: they are the basis for the future of any politician, both
as far as building up consensus is concerned and for cooperating
with associations and interacting with locals. For this reason, great
care should be taken in the “blog” section within the site, with
original and sometimes informal content
23. Choosing the tools
The tools to be used on social media should be chosen knowledgeably
and self-evaluating the team management skills. If the staff is
limited and therefore a great amount of contents cannot be
generated, it is worth taking care of few tools but in a scientific
way. A minimal but sufficient kit for making our presence on social
network well perceived consists of the following:
• Facebook page
• Twitter profile
• Youtube channel
24. Choosing the tools
Facebook page
This is the only institutional communication tool suggested for a
politician’s or a party communication. The advantages of a
fanpage for a public figure are undeniable. First of all, if a political
figure already has a private profile and has no intention of
interacting with his real friends on Facebook, he can move his
profile to a “page”, without losing any friend (they would become
“fans” of the page) and without the need to recover previous well-
established contacts
Unlike the personal profile, a fanpage can be administered by more
people simultaneously. The names of the administrators remain
unknown; there is no 5000-friend-limit, as is the case with a
personal profile
25. Choosing the tools
Facebook page
A Facebook user can become a “fan” of the politician without the
need for the politician’s consent; this greatly simplifies the
administrators’ task in handling the relation. The remaining
functions of the fanpage are the same as a personal profile,
including the status update function
Moreover, connections between other pages can be established: through
a managing system independent from the administrators’ identity
(switching) the management interface can be modified at any time
and can enable the politician, through the fanpage, to directly
interact within the “walls” of other pages
26. Choosing the tools
Facebook page
Worries regarding the change of strategy or the change from Facebook
profile to Facebook fanpage can be reduced and turned into
opportunities by means of aimed classified ads on Facebook that
can be of interest only to the citizens residing in the city where
elections take place
The regular use of this tool, through communication campaigns initially
aimed at making fans subscribe to the fanpage and afterwards at
getting them involved in the campaign activities, is by far cheaper
than printing press releases and using traditional methods
Moreover, any staff can buy classified ads which will only be seen by
fans of the opponents’ fanpage in order to take away consensus
27. Choosing the tools
Twitter page
Twitter is an extraordinary tool for monitoring the international
information system, besides being an agile and ideal interface for
creating fast and multimedia information. “Tweets” are short texts
containing 140 letters, where you can add external links. Its
peculiarity, as compared to Facebook, consists in the possibility to
produce and use contents which are already classified by topic,
organized by hashtag (#), a code that, written before the keyword,
classifies the information
Twitter allows the search for contents by means of a keyword through
its search engine also to non members
28. Choosing the tools
Twitter page
Handling a Twitter profile is very handy for two reasons. The first is
connected to the opportunity for automatically updating one’s
profile through a minimum handling of the Facebook fanpage
(without any integration effort). In order to do so, it is sufficient to
create a Twitter profile and then go to www.facebook.com/twitter
to connect the two accounts
The second reason is relevant to a greater presence on the Web
achieved with no effort. A user can find a politician or a party
navigating Twitter and afterwards going back to the other tools. As
an extra tip we suggest that you check the contacts “following” the
politician or the party on Twitter
29. Choosing the tools
Twitter page
The minimum approach is also advised against: the number of political
figures who personally update contents has increased so much that
citizens are used to expect the same behavior by anybody
A fair compromise could be some updates written by him in the first
person, by means of his personal computer, or smartphone or
tablet, and some published by his staff, who clearly sign the tweets
in order to avoid blunders or misunderstanding with the public. If
managing Twitter personally and monitoring information is too much
for you there are some free tools, like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite
which allow to receive chosen communication flows always
controlled and updated
30. Choosing the tools
Youtube channel
In the web 2.0 world, videos probably are the most effective media.
For this reason, a Youtube channel is indispensable. It can be
opened not only by leading politicians or parties but also by activists
and younger political figures, even though they do not have their
own content production or they do not frequently appear on the
media. On this space, you can upload unpublished videos concerning
the day by day activities in an electoral committee or around the
city, or excerpts from other sources, in particular clips from TV
programmes and news broadcast. The ratio between costs (no cost
for using the tool, very limited amount for human resources) and
benefits is definitely favourable
31. Choosing the tools
Youtube channel
Possible “formats” and thematic daily programmes can be added to the
activity at full capacity; they will be chosen and assessed according
to the strategy analysis and to the short, medium and long term
communication objectives
Candidates can already be present on Youtube without their
knowledge, through videos uploaded by other users and,
consequently, uncontrolled by their staff: therefore, this is one
more reason for emphasizing one’s presence on this popular
platform
33. Good practices #1
Publish contents constantly and frequently
On the Internet you should keep attention always alive. A politician’s
spaces on the Web correspond to a personal communication means
Therefore, if you do not communicate, it means you have nothing to
say. If you have no personal contents to publish, share contents
produced by others, for example by other candidates and local
political representatives
34. Good practices #2
Do not publish political contents exclusively
People want to get to know and talk to the person, not only to the
politician or the administrator. Sharing a passion, a hobby or even
a weakness can generate consensus. However, this should not lead
to a radical change in communicating strategy nor to a fake
spontaneity: the person who decides to use social media for
communication, should stick to his usual communication style mode.
Every politician should try to show his human side without falling off
trying to achieve an exaggerated familiarity of relationship,
especially if in his political and public life he is a detached person,
not incline to an open dialogue with voters
35. Good practices #3
Use the tag tool
Tagging a person means to associate him to some content. Facebook has
highly increased this procedure thus allowing a person or a page
administrator to tag personal profiles, groups and different fanpages
when publishing content or a status update. Tagging some content
has a twofold advantage: it allows including the tagged people or
groups within the community created around the political figure
and including oneself in the tagged community, thus multiplying
the number of content readers. For this reason it is paramount for
the person responsible for the fanpage administration to subscribe
to profiles, groups and pages connected to the electoral campaign
36. Good practices #4
Handle two feedback flows
One from Facebook to the candidates to their staff, for criticism,
questions or issues emerging during the local political debate or
having to do with critical aspects of the politician’s public profile.
The other from the politician to Facebook, answering the greatest
possible number of people. This constant monitoring has two
advantages: the former consists in anticipating political timing and
in adjusting the strategy “in progress”; the latter consists in the
creation of a link on the profiles, pages or groups with which
interaction has been established. This strategy should be adopted
with great care also in the phases of monitoring one’s opponent
37. Good practices #5
Avoid censorship or official criticism
If the community supporting the party or the political figure is sound
and reliable, the users will stigmatize lamentable behavior
themselves, also through reporting improper behavior to Facebook.
The same can be applied to the candidate councilors and to smaller
communities. For the above reasons, we believe that the attitude to
show towards fake profiles, “fakes” (those who offend the
politician) should never be one of total rejection and refusal of
dialogue. The politician who is criticized should try and be open to
the dialogue and confrontation with those who are hostile to him;
he could even exploit the fake to attack his opponent
38. Good practices #6
Foster the greatest possible number
of networking mechanism
With big voters, stakeholders, other political figures, inner and external
competitors and with their supporters. There are no other equally
effective ways to encourage consensus in real time
From this point of view, Facebook is a vital tool and a key resource
allowing original content to be spread online
39. Good practices #7
Make all contents and information
on the political activity available
From posters to leaflets, from policy documents to press releases, from
thematic campaigns to local ones, each supporter should be put in
the condition to be able to autonomously manage the political
and communicative support to the political figure and to the party,
without complicating the process by means of control mechanism
and approval “from the top”
40. Good practices #8
Use Facebook and social networks as explicit tools
of political communication on the traditional
media
Referring to the links to Facebook, Twitter and Youtube on posters, by
quoting one’s own and the supporters’ contributions during TV
appearances. The last step is crucial, particularly during a possible
live streaming of events of enormous media relevance. These
moments of visibility should be taken advantage of for creating a
positive circle between mass media exposure and possibility to
control the social media incoming communication flow
online communication of offline event -> mentioning offline what
41. B. Organization
Step four:
how to get ready for daily fight
Advice on content compilation
and editing
42. Get ready for daily work #1
Build one or more flows of personal story
Contents should follow one other, comply with highly topical issues
whenever possible, move upwards and turn to local, regional,
national and international issues – if there is real competence in
these matters – or move downwards and deal with people’s feelings
and emotions when the politician has shown genuine empathy with
these contexts
43. Get ready for daily work #2
Tell everything live
The best way to communicate on social media is by using them like
everybody else. As we update our status by telling events in our
life, uploading pictures of a party or of a place that has deeply
moved us, we have to administer a politician’s or a party’s
Facebook page. More and more frequently, a politician is chosen as
a person. If a person is not on the same wavelength as we, if he
does not express humanity and empathy, his political project will
not suffice to convince us. That is why it is important for a
candidate’s official and non official daily steps to be followed and
shared. The quality of the contents generated is not as important
as the timing chosen to propose them
44. Get ready for daily work #3
Rotate contents
Routine must be avoided on social media. Contents should rotate
according to both type and communicative style. In this case, too, a
sensible rule should be put into practice. The page should be
updated every 60-120 minutes: you can add a status update
concerning an event, then a newspaper article, then a photo of past
days, then a link to a policy proposal, then a Youtube video of one’s
own channel, then a sport status update, then a newspaper article
on fashion and so on (the above topics are just examples). You
should propose a variety of topics following well recognizable
logical and narrative threads assuring the tool coherence without
sacrificing the variety of proposed topics
45. Get ready for daily work #4
Edit contents
A successful action on social media may depend on 30 more seconds
of work. We can customize each Facebook content in title and
description (box beneath the title). Moreover, a comment can be
added to each content, as well as an external link. An extremely
precise editing work is perhaps even more crucial with Youtube,
where title and descriptions are the first elements observed by
users and that can be vital in convincing them to watch the video or
not. We should consider that they will be shared by people who are
very far from us within the networking. A screenshot can be
decisive for the widespread of contents
46. Get ready for daily work #5
Think of scoops
In 2008 President Obama communicated the name of his vice president
candidate to his newsletter subscribers via sms. The news was sent
to the press only afterwards. He did so in order to make his
community feel part of his political and life process. We should
embrace the following principle: although the relation with
traditional media is crucial, it is the people who have to take action
to collect votes and therefore it is them who are our target
audience. Our choice of the contents to circulate on social media
should favour all that can be shared first with users and afterwards
with the press. Top politicians should insist more on this aspect,
mainly to steer and adjust relations
47. Get ready for daily work #6
Allow new and older media to communicate
All the politicians’ speeches on traditional media must become web
contents. If there is a TV appearance, this should be turned into a
Youtube video; if there is a radio talk, this audio contribution
should be uploaded and shared. In social media there is no waste
material. Transition from old to new media only requires editorial
work. The opposite transition, much more fascinating, is becoming
the standard. Very often local media yearn for stories to tell.
Furthermore, social media allow to test video contents before
they become “official”. If the best video produced during a
campaign (in terms of viewing and feedback) was created by a user,
why cannot it become official?
48. Get ready for daily work #7
Address “niches”
A virtual community supporting a political figure is made up of various
experiences and tiny niches of public. We can nearly simultaneously
address environmentalists, architects, city centre dwellers, traders,
sports people, gays, friends of the politician, friends of his
opponents’ (just to give some examples). For this reason, an effort
should be made to take the opportunity to say something to each
of these groups, according to a specific request or a topical issue.
Feedback management is the key to communication success on
social media. Giving everybody feedback means paying attention to
everybody’s interests and be trustworthy as a political figure
49. Get ready for daily work #8
Communicate when people are there
A brilliant status update is lost if published in the dead of night because
nobody is online to share it in real time and create a snowball
effect
This is the reason why a daily schedule should be made out covering the
contents to be shared: it would allow to manage all the material
and to publish the best contents when the potential public is most
responsive
50. Get ready for daily work #9
Be flexible about timing in critical moments
If some content causes criticism and controversy, it may be
acceptable to propose some different “food for thought” (without
waiting for the scheduled publication timing) which could distract
fanpage fans and push them into positive action again. This rule
can be applied in reverse when a communicative item has been
particularly successful. If an update excites supporters, it is worth
highlighting it for as longer time, unless there is the need to upload
many more fresh contents. If there is an event to follow live,
timing cannot be adhered to. It is paramount to give fast updates
and say the essential things
52. Good idea #1
Tell the truth.
(this is enough, you could do without the other four things)
53. Good idea #2
Always remember that
whatever you do on the
web is public.
(This is true also for those profiles with high privacy
restrictions. Say only the things you would be willing to
repeat in front of an audience of strangers)
54. Good idea #3
Don’t think that
communication strategies
are more important than
contents.
( A stupid thing is a stupid thing: there can be no possible
rhetoric, stylistic or communication device)
55. Good idea #4
Don’t talk only about
yourself.
(Whoever uses the first person singular,
in the end bores the listener)
56. Good idea #5
Don’t waste money on
advertisement campaigns
if you don’t have anything
to say.
(There’s no point in attracting users to places where there
is nothing interesting. They will flee away, maybe
stimulating a negative word-of-mouth. If you have money to
spend, use it for writing, not for communication.)
57. To sum up
Social media will never win a
campaign. A campaign
cannot win without social
media.
(Beth Becker)
58. A great hug
Merci!
Dino Amenduni
Social media bio: http://about.me/dinoamenduni
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/doonie (here you can find this slideshow)
Proforma
Site: http://www.proformaweb.it
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/proformaweb
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/proformaweb
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/proformaweb