Video website provides politicians more control over how their messages get out to constituents

A growing number of the nation’s governors are joining the laughing babies and dancing cats on YouTube with videos aimed at getting their unfiltered messages to constituents.

At least 38 governors have videos on the online site, including nine who have started this year, a USA TODAY review shows. At least nine other governors have posted videos using other services and state websites.

“It’s helpful in getting the message out directly to the public,” says Rachel Reeves, a spokeswoman for Kansas Democratic Gov. Mark Parkinson. “Social media in general really helps in getting your message out directly to constituents, unfiltered, without any sort of press sort of narrowing it down to a couple of quotes he may have used.”

YouTube use by governors is a bipartisan activity. Seventeen Republicans, 20 Democrats and one independent — Florida Gov. Charlie Crist — currently have videos posted there, the review shows.

Some, like Minnesota Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, are using online videos for their campaigns ads. Others, such as Democrat Jim Doyle in Wisconsin, are using YouTube to broadcast official speeches and events. Two governors, Crist and Democratic West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, are using YouTube videos in their U.S. Senate campaigns.

In Maryland, Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley posts videos on YouTube channels that also include other state agency information, such as, in the case of Maryland, tips on how to track black bears. Republican Gov. Rick Perry in Texas has posted videos of speeches, statements and interviews, and he has recently posted videos that use the work of Texas animators.

Arnold Shober, an assistant professor of government at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., said online videos allow candidates or sitting governors to control the content.

“They don’t have to worry that the newsroom is going to slice up their video package with only the juiciest quote,” Shober said. “This gives candidates a lot more control over their message.”

That control, however, doesn’t guarantee an audience.

The most popular video uploaded by a governor so far was on an issue that captured big attention nationwide — an ad from the campaign of Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in which she attacked President Obama on immigration. It has garnered more than 1 million views over the past five months.

Most of the governors’ videos aren’t getting anywhere near that many views. In fact, online viewership counters indicate some of the governors’ videos have captured only single-digit page views, even after being online for weeks or months.

•Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s remembrance of Hurricane Katrina survivor stories captured eight page views the first six weeks it was online.

•Republican Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman’s speech about a new health science center received just eight views in the year it spent online.

•A video uploaded by Democratic Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson about flu prevention gathered 17 views in the year it was online.

Reeves said some videos get few clicks but they are still worth posting because they provide another connection to constituents, so they can feel that they are part of the governing process.

“And they certainly are,” Reeves said. “Maybe we don’t get as many hits, but it’s important to reach out to them.”

Ines Mergel, an assistant professor of public administration at Maxwell School of Syracuse University, said politicians like the ability to provide quick feedback and responses on issues without waiting for a TV crew. And Mergel, who has studied the use of YouTube in Congress, said it also gives politicians a chance to show another, behind the scenes, side of themselves.

But Mergel said online video hasn’t replaced the need for politicians to work with traditional media.

“For them, it’s adding additional channels and populating everything that they can,” she said. “It’s just an additional channel on top of everything else.

In North Carolina, Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, recently hired a director of new media who will oversee YouTube videos.

“We’re all beginning to have a new realization of how connected people are,” said Chrissy Pearson, Perdue’s communications director.

In Indiana, a staffer with a $200 Flip camera broadcast video last year from a trade trip Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels made to China. His spokeswoman, Jane Jankowski, said her office uses YouTube to broadcast events the news media aren’t interested in covering and it also is able to show different sides of the governor. Democratic Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski posted videos on YouTube in his last re-election campaign in 2006. But his spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor said his official office doesn’t have the resources to post videos online.

The firm conducted a Message Gap Analysis study on 158 messages from 16 Financial Times Global 100 companies.

Globally, the US showed a 45% gap between the message a company wants to portray and the message the mainstream media portrays. Europe had a 40% gap, Latin American had 53%, and Asia-Pacific had 58%.

The gap widened when it came to company messages and bloggers. The US showed a 76% gap, Europe had 59%, Latin America had 82%, and Asia-Pacific had 63%.

“Messages that were transparent and tied back to brand essence were better represented than messages with aspirational language,” said Ashley Welde, director of research at Burson.

Bloggers, Welde said, are a new area for companies to navigate and tend to be independent and insert more opinion.

“You have to be transparent with them because bloggers are really going to dig,” she said. “You are better off being up front.”

Welde said Burson is using the methodology with clients for tracking purposes and will go back months later to check and see if there is a change in the way the media is portraying a message.

“It’s a way to quantify an aspect of communication that was only looked at in a qualitative way,” she said.

Article courtesy of PRWeek | Written by Lindsey Siegriest

By Jeremiah Owyang

Most companies are barely prepared to deal with unhappy customers who use social media to air their gripes. Now they must be ready to respond when organized entities, such as Greenpeace, wage massive campaigns against their brands using social media channels.

Greenpeace and other organizations have a long history of demonstrating in real life against corporations in order to influence their agenda. Yet we’re seeing this cascade online as well as the real world.

In March, Greenpeace launched a viral campaign criticizing Nestle’s use of palm oil from companies that are destroying Indonesian rain forests.  The campaign included a video in which an office worker opened a Kit Kat chocolate bar only to find an orangutan’s finger in the red wrapping and a call to Greenpeace’s Twitter followers to “attack” the Swiss company’s Facebook fan page. Thousands of social media users posted comments criticizing the company’s practices and posted altered logos, like one that replaced “Kit Kat” with “Killer.” Nestle, unprepared for the influx of criticism, said it is now committed to using only “Certified Sustainable Palm Oil” by 2015.

In the wake of BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Greenpeace orchestrated another attack. It challenged the public to design a new BP logo that, according to the organization’s website, is “more suitable for their dirty business.” The competition garnered over 2,000 entries, including a design that suggested BP stands for “black planet” to images of oil coated birds and fish. Greenpeace is leaving the winner up to the public, who can vote for the best logo redesign. In addition, Greenpeace recently released a “ScamWow!” infomercial parody of the “ShamWow!” super towel, targeting BP and other oil companies’ that need a quick-fix solution to their ecological disasters.

Greenpeace has scored some social media successes against brands, thanks to its active supporter base. The organization plans to continue these campaigns, according to Laura Kenyon the online marketing and promotions specialist at Greenpeace International.

Owyang: Your efforts against Nestle and now BP appear coordinated, perhaps even more so than some of today’s modern corporation’s marketing efforts.  You had anexisting online community, marketing materials (videos, logos) and a clear “call to action” for your supporters that was executed quickly and effectively How were you able to pull this off?

Kenyon: Greenpeace’s online campaigns against Nestlé and BP are some parts coordination, some parts opportunity, and most importantly rely on people’s support. Without individuals commenting and sharing the “‘Have a Break?” video on Facebook and their other social profiles it would never have reached over 1.5 million views or caused such an uproar. Coordination is important but as you can never plan for everything online, we found we also needed to be ready to react quickly as things developed. We could not know that Nestlé would request that YouTube block our video within a few hours of it being uploaded, but when that happened we were able to replace it quickly on Vimeo. The blocking of the video went on to drive views on the video and generated interest that we could never have predicted in the planning of the campaign.

Owyang:  Tell me about your internal structure of your social technology team, how many folks do you have working on this?

Kenyon: We have 28 offices worldwide and people working on the social media aspect of communications in most of these offices, most often in addition to another role. The number of people working in each office varies, but together we have a very effective global team.

Owyang:  How do you work with your community to achieve your objectives?

Kenyon: Greenpeace is its supporter base. Without them we would not be here. Their support for our campaigns and the personal actions they take alongside us are vital to our successes. There is no better example of the importance of engaging and empowering our supporters than the Kit Kat campaign. Our online supporters are a source of encouragement, inspiration, and ideas-and we are always trying to draw on that.

Owyang: How are online movements different from real life ones? Is there a difference between online and in-person protests?

Kenyon: The nature of taking action online versus offline is of course different – but the motivations are the same. Our activists who dropped from the ceiling of Nestlé’s shareholder meeting on April 15th were acting on the same motivation as supporters of the campaign who changed their Facebook profile pictures to our KitKat ‘Killer’ logo or sent an e-mail to Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke – they wanted Nestlé to remove products coming from rainforest destruction from their supply chains. They did not want to buy products that come at the cost of
Indonesian rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands.

Owyang:  Are you concerned about any legal ramifications or lawsuits?

Kenyon: We always seek out legal advice and make sure that we understand any potential consequences before launching a campaign like Kit Kat. Our campaigns are not about breaking laws but about creating laws that protect the environment. Just last week the EU finally created a law to ban illegal timber imports after a decade of activism.

Owyang: How do you measure the effectiveness of your efforts?

Kenyon : Ultimately we measure effectiveness by the achievement of campaign goals. In the case of our Kit Kat campaign Nestlé’s eventual commitment to remove products coming from rainforest destruction from its supply chain is a positive step. Another measure is how many people became engaged with the campaign – the video reached over 1.5 million people, over 300,000 of which directly contacted Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke via e-mail, and a countless number of people took up the cause on Facebook providing a steady stream of criticism on Nestlé’s infamous Facebook fan page. Many of these were people who were not previously aware of the role of palm oil production in the destruction of Indonesian rainforests, including key orangutan habitat. The increased awareness of this issue is another victory for our Kit Kat campaign.

Owyang:  So you’re calculating ROI by your objectives. In some ways, you’re already ahead of most brands in the social space. Yet you’ve attempted some other social marketing efforts in the past, but none were as successful as the Nestle effort. Was Nestle a stroke of luck for Greenpeace?

Kenyon: Greenpeace has a history of online campaigning to draw on – as far back as 2000 we ran a successful campaign to get Coca-Cola to
remove harmful chemicals from its refrigeration equipment, which also convinced Unilever and McDonald’s to follow suit. A few years ago we also ran a successful online campaign to convince Apple to remove toxic substances from its products. The crucial element in all of our online campaigning has been the support we’ve found amongst the online population – not only our amazing online supporter base but also from people who might not consider themselves “Greenpeace supporters” per se but who share our concerns and take action with us.

There were a lot of factors that contributed to the success of the Kit Kat campaign, but its success wasn’t isolated from our other online campaigning. The online networks used to push the Kit Kat campaign have grown as a result of previous Greenpeace efforts and the Kit Kat campaign was definitely the beneficiary of earlier online efforts. Add to that an unforgettable video, a few Nestle online blunders, and a lot of amazing efforts from supporters of the campaign. People didn’t lose interest or let the issue rest – for weeks and weeks they told Nestle over and over to stop buying products from rainforest destruction. And it didn’t stop until they listened.

Owyang: Speaking of getting brands to listen, one of the tenants of social media is dialogue. Yet on the surface, it appears that you are not interested in a dialogue with the companies in these channels. To what extent is that true?

Kenyon: In Nestlé’s case it was far past the time for action – Greenpeace had already established a dialogue with Nestlé on the issue of its palm oil suppliers years before the Kit Kat campaign kicked off. But they were not taking action to deal with the problem. When the time came, Greenpeace and Nestlé talked directly in order to reach an agreement. Greenpeace engages with companies and governments at key times in all of its campaigns in order to create change.

Owyang: What should we expect in the social technology arena from Greenpeace in the future? Will you increase your usage in this space and, if so, by how much?

Kenyon: Greenpeace will continue to campaign online. How our presence will grow and change will depend on how the online networks and tools available grow and change. Greenpeace aims to be an agent of change. We are interested in enabling others to demand a better world and online social media helps us do that. As an organization, the last year saw us reach 1 million supporters on Facebook alone. This kind of support empowers us, and our hope is to empower those supporters in return to have civil courage and to amplify their voices when they speak out against injustice or for a better world. As we face the greatest threat to our planet, climate change, civil courage and the
online spaces where it is expressed will be crucial.

Greenpeace will maintain a strong presence in social media, using the latest tools and communication channels where it is effective to challenge those who are involved in environmental destruction. It’s impossible to predict exactly where social media is going next so it’s hard to say exactly what you should expect but we will definitely continue to use creative online campaigning tactics to create change.