William T. Hennessy - Weaving the Roots: How to Maximize Your Social Media Impact

W EAVING THE R OOTS

How to Maximize Your Social Media Impact

William T. Hennessy

V oices of the Tea Party is a real-time collaborative forum for Tea Partiers around the country that delivers in-depth information on tactics, strategy, and policy from on-the-ground activists through the use of inexpensive and easy to download e-books. The series will serve the vibrant online community of everyday Americans who launched and continue to drive the Tea Party movement, by taking their collaborative discussions to a much higher level. Tea Party supporters around the country will now be able to instantly access best practices that have succeeded elsewhere, hear the stories of others in the movement, and learn from Tea Partiers with specific policy ideas and expertise. Perhaps more important, they will be able to engage with other thought leaders by submitting their own e-book proposals for possible inclusion in the series. (Please see our website for details: broadsidebooks.net.) Readers and writers alike can thereby join the important national discussion within this ever-expanding community of citizen-activists who have dedicated themselves to securing the movements core values of constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.

Series editor Michael Patrick Leahy has been one of the driving forces of the Tea Party movement from its inception. Hes a co-founder of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, which sponsored the very first national Tea Party demonstrations; the February 27, 2009, Nationwide Chicago Tea Party; and the April 15, 2009, Tax Day Tea Party. He is also the author of The Ideological Origins of the Tea Party Movement , to be published by Broadside Books in January 2012. His website is http://www.michaelpatrickleahy.com.

Twice I drove past the St. Louis office of U.S. senator Claire McCaskill looking for a parking spot. A small crowd of MoveOn.org supporters with signs had already gathered on the sidewalk in front of McCaskills office on Delmar Boulevard, next door to the Nubia Caf.

I found a spot one block east and across the street from the protest zone. I grabbed my video camera and my cell phone, sent one last Tweet asking Tea Partiers to join our counterprotest, and stepped into the bitterly cold January air.

I guess were it, said Patch Adams, whod been waiting in his car a few yards away.

Really?

I was worried about being late, yet I was only the second Tea Partier on the scene. Forty minutes later, well into the protest, a handful of our Tea Party faithful had arrived. Our tiny team gathered in the median in front of McCaskills office. Two Tea Party videographersDoug Edelman and Patch Adamsinterviewed the hundred or so MoveOn.org protesters.

For the first time since the February 27, 2009, Nationwide Chicago Tea Party Protest , St. Louis Tea Party Coalition members were dwarfed in number by leftists.

That same week in Illinois, a very different story was unfolding. Our Tea Party group had a role in that story, as well, because a number of our members live and work in the three counties in Illinois that border the Mississippi River and indeed can be seen from the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

In the Illinois primary, a Chicago businessman asked his Tea Party base for a surge of support. With just eight days remaining until the February 2 primary, Adam Andrzejewski (AND-jee-Eff-skee) was last in a field of seven candidates to replace impeached governor Rod Blagojevich. Andrzejewskis race seemed hopeless.

Yet Andrzejewskis election night surge was remarkable. Though he came up short in the final tally, Adam shot from seventh to fourth place. As I blogged the following day, Adam got an 11 point surge in the final 8 days of the campaign. With 16 days, he might well have won.... Our eye is on the prize: come November, were cleaning house in Washington. Dont let anything curb your enthusiasm.

Later analysis revealed that Andrzejewski won Madison County, Illinois, with 48 percent of the vote, and Republican ballots outnumbered Democrats two to one. It was the first time since World War II that Republicans outpolled Democrats in Madison. According to Examiner.com, Andrzejewski, who won in all three Metro-East Counties (Madison, Monroe and St. Clair Counties are part of the St. Louis, MO metropolitan area) won Madison County with 5,505 votes.

In other words, Andrzejewski dominated where St. Louis area Tea Party groups focused their attention.

Why did Andrzejewski surge while a counterprotest fizzled? Why were St. Louis area conservative grass roots more effective at traditional retail politics than we were at our core activity of street activism? Why did the same tools and methods and people work the week of January 26 but not the day of January 26?

This e-book answers those questions. Following some simple rules and lists for effective social media campaigning will spare you the embarrassment of an empty protest and arm you for victory in grassroots activism. By following these suggestions, even tiny grassroots organizations can make big impacts on the world through smart use of free or inexpensive social media tools.

Most people are familiar with or have even used the major tools of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and SMS text. How they work, how they work together, and how you can maximize your impact with a small team is a bit of a mystery to most. Based on years of use, trial and error, and study, Ill help unravel a bit of that mystery for you.

While it may appear that theres a certain amount of alchemy behind social media, youll find out that the effective use of these tools is more science than art. Youll get answers to questions that many dont know to ask, like what time of day to tweet or post on Facebook, which day of the week is best for which social channel, and how to announce an event to get lots of attendees.

Whats Not Included

The book will not include how-tos about registering and setting up individual tools such as Facebook or HootSuite accounts. The services themselves provide fantastic tutorials crafted by training experts to guide you through the inner workings of their software. Even more important, anything of that specific technical nature could be out of date long before you read it here or tried to apply it.

Instead, I will provide you with information about the key tools and how they work together to execute your organizations strategy. After all, anyone can figure out how to create a Facebook fan page. The art is putting the right stuff together to make that fan page effective.

Neither is this book a tutorial on the effective use of digital video and photography. While the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition has made history with these tools, a full discourse on this subject, beyond the obvious maxim It you didnt capture it digitally, it didnt happen, is worthy of an entire book on its own.

Its called the Web for a reason. It connects. People to people, people to machines, machines to machines. But mostly, the Internet connects people to people. In this e-book, well explore the best blogs for honing your skills and for using science to increase your influence and reach online.

If youre ready, then lets start weaving together some roots.

Your Weapons

Remember this list:

Blogs (www.wordpress.com)

Facebook (www.Facebook.com)

Twitter (www.Twitter.com)

SMS (phone texting)

Email (www.mailchimp.com)

To that, add these tools: