Internet Campaigning

Monday, December 21st, 2009

I am sure many of you were paying attention over the weekend and last week as the battle for the Christmas number one spot ‘raged’ towards Sunday. It was a very interesting battle with Rage Against the Machines ‘Killing in the Name’ eventually coming in at number one yesterday. The single became the first ever ‘download only’ Christmas number one in chart history thanks to an internet campaign that soared in the last week.

What is interesting for all activists is the relevance of the internet only campaign which resulted in a win for Rage Against the Machine. The campaign not only spread across Facebook but into the national media aswell. There are many lessons we can take and use from this campaign.

The campaign was firstly created on Facebook. As a social networking site we all often use Facebook to create groups and events, however, in order to make a campaign successful you need to make your campaign associate with a large number of people. This can be at a local level with a campaign that a lot of people in your local area feel strongly about or a national campaign. Either way people have to feel strongly about your campaign or they will not join and more importantly get involved!

Secondly the campaign also had a very simple but recognisable URL for people use across the internet. The URL – http://bit.ly/inthename is simple and memorable making it easier for people to spread the message across the internet.

There was also a brilliant use of other forms of social media and popular internet sites. The list for the Rage Against the Machine campaign is below:

DIGG us! – http://digg.com/d31BqlJ
TWITTER short URL – http://bit.ly/inthename
TWITTER hashtag – #ratm4xmas
YOUTUBE – http://bit.ly/rageforno1, http://bit.ly/xfactormyarse
WIDGET FOR YOUR MYSPACE/WEBSITE ETC – http://seed.sproutbuilder.com/4ADU3a7EHBhBlKpO
THE WRIGHT STUFF – http://bit.ly/thewrightstuff

The use of all these different internet mediums made it easy for people to follow and contribute to a campaign that gained 971,024 members on the Facebook group. In your campaign think how you can use some of these other mediums rather than just Facebook for a campaign.

Furthermore, there was a clever use of the media in order to further gather momentum in the campaign. Listed on the Facebook page are all the celebrities that endorsed the campaign. From the more obvious people like Kerrang! all the way through to people like Stephen Fry. This large following by celebrities plus the huge following by Facebook users caused the mainstream media in the UK to pay attention. On from that the band themselves then got involved. First through Twitter and then through radio and TV interviews further spreading the message. Think of people in your area that support your views and are willing to support your campaign. Whether it is your local MP, councillor or Mayor, their backing of your campaign adds credibility and can further spread the word about your campaign to other members of the community who will then also support your cause.

That alone, however, was not the reason that the campaign came to eventual success. More than anything else it was word of mouth that caused the shock result of Killing in the Name as Christmas Number One 2009.

So look at your political campaign as it stands and see where you maybe missing out. The ideas used by this campaign are ones that can be transferred into a campaign of your own at a local or national level.