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Today:
Millions online
Tomorrow:
Billions online
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Information wants to be free.
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Volume 1, Number 2
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Competing With MyHomePage Filters
The rising popularity of the Internet has many political analysts
arguing that a new era of government relations is upon us. There was a time
when to lobby meant to sit in the lobby of the hotel across from the White House
in order to talk with the President. There followed a time when lobbying meant
a lot of golf with legislators. We all know that government relations is now
a much more demanding profession. We must be more systematic in our methods,
coordinating our efforts to reach policy makers on many levels and in many venues.
Just as more policy makers are using the Internet to conduct their
research, so too are their constituents. Access to more policy information and
the tools to facilitate constituent communication with public officials create
an environment where government relations professionals must factor the public
into their equations for success. If the public is not recruited to support
your cause, rest assured they will be recruited by your opponents. This makes
educating the public about your policy positions more important than ever.
The rising popularity of the "My Personal Homepage" feature available
on many news Web sites creates a special challenge for state and local government
relations professionals seeking to marshal public support. These personalized
Web pages can be designed by the user to display only the articles that satisfy
his or her interests. Where getting a story placed on the front page of the
newspaper or on the TV evening news is considered a great success offline, filters
used on personalized news media Web sites take a big bite out of this success
online. The secret to successfully exploiting online news media coverage is
to employ a multi-media strategy that allows all of your offline and online
messaging to reinforce each other.
Take for example mywashingtonpost.com, the personalized version
of the Washington Post's Web site. Mywashingtonpost.com let users select specific
categories and sub-categories of headlines to be displayed on their own customized
interface of daily news items available from the Post. The news categories not
selected will be filtered out. If a user is interested in headlines from the
Nation section, they are asked to choose among various sub-categories. These
subcategories include "Nation Top News" and "State News."
Under "State News" is a list of all fifty states. If there is a hot
issue in Maine, for example, an article addressing the issue will only be displayed
if a user has selected Maine headlines. Because each state is selected individually,
it is unlikely that a mywashingtonpost user would be exposed to most state specific
headlines.
Given the obstacle presented by myhomepage filters, state and
local issue programs must employ a cross-seeding strategy to increase constituent
exposure to potentially filtered-out messages. One strategy is to use direct
email and postal mailings, which should include the specific Web addresses for
the articles that have appeared in the online news media.
Creating a separate Web site devoted to your organization's policy
interests can increase your chances for reaching policy makers' constituents.
Placing links to favorable news articles on this site will also increase exposure
to the story. Other marketing efforts designed to drive traffic to this Web
site will, in effect, increase exposure to this news coverage. Billboards, bus-side
posters, and even street hawkers alert people to an issue, directing them to
the Web site, where the news story, additional information and activation tools
should all be available.
In general, the key to successfully exploiting the news media
and increasing constituent support for your policy positions is to market your
coverage. By increasing the number of ways people can access the news stories
and by increasing the likelihood that people find the points of access, you
can maximize the impact of these stories. In fact, using these strategies can
make a favorable news story in an obscure local newspaper as powerful as a story
in the Washington Post.
Online Advocacy Tips:
Competing with Filters
1. Send out email alerts with links to favorable press.
2. Create a separate Web site devoted to your policy issues.
3. Link your issue Web site to favorable press.
4. Market your issue Web site by including the Web address in all policy-related
messages.
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