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Pigeons blogging pollution?

Well, at least they aren’t human-pigeon hybrids…

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Saw this in the NYT today…

It is democracy, but in a distinctly Iraqi style. This country is in the final days of a campaign that is at once more ruthless and more sophisticated than anything yet seen here.

Slick television spots run throughout the day, showing candidates who soberly promise to defeat terrorism and revive the economy. Cellphone users routinely get unexpected text messages advertising one candidate or another. Thousands of posters decorate the capital’s gray blast walls, including one that shows a split face - half Saddam Hussein, half Ayad Allawi - in a blunt effort to smear Mr. Allawi, the former prime minister, and his secular coalition.

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Since I have been posting a lot about mobile phones lately, I wanted to direct you towards a post from last year by Mark Blumenthal, aka Mystery Pollster. If you are interested in polling/statistics at all you should check him out regularly… Anyway, a lot of people have been wondering about the effect that wireless-only households will have on the accuracy of public opinion polling and Blumenthal weighs in with this:

We could calculate the “coverage error” that results from excluding wireless-only adults from political polls if we knew two things: (1) How the vote preferences of wireless only adults differ from those with working landlines and (2) the percentage of all likely voters with only wireless service. Unfortunately, both numbers are unknown.

Still, assume for the sake of argument that wireless adults are 5% of the electorate, that a survey of wired households shows a 48%-48% tie and that the missing wireless-only voters prefer John Kerry by a 20-point margin (58% to 38% - a pure but plausible guess based on the numbers for renters, low income, etc). If we were able to include the wireless only adults, it would change the overall preference by only one point - Kerry would lead 48.5% to 47.5%.

[snip]

Of course, that’s this year [2004]. Things could be very different next time. A recent study by the market research firm In-Stat/MDR estimates wireless only households growing to 30% in 2008. If that estimate holds, telephone polls will face enormous challenges in the very near future.

Seriously, go read the whole thing. And maybe this post too…

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SmartMobs points to a Reuters story on U2 using text messaging at their shows to influence policy (or get signups… depending on how cynical you feel).

Then the band launches into the song “One,” and Bono encourages the audience to use their phones to send a text message to the one.org Web site, a sort of digital petition voicing support for poverty relief in Africa. Later, during the encore, the names of all who did so are scrolled on the same screen, and each receive a message of thanks from Bono on their phones.

It has all the important pieces - a celebrity request, a good goal, collective action (peer-pressure), and recognition…

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I thought that I would continue the series on “How to Be a Campaign Blogger” with this little case study that I blundered into this week. Nokia is doing something very interesting with their latest product launch and there is a lot that campaign bloggers can learn from their strategy.

A couple of days ago, I pointed to the Nokia N90 PR Blog. So far (a week after launch) they have 28 Technorati links.

That certainly shows that you can make some headway with a PR blog, if you do it right - and I must say that I am impressed so far.

You may be asking yourself how they built up this traffic so quickly. Well, sending out phones to bloggers probably didn’t hurt.

But more importantly, they linked back to people posting about them. They saw that I linked to them and dropped a friendly comment on the post:

Thank you for your kind words. This is a first effort for Nokia in the USA and we have spent a lot of time working to make it bloggercentric.

Bloggers in the review program will have access to the site, not just commenting ability. They will be able to post, interact. More importantly as questions arise they will be able to help one another as well as receive help from Nokia representatives as well as get those same people to be interviewed.

We appreciate you nice coverage and encourage you to stay in touch.

Regards,

Andy Abramson

Ok, so it is a little boilerplate, but it was still awfully courteous of Mr. Abramson to return the link.

Finally, they note in the “press room” section of the site:

Talk With Nokia

Do you want to talk with a Nokia spokesperson for a story or blog post? If you do, your Nokia Blogger Relations Team is here to help. Just send us an email and we’ll get set up the interview.

Well, lookee there. Actually welcoming press inquiries from blogs. Sure, bloggers could contact the press office anyway but having a standing invite certainly should increase their coverage.

Finally, there is one last thing I want to mention about this case study. The Nokia blog doesn’t shy away from engaging some negative comments. When blogger Craig Froehle was less than enthusiastic about the picture quality, (disclaimer — any communications directors out there may want to sit down before continuing) Abramson still links to the review:

One comment though, we’re posting all the reviews we are aware of from bloggers in the program, good and bad.

So the bloggers all 48 of you or so who have the N90’s don’t have to be shy and can air their views like Craig at GearBits did below.

Good on you, Andy Abramson.

Let’s recap the lessons learned here:

a) Send Bloggers Free Crap — (not that I think that the n90 is crap - in fact, my office address is below if you would like to send me a test version…). Old-school press people know this and have done it for years. In politics, they mostly could get away with feeding journalists. There are two main things that bloggers want (aside from loot): Traffic and Information. You have the ability to help them on both accounts.

b) Engage in the Discussion — Once you have people writing about you, respond. If they comment on your blog, answer them (Jesse Lee from the DCCC’s Stakeholder - a blog I set up when I worked there - is a MASTER at this). If they post about you on their blog, comment there (or better yet, trackback or post about it on your blog).

c) Don’t Shy Away from Criticism — Again, your best choice with negative publicity in the age of the internet is to deal with it openly and honestly. Ask Scooter Libby. More on using your blog for crisis management in a day or two.

UPDATE:

Ok - when I said “so it is a little boilerplate” in reference to the comment by Mr. Abramson I REALLY was thinking more along the lines of “when you have 40-50 bloggers with review models, you aren’t really going to have time to create responses from scratch - or you are going to need some intens”. I didn’t mean it as any kind of a snub - maybe it is just the Midwest in me, but I feel bad… Seriously, I really think what they are doing with this outreach is fabulous…

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