Quigley’s Twitter Problems and IL-5 Updates

Questionable Twitter ethics got me following the IL-5 race.  Now several weeks later, I see the question of how candidates interact with the public on Twitter is one of the interesting side stories in this campaign.

My earlier Twitter experience in the IL-5 race happened when John Fritchey’s campaign started to follow me on Twitter only moments after one of his opponents, Sara Feigenholtz, followed me.  I could see that one campaign was watching the other campaign’s Twitter followers and then going right to those people.  It just represented a left-to-be desired method to quickly build a Twitter following.

Lately, I’ve observed an interesting pattern from Mike Quigley’s campaign.  It seems the campaign manager is aiming to attack  Sara Feigenholtz’s campaign on Twitter.  Here’s a sampling of his Tweets:

So @saraforcongress, didn’t see you raising awareness, saw you missing an ethics vote and attending fundraisers. http://tinyurl.com/betu3t 6:23 PM Feb 5th from TweetDeck

My buddy @SaraforCongress is twittering again. The great thing about campaigning today is no votes to miss! http://tinyurl.com/c4d6ju 7:31 PM Feb 8th from TweetDeck

@jessegreenberg you’re not going to get an invite from MQ4Cong. cause you’re right, there are better things to do than campaign tweets 6:01 PM Jan 20th from TweetDeck in reply to jessegreenberg

Done with petitions. If somebody wants to stop Quigley from getting on, better kidnap me now. Paging @saraforcongress 8:54 PM Jan 18th from TweetDeck

I point this out because it’s just a low form of mudslinging politics that I think a lot of us are tired of.  Twitter and Facebook should really be about using the tools to communicate real issues to people.  It’s hard to build relationships and built trust in a candidate when the subject matter is petty jibes at an opponent.  I know more about Quigley’s opponents in this race – Geoghegan, Feigenholtz, Fritchey and Wheelan – because their campaign’s outreach has been an invitation for people to learn about their candidacy (for the most part).

It also appears Quigley had more Twitter trouble.  The Rogers Park Bench blog posted a funny situation involving a Tweet he received from Quigley’s Twitter account.  It just shows that Twitter is a forum for actual people and it is very hard to skate because people do listen.

*The Quigley campaign attacks were also picked up by Rich Miller over at Capital Fax.  He provided the IL-5 day’s roundup that I encourage you to check out.

*The Chicago Tribune’s editorial board has begun to interview the IL-5 candidates, so it can presumably make an endorsement.

*Access Living in River North will also be hosting a candidate forum next week.

Twittering for Illinois’ 5th Congressional Seat

Rahm Emmanuel’s open Congressional seat is going to be a tight race.  Several seasoned, ethical and progressive candidates have stepped up to run, including Sara Feigenholtz and John Fritchey.

In what typically is an 8-month to year-long race for a Congressional seat, the special election primary is only a few weeks away, held on March 3rd.  And, because this district is so Democratic, the primary date, for all intents and purposes, will determine the overall election winner.

In this sprint to election day, Feigenholtz and Fritchey are pulling out the social media stops to pick up supporters.  And truly this is a war.

I received a Twitter invitation to follow Sara Feigenholtz.  After accepting and following her back, I received an invitation from John Fritchey less than a half hour later.  Clearly, the Fritchey Campaign is watching who Feigenholtz is connected to on Twitter and trying to engage them as well.  It’s a bold political move, but I’m not sure I agree with it.

John, picking off a competitor’s connections seems to be walking the wrong side of social media ethics.  I would try harder to build your own following organically.  I understand there is not a lot of time and both you and Sara just started to Tweet in January but shortcuts have never been a good idea.

Fritchey has the leg up though through his blog.  He’s been blogging for quite a while and has a history and track-record in new media.  That’s great and real advantage in a short race like this.

This illustrates a point I have made that for new media to be most effective in public affairs, candidates are best served to use blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc. before running for office.

Why before?  Because history can help establish credibility and an audience.  I feel like starting to use some of these tools during an election is a huge task to handle considering all the other things in a campaign that are going on.  No wonder few campaigns use the two-way communication tools of social media that it was intended.  Rather, social media for political candidates often is another outlet to broadcast.  I’m not saying that’s going on here yet, but it’s early.

I’m waiting for Mike Quigley’s Twitter invite…

Chicago Alderman Flores Gets Twitter

Yesterday, Alderman Flores and I become followers of each other on Twitter.  To my knowledge, he’s the only Chicago City Councilman using Twitter.

Alderman Manny Flores

 

 

A quick scan of his Tweets demonstrates the Alderman really gets Twitter.  Yesterday, Ald. Flores posted seven Tweets to give his followers a sense of what his daily schedule is and what issues he’s paying attention to.  Examples include:

“visiting with students from Noble Street Charter High School to discuss alternative energy to help students prepare for a debate”

“having his office staff attend a briefing of the Chicago Climate Action Plan conducted by the Chicago Department of Environment.”

“leaving the Academy for Global Citizenship – great curriculum. Very inspiring.”

In Chicago especially, this level of transparency is vital because of the long history of shadiness and corruption (Ed Vrdoliak???).  For his constituents and followers, Flores is demonstrating his understanding that the public wants to see how he spends his time, how he manages staff resources and where he stands on issues.  The more he can communicate to the public and open himself up, the more trust he will receive. 

Trust is everything in politics.  Simply by using Twitter, Flores is strategically working to earn the political capital that he’ll need to take on bigger issues and manage a larger political profile.

Beyond Twitter, I went over to Ald. Flores website as his Twitter presence piqued my curiosity.  The design was simple, the information useful and straightforward.  I especially liked that the staff was listed, noting their areas of expertise and matters they deal with, along with their contact info.  That’s good constituent service.  

Furthermore, Flores’ set up a nice email reply that came when I signed up for his e-newsletter.  Here’s the response I received: 

 

Dear Jesse,  Welcome to Alderman Manuel Flores, 1st Ward. We are happy to have you as a member of our community. Your email address and interest preferences have been recorded in our database. In the future, you will receive periodic emails specific to your interests. Privacy is important to us; therefore, we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone. At any point, you can select the link at the bottom of every email to unsubscribe, or to receive less or more information. Thanks again for registering. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us. Sincerely, Alderman Manuel Flores Alderman Manuel Flores, 1st Ward

Local Publication Provides Election Service Via Twitter

The Pioneer Press, owned by the Chicago SunTimes group and publisher of dozens of Chicago neighborhood and suburban weekly papers, found a way to provide a unique and highly relevant service to its customers this election. Through Twitter, Pioneer pushed out election race updates to over 220 followers. On Election Day, updates came every few minutes sharing reports on the wait times at polling stations around the Chicago area.

Congratulations to the Pioneer Press for providing a true public affairs service and being highly relevant to readers this election. While the Tribune and Sun-Times use Twitter to push out stories it publishes online and in print, the Pioneer Press did a superb job of sharing content, showing relevant news updates not found anywhere else and responding to Twitter users questions. It demonstrated the true use of Twitter as a give and take medium. Rather than broadcasting messages as Jacob Morgan points out guest-blogging on Chris Brogan’s blog, which nobody really likes, Pioneer kept the conversation and interest alive.

I think this is a great lesson in the new journalism. Pioneer’s Twitter use proved that not all content can or should be published online or in print. Furthermore, the true value of a paper – especially a local paper – is to provide local information not covered by the larger city or national papers. Pioneer showed they are a true authority on local news.

A real community formed around Pioneer’s Twitter use and will continue to look to the publication for local info. I hope that Pioneer saw the value in Twittering and will continue to use it even after the election.

New Data on Social Media Sites

Here’s MediaPost reporting on the most recent social media site traffic:

News Brief

Twitter Fastest-Growing Social Networking Site

Thursday, Oct 23, 2008 11:11 PM ET

Twitter, Tagged and Ning were the fastest-growing social networking sites in September, according to Nielsen Online. Starting from a base of less than 1 million visitors a year ago, each has at least tripled U.S. traffic since then. Micro-blogging site Twitter has grown almost fourfold from 533,000 to 2.4 million visitors. Among more established social networks, LinkedIn was the fastest-growing–nearly tripling its audience to 11.9 million. That growth rate helped the site for professionals this week close another $22.7 million in venture capital. In June, it raised $53 million. Facebook continued to grow at a healthy clip, more than doubling its traffic from 18 million a year ago to 39 million. MySpace remained the largest social network with an audience of 59.3 million, but its traffic has been essentially flat, increasing only 1%.–Mark Walsh