Social networks are a great way to build your campaign’s brand. The more people you have following you, the easier it is to release messaging and quickly mobilize your supporters. I frequently get email from campaigns asking how to increase traffic to their websites, blogs and social networks. Here are 5 simple ways you can promote your campaign’s brand and build a reliable following online.

Website: Your campaign’s website is the epicenter for anything and everything having to do with your brand. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Prominently feature ‘buttons’ that link to all of your social network accounts on your homepage. People shouldn’t have to guess what your buttons are, so make sure to use recognizable icons and logos.

Blog Posts: Your campaign website has a blog, right? Right?!? Well, that blog is the perfect place to advertise your social network presence. One of the most effective things you can do is put a discrete advertisement for your Twitter account at the bottom of each post. Check out the bottom of this post and you’ll see what I mean.  Also, definitely do a post dedicated entirely to which social networks your campaign is using.

Email Signatures: This is one of the most direct and effective ways to let people know where to find your campaign online. Your campaign website URL and contact info should already be in your email signature and it doesn’t take too much extra effort to add your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Since you’re connecting with a supporter and the channels of communication are open, make the most of it and pick up an extra Facebook friend in the process.

Stump Speeches & Presentations: If you’re going to subject a room full of people to a 45 min stump speech, you might as well get in a mention of your website and social networks. Tossing it out there at the end is a painless way to conclude your remarks.

Letterhead, Business Cards & Lit: This is the one that people usually forget or unnecessarily avoid. I’ve had Campaign Managers tell me that they didn’t want to include social networks on printed materials because ‘it might become outdated too quickly’. Wrong. People used to say that about putting websites URLs on printed materials and now that’s just standard. As long as you stick to Twitter and Facebook you should be safe for a while. Again, if you’re communicating with supporters don’t pass up the opportunity to promote the brand.

Remember, supporters aren’t just gonna stick around if you aren’t saying anything to them. Make sure to update the content on your website and put out frequent updates on your social network pages. If you keep giving your supporters a reason to check in on what you’re doing they’ll come back for more.

As a political consultant who specializes in social networks I’ve watched campaigns make every mistake you can imagine. Somebody tells an intern to set up a Twitter account and then it all goes to hell. These are the 5 most common and easily avoidable mistakes I see on political Twitter accounts:

1. Looking Desperate For Followers

You’ve probably seen those accounts. They follow hundreds of people and only have a handful of people following them back. Yup, that’s the kind of desperation I’m talking about. I usually recommend never following more than 20 percent over the number that are following you back. Obviously not a hard and fast rule, but you’ll have better results if you’re patient and build your account slowly.

2. The One Tweet Wonder

If you don’t tweet and your account looks inactive, don’t be surprised when you don’t get followers. Your neglected account sends the message that you’ve given up on Twitter. Why the hell would people want to follow you if they think you’ve given up?

3. Tweet Overkill

Slow down there, Happy Thumbs. Nobody wants to read every minor detail of your day and that goes double for boring campaign minutia. This mistake is the signature move of a larger campaign where the candidate’s bodyperson or Press Secretary is frantically updating via Blackberry.

4. Antisocial Networking

This isn’t Facebook, so don’t just give a status update. Had some coffee, in a meeting, ate a sandwich. Boring. Sure you can use Twitter to deliver a monologue, but like everything in politics your goal is to engage people and start a dialogue. Connect with people, ask some questions and if you get an ‘@reply’, try to respond promptly.

5. Wallpaper Wasteland

The valuable real estate around your twitter stream shouldn’t be wasted. That’s a lot of empty screen space. Fill it with info like your campaign website URL, phone number, email address, other social network URLs, a picture of your candidate, your campaign logo and a little biographical info. Take a look at my Twitter wallpaper and you’ll see what I mean.

Some tips for securing the best Twitter username:

1) Try to get your name.

This may seem like common sense, but try to get your candidate or organization’s name first. If it’s available, snag it. You’ve already spent plenty of time and money building up your name recognition, why not make your social networking identity a seamless part of your brand. In other words, duh.

2) What if someone else already has my username?

Not gonna make that mistake again, are you? Now some Dorito-stained loser has the username most readily associated with your brand and is using it to share their fanatical rants about ‘Twilight: New Moon’ one painful 140-character tweet at a time.

This sucks, but it isn’t the end of the world. Try thinking of the next most logical thing one of your supporters will look for and secure that instead. If you can’t get @MavisSmith, try getting @SmithForGovernor, @SmithForGov or @Smith2012. Your brand will still be clearly represented and in most cases the username you pick will be just as good as having secured your real name.

3) Don’t look like a spammer.

The quickest way to look like a spammer is to have an underscore in your username. Rather than going with @MavisSmith you go with @Mavis_Smith. Yup, you look like a spammer now. You should also avoid random strings of numbers, confusing abbreviations or anything that might look at home on AOL circa 1998. And definitely don’t try to be cute or clever. If you end up picking @SendJK_BK2TXS your social networking strategy is as good as dead.

Choosing the wrong username can have some pretty severe consequences to your campaign’s social networking strategy. And remember, these tips are universal to all current and future social networking platforms. You need to own your brand and to do that you need to own your name.

1. Quality Cameras give you quality video. This should go without saying, but a better camera will give you a better Youtube video. The old 4:3 format is fine, but you really want to be shooting in 16:9 widescreen. Keep in mind that a higher resolution camera will give you a higher quality video, so HD resolution is obviously the way to go.
2. Be Brief. Most Youtube accounts are capped at 10 minutes, but your video should be much shorter than that. Get to your point. Seriously. I’ve done enough research on this to know that your average viewer is only going to put up with you for about a minute. At the very least make sure to front load your video with the most important information.
3. The clip stands alone. Make each video capable of standing alone. People aren’t going to sit there and slug through an entire series, so treat each clip as it’s own individual installment.
4. Hyperlinks! Always put a link to your website, blog, Twitter account, Facebook page or whatever at the very top of the description field for your video. It’ll be the first thing a viewer sees when they read your description and it will make whatever you say in the video actionable. If you tell people to follow you on Twitter, you’ll have a link to your Twitter account right there in the sidebar.
5. Catchy titles work. Give your video a title that’s so irresistible that people have no choice but to click and watch it. Keep the title relevant to whatever you’re talking about and keep it brief. Very often the title is what will make or break a potentially viral clip.
6. Tags! Use ‘em. You’ll be surprised how many people will discover your video through simple keyword searches. Good tagging makes those searches significantly more lucrative for you in the long run.
7. Write detailed descriptions. That big ol’ description section should be filled to the brim with text describing what’s in your video and when possible should summarize all your main points. Search engines have no idea what you said in your video, so use descriptive text to help people discover your content.
8. Manage expectations. A video rarely goes viral on it’s own. Some videos will get a couple dozen hits, while others may be seen by thousands of people. I have plenty of experience with clips that have gone viral and I can tell you that it’s all about your distribution strategy. Sending a clip out to thousands of people doesn’t mean you’re going to get thousands of views. My most successful clips are always carefully controlled and limited in distribution.
9. Favorite stuff. Make sure to ‘favorite’ other people’s videos. People will look at your Youtube page and notice this kind of thing. ‘Favoriting’ increases your visibility and marks you as someone actually interested in participating. It sounds odd, but it will bring your videos more viewers.
10. Always leave your fingerprint. Watermark your videos. I don’t care if it’s with your website or your Twitter account or even just your name, just make sure your branding is somewhere on the clip. Releasing a video without a watermark is a missed opportunity for a call to action.

Should I follow back everyone who follows me on Twitter?

Yes. Follow everyone back.

Inevitably someone is going to suggest that following everyone back will lead to cluttered twitter streams and more information than you could ever possibly read. Blah, blah, blah. To that I say nonsense. And then I say shut up. And then I say shut up again because I really mean it this time.

Following people back is good Twitter etiquette. Your followers are basically telling you that what you tweet is worth paying attention to and therefore worth following. Following your followers back is a confirmation that you are ‘listening’ and want to hear what they have to say. Returning a follow confirms that you’re part of the Twitter community and not just spewing nonsense into the ether.

Should I really follow EVERYONE?

No. Don’t be stupid. Twitter is rife with spammers and porn-bots and people trying to sell you ‘natural male enhancements’. Be selective and don’t follow them. And don’t try to get clever and use one of those services that automatically follows the people who follow you. This is the kind of account maintenance that needs to be done regularly by a real live human being.

As much as it pains me to use this particular local politician as an example of doing this correctly, please turn your attention to Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Twitter account. The list of people she’s following is proportional to those who are following her, but the list has very obviously been groomed to accommodate only genuinely interested followers. I’d like to add that this is one of the rare instances where I’ll advise you to do anything like Michele Bachmann.

1) Treat Status Updates Like Mini Stump Speeches

Would you talk about what you ate for lunch today in the middle of a stump speech? No? Well, then don’t do it in your status update. Striking a balance between professional and playful is not easy, but it is the key to getting your message noticed by your supporters. Don’t get cute, but don’t be a robot. And even though there isn’t a character limit, try to keep it short and sweet. I’d suggest using the Twitter 140 character rule. It’s a status update, not a campaign commercial.

Do this:

Not this:

2) Choose Your Profile Pic Carefully

Is there anything more boring than some old stiff in a tie. Loosen up. Got a great pic from a recent visit with your constituents, a candid shot of you on the campaign trail or something outdoorsy from a recent canoe trip? Use it! Sure you’re a politician, but this is Facebook. At least pretend to be human. Just make sure you can still recognize your face and don’t be afraid to change your profile pic regularly.

3) Feed The Beast

You should probably update your Facebook page from time to time. Yes. I have to say this. Facebook is not a website and you can’t just fill it with stuff and walk away. Don’t abandon your supporters. Not having the time to keep your page under control is no excuse. Your campaign is constantly generating new content, so make sure your Facebook page reflects this with regular updates.

Twitter is something I’m going to be using quite frequently here on DUSTYTRICE.COM. If you’ve never heard of it don’t worry. You’re not alone. It’s a relatively new social networking service that has the potential to become one of the coolest tools in your political organizing trick-bag.

So what is Twitter? It’s a social networking tool that allows people to stay connected through brief 140 character updates online or on a mobile device like a Blackberry or iPhone. You can use it to let someone know what you’re doing or share a link to some interesting content. The power of Twitter is that you can follow the things other people are doing and posting and they can follow you back.

And it’s FREE. As in beer.

Why do you need it? On Twitter you can post a link to a news story, comment on something you found interesting or let people know about what’s going on in your neck of the woods. Twitter is also great if you just want to follow along, seeing other people’s news, commentary and announcements as they occur. You’ll be surprised at how many like-minded and interesting people are already out there for you to follow.

How it works. Twitter is on the interwebs and you get there by going to twitter.com. Signing up is easy. All you need to do is to fill out a short form and give them your email address, which they don’t share with anyone. You can choose to keep your updates private or public. If you don’t care who reads your updates, choose public. If you want to control who can see your updates, pick private.

Twitter limits your updates to 140 characters, so when you ‘tweet’ your updates they must be kept short. This helps keep things from getting too cluttered or overwhelming. It also means that you have an option of using your mobile phone to send updates because 140 characters is the exact length of a text message. If you have a Blackberry or an iPhone you’ll find that there are many great applications that you can use to post or read updates.

You will be given a twitter page that shows just your updates and let’s you see who you are following and how many people are following you back. There is also an option to see what the people you are following are saying on your ‘home’ page. You can customize your page with a wallpaper and give yourself a little icon so people can recognize you. Many twitter users have a picture of their face, but it is entirely up to you. Here is my Twitter page if you want to see what I mean.

Are there applications or clients I can use? You bet. For Blackberry you have TwitterBerry. For iPhone there are Twitteriffic, Twitterfon and Tweetie. Want something a little nicer than the webpage for your computer? Check out TweetDeck or Twhirl. Most of these applications are free.

What’s with all this @ business? What’s DM? Each user picks their username and Twitter puts an ‘@’ in front of it. For instance, my username is @dustytrice.

If you see a tweet of mine you want to respond to, you can click on the little arrow next to my post and respond or just enter my username at the beginning of your tweet. That is called an @reply. So if I write a tweet about how much I hate Tim Pawlenty, you can @reply to my tweet by saying ‘@dustytrice Pawlenty sure seems to want to be President more than he want to be Governor of MN’. Remember that everyone can see an @reply.

If you want to send me a note in private you can do that with a Direct Message or DM. DM’s are not seen publicly. There is a place on the sidebar of your Twitter page where those show up, but only you can see them. Twitter will also send you an email if someone DM’s you, which is really helpful.

What is retweeting? If someone tweets something and you want to share it with your followers you can retweet it. You’ll see a lot of messages with ‘RT’ or ‘via’ in the message indicating that someone has retweeted some information. You can just copy and paste a tweet to retweet it or there are several options if you are using a 3^rd party application. Just make sure to give credit for the original tweet by including the persons @username and saying either RT or Via somewhere in your message. You’ll see it enough that you’ll quickly get the hang of it.

How is Twitter a poltical organizing tool? You will be amazed at how much political information is flying around out on Twitter. Many campaigns, political blogs, reporters and public officials use Twitter. You can follow them to find out what they’re doing. If you have an event coming up you can let people know about it. If something newsworthy is happening you can tell people about it live.

Twitter really helps speed the flow of information between a very targeted group of people. You might get a tweet about the Sherburne County bean feed. You may tweet a link to a press release from one of your local candidates. Twitter helps you reach your desired audience easier and quicker than ever before.

How is DUSTYTRICE.COM using Twitter? I’m using Twitter to follow people from around the state who are making, breaking or reporting political news. I’m using Twitter to help spread information you need to know and interesting political stories. I’m using Twitter to report live from the events I’m covering around Minnesota. Most importantly, I’m using Twitter to interact with people who are interested in my blog and to answer questions. You can follow me here. My username is @dustytrice.

What else? Nothing else. Go sign up now. Seriously. Now.

(Click Here To Watch The Video)

I got to witness something really special the other day. About a dozen tea party activists had staked out Sen. Al Franken’s booth at the Minnesota State Fair and confronted him loudly when he arrived. But within minutes, he’d turned an unruly crowd into a productive conversation on health care. The discussion went from insurance reform, to the public option, to veterans benefits, to cap and trade. He made a few laugh and even told a touching story that moved a few to tears. A whole lot of common ground was found.

UPDATE: I’ve just posted more clips of Sen. Franken at the MN State Fair below the fold…

(Click Here To Watch The Video)

(Click Here To Watch The Video)