by Dusty Trice on February 20, 2011
I am honored to have been selected as a finalist for #politics in the 3rd Annual Shorty Awards!
The Shorty Awards honor the best people and organizations on Twitter and social media. This year there were over 750k tweeted nominations. The Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences will determine the winners from among the finalists and the announcement will be made at the Shorty Awards Ceremony on Monday, March 28th, 2011 at TheTimesCenter in New York City.
It is an honor to join my fellow finalists, including Emmy award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris, ‘Harry Potter’ Author J K Rowling, Chris Colfer from ‘Glee’, American Music award-winning recording artist Justin Bieber, President Barack Obama, The Young Turks, Sesame Street, and The Mythbusters.
Thank you to everyone who voted for me!
by Dusty Trice on January 2, 2011
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of a political campaign is the message. A good message gets to the point using as few words as possible, tells people what your campaign is about and addresses their core values & concerns. A winning message sticks to the facts, is credible and presents a clear contrast between what you and your opponent are saying. But how does a campaign come up with the message?
One of the tools campaigns use to test the strength of a message and keep the campaign focused is something called a message box. Here’s the basic structure of what a message box looks like:
In the upper left you’ll see ‘What you’re saying about yourself’. This box would be the positive things you’re saying about your own candidate or campaign, for example “community leadership experience” or “lifelong small business owner” or “strong family values” or “Standing up for working families” etc. Get creative, but be genuine. This box is everything you want the voters to know about you for the rest of the campaign.
In the lower left you’ll see ‘What you’re saying about them’. This box is all of the negative things you’re wanting to say about the opposition, for example “made a bunch of promises he didn’t keep once he got to Washington” or “career politician” or “completely out of touch with the community” or “supports tax breaks for billionaires” etc.
So that’s your message. Now all you have to do is take these simple themes from the ‘What you’re saying about yourself’ and the ‘What you’re saying about them’ boxes and flesh them out a bit. As far as your core message is concerned you’ll have pretty much everything you need until election day. But you’ve still got some work to do…
What is your opposition saying about themselves and what are they saying about you?
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