Google's politics team has been working with presidential campaigns for years. Now they're ready to share the lessons they've learned with candidates for everything from the local school board to the U.S. Senate.
The "four screens to victory" initiative, which launched on Wednesday, aims to convince those running for office at every level of politics that they need a presence across television, computers, tablets and smartphones in order to run a successful campaign.
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The site is half best practices, half sales pitch for Google products.
"We’re trying to build a base of expertise how to help campaigns win online," says Charles Scrase, who works with elections, campaigns and non-profits that use Google platforms.
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"Google’s goal is to make the web work for all political campaigns. What we’re attempting to do is take the insights of presidential and congressional campaigns and get them to folks up and down across the ballot and get those tools in the hands of everyone."
That sales pitch, though, is aimed at the masses.
"We’re making what we do scalable," says Scrase. "It’s impossible to deliver deep, tailored solutions for every campaign. But 'Four Screens for Victory' is about taking the best of what we’ve learned and making it accessible. We hope to reach thousands of potential candidates."
"Four Screens to Victory" also happens to have four steps to victory: "Build your organization," "Define the issues," "Persuade the electorate" and "Get out the vote." Google's happy to help campaigns with all four.
The first step in winning a campaign, says Google, is building an organization -- the people who will help you get to the school board, the White House or anywhere in-between. And when your potential supporters are looking for more information about you, what do they do? Search, of course.
Good SEO can help people find your website, but Google's trying to encourage candidates to purchase search ads to ensure they find the right person. After all, natural search results can bury a candidate -- imagine if somebody named "George Bush" or "Justin Bieber" was running for mayor of a small town, for example.
Search ads, says Google, can point people in the right direction and can be targeted locally -- helping that hypothetical other George Bush get noticed by his neighbors. Then it's up to him to get them ringing phones and knocking on doorbells.
YouTube has a part to play in all this as well, says Google. It lets campaigns "respond to a breaking story by posting a new video, available across any device, in a matter of minutes."
Those videos can be geographically targeted, too. and video can be easily consumed across computers, tablets and mobile devices. (Google highlights "2 Legit 2 Quit," one of Mashable's favorite political YouTube videos).
In the end, though, winning a campaign is all about getting out the vote. Google offers help here as well, suggesting mobile ads as an excellent platform for reaching people in specific voting districts come Election Day.
"[Getting out the vote] is the most critical aspect of running a campaign," says Scrase. "As the Internet has become more complicated and comprehensive, a lot of campaigns have become very successful at getting out the vote using online media. Targeting allows for a campaign for a small congressional campaign or mayoral campaign to blanket a small area with a heavy amount of ads in a critical time."
Scrase has seen political campaigns use mobile ads in new and innovative ways on Election Day. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), for example, used mobile ads that let users click to find out where they could vote or connect them with a campaign phone bank to learn more about her.
Why should a campaign use digital ads over direct mailers and TV ads? In a word, engagement. A pro-Mitt Romney ad appearing right next to a New York Times headline about the candidate catches voters when they're already thinking about politics.
"I think if you look at the way political campaigns have run over time, direct mail and TV has been a staple for decades," says Scrase.
"But they rely on disruptive messaging -- catching people’s attention while they’re doing something else. What we think is so powerful about the web is that we’re reaching people at moments of decision points, when they’re thinking about an issue and wanting to learn more."
Scrase and the Google team aren't modest about how powerful the tools they're promoting can be for a political campaign.
"We think [these platforms] have the potential to change the electoral process, and we’re excited to be a part of that change, because we think it’s good for democracy," says Scrase.
What do you think about Google's platforms and advice for political campaigns? Sound off in the comments below.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, pagadesign
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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