Notes &
How Stephen Harper is Out-Obama-ing Michael Ignatieff
It’s 2011.
I’m not sure if you are all aware of this news. It’s not 2007. It’s not even 2008.
You are not to be blamed if you’ve gotten confused based on the fact that the Canadian election is being fought like a bad pre-internet re-run.
I thought we all learned in 2008. I thought Barack Obama and his Facebook-founding guru Chris Hughes taught us all how it should be done. I saw countless speaking engagements at which social media experts gave the 20:20 post mortem of how Obama had won the election by engaging with grass-roots people and building a movement.
I remember hearing about a system by Blue State Digital, a platform that was product-ised out of Obama’s last campaign and was supposed to be available for use by socially progressive parties worldwide.
So pardon my incredulity when I ask “Weren’t they listening??”
I predicted publicly to everyone that would listen back in October/November that an election was in the air. I’m not clairvoyant, so I figure that the Liberal Party of Canada knew this election was coming too.
It takes quite a while to build a website, and the Conservative Party seems to know how to get it done…and I gotta tell you: whoever designed the site for the Liberal Party of Canada should be (gently) fired.
If only we had a benchmark… wait! We have several!
Obama has conveniently just (TODAY) released his new website for the 2012 election. Wait… What??!?! Yes, that’s right, in preparation for the Nov. 6, 2012 election, Obama’s team has already released their organizing site.
The Conservative Party of Canada had a website as of July 2008 that had more social media links than the Liberal Party site has today. Facebook, front and centre.
Let’s look at Obama’s front page (launched today, April 4, 2011)
Simple. Clean. Effective.
Two buttons at the top make it easy to GET INVOLVED and DONATE NOW.
Neither is more important than the other. Obama doesn’t want just want rich people’s money. He wants you to get involved (arguably if you read left to right, he wants you to get involved first!)
And then he’s asking you a simple hip question. “Are you in?” It’s a hip, catchy phrase, not unlike the “Adidas:All In” campaign out there right now. Importantly, Obama asks you right up front to declare where you are, and they make it easy to do so, by allowing you to declare your intentions to be “In” on Facebook.
So far, 19 million people have declared themselves to be in.
He has 19 million declarations of support on Day 1.
A stimulating video is followed by links to Get Involved, Volunteer, Visit the Store, and Donate.
The Store has some cool looking swag, and the Donation page has the basic info in an easy to fill out form, with info on how to send cheques in in case you don’t trust the interwebs.
More Importantly, the GET INVOLVED link is doing all the things the Obama did last time, that everyone said that smart people would do this time…
- Ask You Again: Are You In?
- Latest Updates About the Campaign (in this case, Day 1)
- Events (you can attend)
- Groups (you can join)
- Grassroots Fundraising (you can raise!)
- Volunteer (again - we want your time, not just your money)
- Become A Summer Organizer (apply now to join!)
There are links to discussions, tools to help you share the materials you see (Twitter, Facebook, email only because those are the main ones that count)
SO - who has learned from 2008? Not the Liberal Party with its deep connections to the Democrats to our south. It’s the Conservatives.
While I’m not thrilled about the top of their site, it’s not as simple as Obama’s, they have slightly different purposes. We have to understand that Obama’s site is only trying to get people involved and Harper’s team has moved further into educating on policy etc. I think they can do a better job - because I don’t think policy should completely squeeze out visitor-engagement in today’s day and age. But still - LOOK: they’re already trying to get people out to vote in the advance polls!
Scrolling down the Conservative site you see some other great tools.
Ok - so they’re slightly prioritizing donations over getting people involved, but boy do they do a great job of it. Their donations page explains how to contribute online, by mail, by fax - and it explains CLEARLY - that the regulations allow you to donate up to a maximum of $1100 to the National Party AND another $1100 to a riding association (or candidate campaign) directly. They have tools like a donation tax receipt calculator (an awful lot of what you give can be written-off!)
And when you want to get involved in the Conservative campaign, look how easy it is: 7 little fields. The Liberal Party expects people to fill in 16 fields (some might be optional, but they don’t say so).
Both Parties and leaders offer you the opportunity to “like” them on Facebook, and both appear to be fairly equally liked. Harper and Ignatieff both getting in the high 40,000 likes, and both Parties getting around 12,000 likes.
But that’s where the comparison ends.
Stephen Harpers Conservatives seem to “get it”. Like Obama’s campaign, they seem to really want you to get involved and they want to empower you to help them win!
A link to a microsite titled ToryNation.ca seems to be where the pedal meets the metal. According to the site, Tory Nation is a 24/7 virtual campaign office. Apparently if you sign in, you get full access to your own online action centre to help: Spread the Conservative message, Find Events nearby, Raise Money, Connect with other Conservatives, and Recruit Volunteers.
I can see nothing like this on the Liberal Party site. Nothing at all.
And finally, the Conservative site also has an advantage over the Liberal site in that it has a swag store where you can buy Conservative gear including a Stephen Harper bobblehead, memory sticks, t-shirts, decals, bracelets, everything you can think of with the Conservative-logo on it… if you’ve got a gang coming over to “talk Tory”, why not buy some swag to give away or sell to them?
… If you’re interested, here are some screen shots of the Liberal Party website…
Let’s ignore the fact that I’d never allow the candidate to be photographed with such bad posture, I’d not use the shot as the main one on the website. Hey, I’m out of shape too, but I know to be photographed wearing a jacket. Let’s ignore the colour scheme being over-weighted in black. Let’s ignore the HTML errors that cause text boxes to run over each other.
The call to action to get involved is just not clear and certainly not simple.
The donation page does not show that I can fax in donations, though it does have a phone number (down, down, down at the bottom right-hand corner of the page). The site does NOT explain that you can donate up to $1100 to the National Party and up to another $1100 to candidates.
Most importantly, the Liberal site doesn’t allow people to feel like the campaign would be *their* campaign. Obama is asking me if I’m “In”, and Harper is allowing me to join “Tory Nation” and invite my friends to do so as well. Ignatieff’s Liberals seem to want to show me how complicated things are, with a lot of little text on the screen, and a heavy focus on policy, but little real engagement, and no empowering of people.
I’m really surprised. They don’t “get it”. And I think in a race this close, it’s going to make a big difference if they can’t build their grassroots support and fundraising. The only question that remains is:
Why?
Wasn’t 3 years enough time to fully read the April 1, 2009 Fast Company cover article on Chris Hughes and figure out exactly how to do what Obama did the last time?
