Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User Generated Content

What's a campaign, non-profit, or advocacy group to do when the public wants individualized, interactive, on-demand content thisveryminute? The good news is that the tools for building active social networks already exist.  They are surprisingly affordable, and they seem to work well for both national movements and small, local campaigns. Person-to-Person-to-Person takes what you already know about human nature and incorporates the concepts in an affordable, tangible way into strategy.

INTRODUCTION
by Julie Barko Germany
Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet

“Social software is political science in executable form.” - Clay Shirky, Social Software and the Politics of Groups

In July 2006, a Web site called MySpace.com, originally used as a way for bands and music lovers to connect online, became the most popular Web site in the United States. Bigger than Google. Bigger than MSN or Yahoo. Bigger than Amazon. Social networking officially arrived for most of mainstream America.

Its reign as King of the Web, however, lasted just a few weeks. YouTube, a site that allows users to post, share, and discuss videos soon emerged as the new most popular site on the Web, serving up more than one million videos a day.

Is the hype of MySpace in particular and social networks in general justified? In the grand sweep of social networks – both online and offline – Internet giant MySpace is considered to be a “low trust” social network because of its size, the proliferation of fake profiles, and its devalued concept of what constitutes a friend. Further, some would argue that sites like YouTube contain so many different videos that the only way for political groups to break through the clutter is to create extreme, even offensive content – a move that some groups and campaigns may be unwilling to make. On the other hand, the promises that Web 2.0 will engage, rejuvenate, and activate the public in new ways have led many organizations to leverage social networks in relatively simple ways and with successful results.

So what’s a campaign, non-profit, or advocacy group to do when the public wants individualized, interactive, ondemand content thisveryminute? The good news is that the tools for building active social networks already exist. They are surprisingly affordable, and they seem to work well for both national movements and small, local campaigns. ...

Download Person-to-Person-to-Person: Harnessing the Political Power of Online Social Networks and User Generated Content

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The Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet
The Graduate School of Political Management
The George Washington University
805 21st St., NW, Suite 401
Washington, DC 20052
1.800.367.4776 toll free
www.ipdi.org

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction
By Julie Barko Germany
Chapter 1 – Social Media: Promising Tool, Double-Edged Sword
By Colin Delany
Chapter 2 – Don’t Let Go Yet! What You Need to Know about User-Generated Media and Politics before You Take the Plunge
By Julie Barko Germany
Chapter 3 – Reaching the Under 30 Demographic: Social Networking in the 2006 Campaigns
By Riki Parikh
Chapter 4 – How Howard Dean Turned Online Social Networks into an Offline Phenomenon
By Michael Silberman
Chapter 5 – Call in Now! How Townhall.com Turned Talk Radio into a Community of Bloggers
By Chuck DeFeo
Chapter 6 – Building Networks of Informed Online Adults
By Carl Rosendorf
Chapter 7 – The Social Context
By Eric D. Alterman
Chapter 8 – The Emerging Podcast Swing Vote
By Chris MacDonald
Chapter 9 – Building a Blog Network
By Michael Krempasky
Chapter 10 – Go with the Flow . . . But Not Just Any Flow
By Valdis Krebs

Chapter 11 – Identity Formation in Online Social Networking Web Sites
By Mara Johanna Veraar
Chapter 12 – Take Action, Get Action: Using the Power of Love to Drive Activism
By John Hlinko
Chapter 13 – How an E-mail Campaign Can Tap into Social Networks
By William Greene
Chapter 14 – Take It Offline: How One Person Can Reach One Thousand
By Brad Fay
Chapter 15 – Moving Ideas: A Higher Order Social Network
By Alan Rosenblatt
Chapter 16 – Building a Network of Political Allies: How the Environmental Movement Is Learning to Leverage Its Network of Allies
By Gideon Rosenblatt
Chapter 17 – Essembly
By Joe Green
Chapter 18 – Think like a Rock Band: How to Use Social Networking Sites for Political Campaigns
By Justin Perkins and Heather Holdridge
Chapter 19 – Video Games Are Political Tools
By Nicco Mele and David K. Cohen
Chapter 20 – Creating an Online Voter Space
By Ravi Singh
Chapter 21 – Political Organizing through Social Networking Sites: the Fred Gooltz Story
By Zack Rosen
Chapter 22 – Is the Hot Factor Worth the Trip? Why Some Groups Are Forgoing the MySpace Experience
By Phil Sheldon

Author Biographies

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