San Antonio mayoral race and Web 2.0
Tomorrow Texas Public Radio will run a story about how the candidates running for mayor of San Antonio are using the Internet and social media. It should be an interesting story in an election following one of the most successful campaigns to leverage these tools, the Obama campaign. Lessons to be learned from that campaign are that if a candidate can successfully use the tools offered they can stand to benefit from getting the message out and raising incredible amounts of money. The question is how much these campaigns understand that aspect and are willing to take the time to leverage it.
From what I’ve seen so far none of the candidates have the concepts down completely but there are aspects of it in all three campaigns. To start with all three do have websites up and running and can take contributions online with Castro’s being the first. However it took a while to find Cibrian’s website and Google searches didn’t help so I’m not sure I have the right site. I did find her city council site, a Recall Diane site, and several stories about her activities during the past council term. DeBerry did have problems getting her website started and it is possible that speculation of her intentions to run might have been a sign of the slow launch. Shortly after that speculation a website appeared and the mayoral announcement followed.
Both Castro and DeBerry-Mejia are using Click and Pledge, a national campaign donation management system based in Blacksburg, VA. It’s easy to use and provides a good method for capturing critical information necessary for campaign finance reports. Cibrian appears to be taking the simple route and using PayPal’s payment system. This could become a challenge for her when it comes to campaign finance reporting as critical information such as occupation and employer are not captured.
Regarding capturing e-mails for future contacts only Castro and DeBerry-Mejia have that concept down. Both have been leveraging those e-mail lists to distribute information to their supporters. Castro has taken the next step of adding a donation link in every e-mail. That was a highly successful move by the Obama campaign that netted millions of dollars in small donations for his campaign. Making it easy for small donors to contribute is critical for campaigns these days as the aggregate numbers show that a candidate has strong grassroots support by the large number of donors and the small average donation amount. Castro succeeded on this point and it got him press after the latest reporting period.
Finally comes the question of blogging. DeBerry-Mejia is the only one that seems to be taking advantage of this messaging tool and has published a blog updated periodically. You can subscribe to the blog through RSS and get updates when they happen. She’s using WordPress, a widely used blogging tool that this site is built on also. What is even more interesting is that she seems to allow comments even if they appear somewhat critical. Not many people are commenting on her site so I’m not sure if anyone is really reading the blog. Castro should stand a blog up as he seems to have a lot of information to provide on issues. It’s not clear if his web team can stand this up as his site is running on Cold Fusion and the tools may not be there to create one.
Both Castro and DeBerry-Mejia are on Facebook with Castro using his personal profile and DeBerry-Mejia using a group. Something to note on Facebook is that when your circle of fans reaches 5,000 or more if you are using your profile or a group you lose the ability to send messages to the friends. That’s why many move to a page instead such as TPR and the Fiesta Commission. Cibrian is missing from Facebook and I’m not sure she even understands what it is.
In general I don’t think any single candidate gets Web 2.0 completely but DeBerry-Mejia seems to have the edge with Castro running second, only by the fact he doesn’t have a blog. Cibrian is the least of the three and that may become a detriment to her as it shows she is not connected with technology. These days your online presence signals your understanding. It’s critical especially for the Gen X and Y voters.
Update 2/3/2009 – Cibrian does have a more robust mayoral website that was designed by RiverView Productions. The web design firm leadership includes former media personality Sonny Melendrez and appears to be primarily focused on personality promotion. Cibrian’s site needs to get boosted in the Google searches since it doesn’t come up in any recent searches but that should change over time as more people link to it. To further update in capabilities it provides the ability to collect e-mail addresses for updates. The launch appeared to have occurred last week based on dates on the site.
She is following Castro’s lead of polling the visitors on the issues but with only four votes prior to my visit this morning it’s apparent not many have visited the site. The issues are pretty limited also. There is still no blogging on the site and it shifts as you click on links indicating a variance in the styles and layout, something a good web developer would avoid.
Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.
A good standard for an online campaign presence is Annise Parker, candidate for mayor in Houston. Her website is well organized and provides a lot of good information. It also captures her positions in well organized topical areas. Parker already holds a strong lead in the Houston mayoral race so she will be hard to catch.
I agree with you that the site is well organized and easy to see her campaign talking points but I feel that each site that I have seen so far has no real detail about what they are going to do, she gets close with her “Hire Houston First”. All say keep and create jobs, protect parks and neighborhoods, alternative energy is the future and support infrastructure. I haven’t seen any information about the candidates on how they plan on doing this stuff. Am I asking too much or should I settle for campaign slogans and just trust that they will do what they say without an actual plan. At this point I really don’t know who to vote for except based on who they are as a person or at least their public persona and what they have accomplished in the past. I want to vote for a mayor that has a clear cut plan that I believe that will make San Antonio a better city. Now I know plans are always rock solid, but lets get some specifics on the table. Ok so I kind of went off subject but I’ve been looking for specifics for a while and haven’t seen anything. I did post a comment on the Castro site asking for the same, we’ll see if I get a response. Too bad more readers don’t visit this site. I like the information without the bashing of the other 2 candidates like our friend of the other blog site. I believe open and honest communication will foster the best information and let people decide who is the best choice for them. Keep up the good work
Thanks for the compliment Travis. I try to make sure that if I’m going to blog on a variety of subjects I need to at least keep an open mind in the process. Granted some of my opinion will sneak through, especially with regards to opinion about Rs, but I don’t want to become a basher.
Regarding the issues, that’s something that needs to be pushed so keep pushing it. I’m going to look for your comments on the Castro site to see how open they are. I know they finally got an online coordinator so the actions should start happening there. In the interest of full disclosure I’m going to be meeting with them tomorrow to discuss ways to improve and enhance. You can bet full transparency and open dialogue will be on the agenda of discussion.
I can tell you the DeBerry-Mejia site has been moderating and deleting anything not directly supportive of her. I had a critical comment, probably much like your comment. It wasn’t bashing but asked for details. It stayed for about four days and was deleted. So she has a ways to go on the openness aspect.
Look for more things on this site. I don’t plan to promote it heavily but I do want to see more people engaging in it. That’s why once you’ve made your first comment and has been approved all successive comments post immediately. The main purpose was to create an area for people to dialogue about San Antonio, state and national issues. Who knows? It may grow into a BOR-like site for San Antonio with multiple contributors. I’m not opposed to that. Unlike San Antonio Mayor you pretty much know who I am. Heck I even say it in the About page.
The Castro for Mayor has been down most of the day today. That’s not a good sign for the campaign and needs to be addressed immediately. I’m not sure who’s doing the online presence management over there but they really fell down today. Having a positive column in today’s E-N is when you want the site up and functioning so you can generate additional interest. I’ve tried several times to connect with them but it’s been pretty much one-sided.
Just a quick note about the Castro site, I posted a comment on Friday 2/6/2009 asking for some specifics for his vision for San Antonio, as I mention above. After a couple of days I ran a test and just posted a positive comment under an assumed name “Javi Lopez” on 2/8/2009. The positive comment was posted but not the question, I guess the question wasn’t approved. Too bad, I’m really trying to find some specifics on the candidates. Hopefully the debate will shed some light.
Yes, it appears the candidate sites are moderating the comments. I have a similar problem with the DeBerry-Mejia site as well. I mentioned this to Donze Lopez and was told all sites moderate out comments. He cited Burkablog as an example. Paul edits some comments out but not all. However, in the new social networking environments of today that’s not the model to follow. I doubt I’m going to have any inroads with the Castro campaign changing the policy. I know DeBerry-Mejia has no intentions of changing theirs. Bottom line is true discourse will have to happen in the independent blogs.
BTW Travis, I appreciate your approach to the test. I do advise against continuing with alternate IDs. I know you probably don’t plan to so this message is for everyone really. Because the Internet allows anonymity it’s too easy to do that. However it distorts the intent and true message. It’s downright dishonest. If I ever find that happening at my blog I’ll call the person out.
Totally agree about the multiple IDs, not a practice I will continue, it was more of a one time test to see their approach. I wish everyone had to login prior to posting items, with an ID limited to a single email address. Also makes responding to comments easier.
The login is something I’m working on with this site. I agree that it manages the comments and control of the site as well as making it easier to comment. A few technical issues between WordPress and my provider, but hey I’m a technologist. I should be able to figure these things out. It will happen.
I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!