The GOP's Five-Pronged Plan to Conquer the Web
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, May 5 2009
The RNC's recently-hired new media director Todd Herman joined a conference call of participants in the RNC's tech summit grassroots group to lay out what he sees as the pillars around which the Republican National Committee can rebuild itself online -- and, by implication, offline. Herman's clearly spent time thinking through his vision for the party. (TechRepublican's Meghann Parlett has a recap of the call.) In the hour long chat, Herman testified that the Republican Party and chairman Michael Steele are planning an aggressive strategy to ready to move on the web front; a new web development firm has just been retained to implement the RNC's first round of online changes.
Or as Herman phrased it, the GOP is ready to "lock and load, down into code."
Step zero was, said Herman, was basic: Rebranding the RNC's "e-Campaign" as a modern new media department, not the IT desk. This is a strategic, proactive wing of the new GOP, he said -- not a service department there to help struggling elected officials log into their email accounts. (And here I was thinking those "No, I will not fix your computer" shirts were obsolete.) That settled, Herman detailed his five strategic principles for revitalizing the RNC online:
1. Use the Republican Party's new media properties to "create big reach." Have the party's web properties reach more people by an order of magnitude, going from 400,000 to 600,000 uniques (a month, presumably) to something more like 4 to 6 million. Scaling to that degree requires, said Herman, an RNC.org "fundamentally different from the one that we have."
2. "Acquire actionable data." The RNC's digital assets are unconnected, reported Herman. The website doesn't "augment" Voter Vault, the party's in-house voter data system. That means that that the website can't serve up content to visitors based on their interests, and the RNC's voter file doesn't benefit from much of what the party learns online. Eventually, Herman would like the RNC to collect together data from CBO, Cato, Heritage, and other information sources in "any area where we think data proves us right" and provide it to visitors in a sort of "data store."
3. Broadcast the "impeccable logic" of the Republican position. "We have forgotten," said Herman, "how to say anything but 'tax cuts, 'tax cuts,' 'tax cuts.'" Herman called for better broadcasting of Republican stands and understandings, whether that be in text form or video form or something else entirely. "I want a logo for unsustainability," said Herman of President Obama's economic plans.
4. "Curate passionate stories." The RNC, argued Herman, needs to tell its story better. He reported telling GOP officials before his hiring that the party had lost control of its own identity, informing them that "Jon Stewart owns your brand." To further the goal of reclamation, Herman wants to collect and disseminate personal stories of Americans who, for example, believe they've been hurt by financial industry bailouts.
5. Establishing "real connections." Ideally, suggested Herman, party volunteers would be able to use the data acquired by the party to make deep connections with supporters or potential supporters when, for example, they're going door-to-door before an election. And what's more, the stories collected while volunteers are on the move can be poured back into the party's new media properties.
What grassroots and grasstop activists can do to help, Herman said, is to help create the massive "cultural shift" that needs to take place to get social media widely embraced inside RNC headquarters, a building where things like Twitter and Facebook exists in some gray space between feared and reviled.
For his part, Herman has experience getting ambitious new media operations up and running. Before coming to the RNC, he created an online outfit called SpinSpotter that aimed to red flag media wherever it might lurk. And don't expect Herman to pull any punches as he seeks to have the right triumph online. In a SpinSpotter post last month, Herman refers to Democratic Senator Chris Dodd using the charming epithet of "Demoncrat." Who knows, though -- perhaps it was a typo.