NewtCam Allows Viewers To See Newt Gingrich In His Natural Habitat
BY Sarah Lai Stirland | Thursday, February 23 2012
There's no doubt that the former Speaker of the House is a formidable speaker, and that he's most comfortable while at the lectern sharing his policy positions and charming an audience.
So in a smart move, Newt Gingrich's online campaign staff in recent months have started live streaming campaign trail appearances by the Republican presidential candidate through his Facebook page. If you're a subscriber to Gingrich's Facebook page, appearances pop up in your news stream as they happen, and you can share the video with your friends.
While not many people might want Newt streaming on their desktops all the time, the cam does provide an interesting peek into the candidate's campaign trail persona, and how he interacts with different audiences as he encounters them.
The trail cam is just one of many online gadgets that the campaign has been experimenting with over the course of the Republican primary to reach out to grassroots supporters. The Gingrich campaign is also using social marketing software from a company called Social Toaster. Gingrich supporters essentially plug themselves into the campaign's messaging machine by giving the campaign permission to automatically post messages on their behalf on their social networks. Supporters also have the option of approving every message before it's posted.
As of Thursday, more than 1,000 supporters had plugged themselves into the campaign to reach hundreds of thousands of additional people in their own networks, according to Social Toaster. Those 1,000 supporters shared 17 pieces of campaign content, which in turn generated 25,000 visits to the campaign web site since it started using the software January 4.