Earlier this week, House Republicans launched America Speaking Out as part of an initiative to engage the public and solicit ideas, presumably to craft their election-year agenda. As the prospectus says Past performance does not guarantee future results. Unfortunately, the success—or better yet, the risibility—of this endeavor was pretty predictable based on the performance of previous Republican efforts (see: What Up? by Michael Steele and McCainSpace).

Let’s set aside the question of why the Dems are typically so much better at communicating through the Internet than the Republicans. (I’m talking about official party representatives, not media outlets.) In a non-partisan and helpful way, let’s look at why these things turn out badly—again and again—and what the GOP, or anyone, should do to have a successful online social media program.

1) Understand your target audience, their habits and motivations.

The surest way to fail is to take what we in the business call the “Field of Dreams” approach. If you think that all you have to do is provide a platform for the right people to appear and form a vibrant community rich with discourse, you have got to be dreaming. Every time we think that absolutely everyone must know this by now something like America Speaking Out appears.

If you want to elicit a particular kind of participation from a particular group of people, you have to know what is likely to motivate them to do what you want. You need to provide something of real value. If you aren’t a source of really funny jokes or pictures of kittens you are going to have to expend some effort to communicate your value to your audience.

Providing a microphone is not enough. Anyone paying attention would realize that the problem in America is not the lack of forums in which to express oneself.

If I were a congressional representative and I wanted to get legitimate agenda ideas, I’d ask questions on LinkedIn.

2) Expect to put in a LOT of thoughtful work.

The Bottomless Well of High-Quality User Generated Content is the second great social media fantasy. You build a website and ask the Internet to get you a pony. Seconds later, Buttercup and her Shetland army are nuzzling down your door.

The Republican representatives asked America for a new policy agenda. America speaks:

The work required in this case is framing and seeding the discussion. There will always be yahoos, especially on a politically charged site. Just look at the comments on any major metropolitan newspaper article. However, you can mitigate this in the same way a host modulates the behavior of guests at a party.

It isn’t enough to provide categories and an input field. You never get the best out of people by just telling them to start talking.

In this particular case, I would advise the House Republicans to start by publishing some of their ideas for site visitors to react to by voting and commenting. This would accomplish two things. First, it would allow them to demonstrate substance and leadership, and get a genuine dialog going immediately. Secondly, it would instantly elevate the tone of the discussion.

There is a reason we don’t have direct democracy. The founders were onto something.

The way things are going, it’s going to be an uphill road to good PR spin, let alone credibility for the website itself. All the work is going to be culling the embarrassing comments, not channeling the will of the people.

3) Be authentic. Or, if you are going to be inauthentic, put a lot of craft into it.

As the kids used to say, “Don’t front.” McCainSpace, the social networking platform the McCain campaign launched in the last presidential election, lacked credibility and traction because there is zero overlap between the John McCain core demographic and the MySpace core demographic.

Bridging that gap isn’t as simple as appropriating the brand of something supposedly enjoyed by the audience you want to reach. You’ll just sound like Phil on Modern Family. If you don’t know why that’s bad, hire a graduate of the class of 2010 right now.

If you are genuinely trying to get a discussion going, you need to present yourself authentically from the start. America Speaking Out looks like Rock the Vote and acts like an out-of-touch politician who has never seen the YouTube. This sort of thing comes about when an organization is jumping on a bandwagon or following a perceived trend for PR rather than truly using the tools of modern communication technology.

The eco-grunge visual design is so very wrong. They could have copied the brand new very red, white, and blue Atlantic to much better effect

There are plenty of terrific models of people and organizations who are neither young nor hip, yet manage to be comfortable in the medium. Many of them have staffs of social media ghost writers. This is a superior alternative to making a public spectacle of your ignorance.

Look at Martha Stewart. She is all over Twitter, partners with independent authors, and even her dogs have blogs.

The GOP should have an America Speaks partner program where they identify the credible popular voices, people who already have an audience online and a reasonable level of discussion going on. Have them solicit ideas and pass them on in think-tanky gatherings the most charismatic leaders can preside over on YouTube.

The Republican Party doesn’t just need to sound in touch with America right now, they need to sound smart, too.

4) Focus on the interaction, not the technology.

Representative McCarthy’s description of the platform was the first sign everything was doomed to heck:

“I personally traveled to Washington state and discovered a Microsoft program that helped NASA map the moon.”

Anyone in charge of any sort of social network should know that the software isn’t rocket science, but engaging and managing a community involves social engineering of great complexity.

It’s a very common mistake to focus on the technology. The hope is that by choosing the right system, the human interactions take care of themselves. Sadly, new communication technology only magnifies the flaws and foibles of social animals and accelerates them to light speed, and the Internet remembers them for all time.

Tweet | Written by Erika Hall on May 26, 2010 |