Sunday, November 26, 2017

Texting, tweeting, emailing, postcarding

[Revised 11/30/17 - Texting and Postcarding sections added]
[Update 12/1/17 added at end]

Texting
I am trying to pin down whether the above is "texting [to AL voters] for Doug Jones", or whether it is to receive GOTV instructional texts from the campaign.

Whichever it is, I think all of texting, tweeting banks and emailing campaign can be pursued and provide mutual support. For example, if the texting is "texting [to ALvoters]," a special tweeting bank can be used to solicit texters.

Much depends on what the Doug Jones campaign wants to encourage, and what Doug Jones volunteers are willing to do in form of texting, tweet banking, and emailing.

Someone tweeted to me this: 
It’s a texting bank much like phone banking. You go to the Indivisible link and sign up. They give you an account and on the day you sign up for, you get texting assignments sent to your acct. at least that’s what I think. Never done it before.
SPURRING PARTICIPATION IN ALL OF THIS: I don't know how the campaign is using FB to spur volunteer efforts. Canvassers and postcard senders have tweeted using #DougJonesForSenate and possibly other hashtags to report about canvassing they have done and postcards they have sent. This reporting probably spurs other volunteers. I don't know what reporting of the texting effort will be done. If Doug Jones volunteers start sending tweets to Alabama voters or start sending emails to Alabama voters, they can report by tweeting on Twitter the tweeting they have done or the emailing they have done..

ORGANIZING ANY OR ALL OF THIS: Any or all of this needs organizing for effectiveness. There appears to be non-campaign organizing of texting and postcarding. I can't tell whether the campaign is involved in the organizing of texting or postcarding. I have been unable to get the campaign interested in tweet banking. The emailing idea has been added only recently in this blog. If the campaign is not going to be involved in organizing, any organizing has to come from outside the campaign. For the campaign not to be involved in organizing seems disadvantageous.

Where tweeting banks stand
There are sixteen days left before December 12th.

I am not privy to any Doug Jones campaign strategizing for these final two weeks. I have no idea what the campaign may be thinking about to "pull out all the stops."

I have been unable to get the campaign's attention to the tweeting banks advocated in this blog. I don't know whether campaign resources are so stretched that attention cannot be given to everything deserving of attention, or whether the campaign has concluded that the tweeting banks I am advocating are not sufficiently beneficial to justify any campaign resources and volunteer time and effort being used for tweet banking.

On the tweeting banks, there is an issue that some may view the tweeting as spam. If any say the tweeting should not be done because it is spam, I disagree. More than a year ago, I submitted the tweeting method to Twitter and gave my justifications for it. See Twitter@Support. I have been using the tweeting method for more than a year, and I have not had a problem with Twitter. I have sent tens of thousands of individually directed tweets, and the number of recipients who have complained is probably less than 25.

Because the Twitter platform is under the control of one entity (i.e., Twitter), and Twitter can ban abusers from communicating via the Twitter platform, I think people's sensibilities about spam on Twitter are less than in the email universe, in which there is not a single entity in control of the email platform and banning abusers can be very difficult, if not impossible.

Using email to pull out all the stops
I have been pushing tweeting banks for  Doug Jones for three months. I have not gotten them going with Doug Jones tweeters, and I have not been able to get the Doug Jones campaign to take an interest.

Thus it may be ridiculous to suggest now using email to "pull out all the stops" in the final two weeks, but I will make the suggestion anyway.

In suggesting email I think it is true, as mentioned above, that there is much heightened sensitivity about spam in the email universe compared to Twitter, and recipients of email are likely to object more quickly than in the case of a tweet.

In 2014 I tried to conduct an Internet campaign for Congress, in which I used email extensively. I had to battle for my email use. For further information, please read these links: An Internet political campaign, My emailing,  Governmental blocking of my political email, and Political spamming.

Both tweeting banks and an email campaign come down to how much Doug Jones and his supporters want to win, what he and they think will help (or help more than hurt) in winning, and what time and efforts he and they are willing to dedicate to what activities to try to win.

I will continue to push tweeting banks. If anyone wants to consider adding an email component to their campaign efforts, and would like to discuss the same, please join the Google group I have created and we can discuss the same.

Postcarding
The postcarding effort of volunteers sending postcards to Alabama voters has been going on for several weeks, and postcard sending is reported daily on Twitter. If you want to take up postcarding, go to Local AL Twitter addresses to get information about what to do.

Update 12/1/17
Amy Davis in Huntsville made inquiry of the Huntsville headquarters about texting, tweeting, emailing and postcarding. Amy tweeted me back about texting and postcarding (see tweets embedded below). Volunteers wanting to do texting or postcarding can follow Amy's tweets. I am going to continue to push tweet banking and emailing for whatever I can get to happen on those activities. If you are interested in the tweeting, I suggest you go to Simplifying this. 

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