Development Seed Blog

Using cell phones in outreach campaigns is one way to show that you're tech savvy and on the cutting edge, but the flip side is that it's still very much a new notion that is still being tested. At the Politics Online Conference yesterday, one session focused on when and how to use cell phones to organize and communicate.

Development Seed's Eric Gundersen was on of the speakers on the panel, along with Dan Weaver from MobileAccord, Stuart Shapiro from iConstituent, and Justin Oberman from Rave Wireless and MoPocket who moderated.

People always have their cell phones with them and rarely share their phone with their spouse or anyone else. Dan says this is what makes cell phones such a powerful and personal advocacy tool. It also is a great way to let your supporters act for your cause while they go on living their life - sending or receiving a text message or making a quick call really can be done from anywhere.

But "why am I texting people and not emailing them?" Eric said to always ask yourself that when planning a campaign, and if you can't answer, then don't text. And it's important to remember the medium. Eric gave two great examples of hypothetical text messages (which I grabbed the text from him after the session):

First two sentences of a hypothetical email communication, 156 characters:

Catch Senator Dodd on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart! We are going to provide virtual backstage pass for all the festivities: http://ChrisDodd.com/dailyshow

Hypothetical text message, 148 characters:

The Daily Show tonight with Chris Dodd!

Get your virtual backstage pass: http://ChrisDodd.com/dailyshow

Then watch at 11 pm Eastern on Comedy Central!

What a huge difference in about the same number of characters. I can really picture reading the second one on my phone.

Stuart focused more on the logistics of of mobile campaigns, particularly your list. As with any other campaign, you want a good list of people to send your message to. People tend to take their cell phone number very seriously and don't whimsically give it out like they may their email address, and it's also data most organizations haven't really asked for in the past. Stuart also emphasized, and the other panelists echoed, that because of this it's very important to ask people to sign up for specific messages and to get them to (usually double opt in even) to receive your messages. This makes a lot of sense when you think that it costs most people about 10 cents to receive a text message - just think what it would cost if you had to pay that for every email you received from an advocacy group you support.

Another important point that all the panelists touched on was to keep it simple. If you want someone to sign up for text message alerts and you're promoting it on your website, have them sign up on your website. If you're asking them to sign up on a billboard, ask them to text to sign up since that's easier than remembering it until they're online.

For more on the session, the Institute for Polictics, Democracy, and the Internet was live blogging it.