For a couple of months now, my colleagues and I have been putting together a framework to potentially marshal the awesome power that social media has for good. Having spent six months studying and extensively participating, it has highlighted to me the power it has, to really help move the dial on political messaging. Anyone who follows me and has viewed the content I have created, is left in no doubt as to my politics and my commitment to a better future for America.
Much is said about social media and I often see posts where people say, 'nobody is listening to me', or 'I'm wasting my time because nobody sees me'. If it's one thing I've learned, it's that friends or followers on social media are different. We develop a circle of virtual friends that we bond with in this space. Others are acquaintances, some fleeting and some may later join our closer circle, as we better get to know them. Humans are by nature social animals and the need to interact with others, is what makes social media so addictive. We like to be liked, however much we may claim not to care.
I understand the frustration some might feel when they create a post of important social or political significance, only to see it disappear without trace. Then to see a post of a fat bloke falling on his ass getting half a million likes. Welcome to social media! An inspection of your timeline will point you to the hot trigger issues of the day, but it's a lottery if your views are picked up and amplified. Twitter and Facebook have been readily adopted by the political class, because it's a cheap and effective way of getting a message to a wider audience. The business community has helped refine its use and analytics has become big business. This is why Twitter and Facebook have made so much money from 'boosting' posts. Social media companies love politics because it's been a huge source of revenue, as campaigns invest millions, mainly to attack the opposition.
One effective way of getting a political or social message out there is the excellent and plentyful resister rooms on Twitter like wtpBlue, OneVoice, Dems4USA and many more. These provide excellent amplification points for messaging by resisters and play a vital role in the political conversation. They are an important rallying point for likeminded Democrat supporters to promote policy and candidates. The resister community is huge and there are great people that run and manage lists to bring these virtual activists together, without them where would we be?
This got me thinking about the term 'collective voice'. Look at each resister as a drop of water. On its own it's just a drop of water, but if you have a few drops, you create a puddle. Keep adding drops and at some point water starts to flow. A stream becomes a river, becomes an ocean. From an ocean, you can create a tsunami which can change a landscape. Now think of it in political terms and you you begin to understand its potential to influence change. What's even better, you don't have to imagine the impact, it's already been tried and tested. Trump used it to poison the minds of millions, so we already know it works. The question is, can this be translated into a positive force for the good of a nation, rather than to promote racism hate and division?
If one person retweets a message it's just a message, if a million people retweet it, it's a viral message and viral messages have impact. Imagine being part of the biggest resister list in history, joining forces to promote key policy. That's what you call a 'collective voice' for good and one that could truly make a difference. A project by the people for the people. I realise that policy can be very subjective and one person's position is not the same as the next. This is called democracy in action and there's nothing wrong with that. Whether it's Transgender or LGBTQ rights. Climate change or voting rights, the arbiter of any message is the sender. It's your retweet finger nobody else's. The objective is, each day to present a very small number of laser focussed policy messages to an army of resisters and let every individual decide whether to pull the trigger on it. It's not about promoting any individual, so there is no personal gain, its about a collective objective to effect change through selfless participation. It won't gain you followers or boost your profile, it will simply promote a key political or social message. That is not to say that your interaction with others in the Politicsrus forums will not attract followers.
The proposition is simple, join a list of resisters, from which you can opt out at any time. Messaging is then presented to the community daily to amplify and depending on your policy position, you either participate or decline, no questions asked. Should you chose to share why you declined to pull th trigger on a particular message, a facility will be available in a forum setting to encourage debate. PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS NOT LIKE A RETWEET ROOM, it is NOT where you can have your own tweets retweeted by the community and you return the favour. It is however, our intention to pick a tweet of the day from the community that would be presented to the membership each day to amplify. All you do as a member, is pay a daily visit the politicsrus website Resister Lounge, where you will see links to any messages or ads we would like you to consider retweeting that day. This is about being part of a virtual movement for change. Technology driven activism for the 21st century. It's time for some 'good trouble, necessary trouble'.
I just want to be very clear, that this is NOT a community in competition with any of the excellent resister rooms. It is a completely different proposition. You won't get your individual thoughts amplified here unless a tweet of yours is selected to be tweet of the day. Its purpose is to create an army of resisters to act as a 'collective voice' to amplify Democrat policy and values. I very much value my own relationships with these excellent groups and already work closely together with them to further the cause. I want this new community to be a valued partner in the objective to deliver more blue in 2022.
We want you to be proud to be part of this mission, so we are committed to provide high quality visual messaging that sets us apart from familiar offerings. We believe that messaging has to create awareness of policy, hold the opposition to account, but at the same time offer hope and positivity. As a member of our community, you will have input into the policies and messages we support and the part you play in the community is dictated by how big an involvement you wish to have. This is a collective effort in which we all play a role.
The plan is to create a policy board to ensure fair representation of policies to be promoted. It is essential that everyone has a voice and its our intention to invite those with life experiences in the various policy areas to join this board. This will ensure that all areas of policy are represented. As with all things in life, there will inevitably be disagreements, so it will be important to ensure that any disputes can be arbitrated fairly against our clear unambiguous mission statement.
Politicsrus is an organisation that supports policy to address climate change and promote Democratic values. In pursuit of a more equitable society, we support racial, social and economic justice. We believe in police reform, a $15 minimum wage and healthcare for all. For us, this is not a liberal wish list, it's a set of attainable goals that can be met in any modern democracy.
Being part of this community will provide a chance for you to grow too. Tweets and social media posts are good, but we want to provide opportunities for community members to write articles on an upcoming community blog. We will also be featuring some familiar faces who will be joining our staff writing team. In addition, are working to create a library of links to articles and websites that reflect who we are as an organisation and the policies we want to promote. We want to create a resource that resisters can used to research policy to better inform their own social media messaging. All resources will be careful curated and fact checked where possible. For those who want to create a more professional edge to their posts, we will also be creating a gallery of constantly updated images and gifs that you can download and use to help reinforce your messaging. This gallery will be up and running with the first images on Monday.
This proposition is two months in the making and has been very carefully thought through. WE WILL NEVER SHARE YOUR DATA WITH ANY THIRD PARTY, our list will remain private so your information is safe. When you join, we DO NOT ask for anything other than your name email address and zip code. The zip code is optional, but we would encourage you to please provide it, so we can use it for better targeting for local races and campaigns. Membership is FREE and gains you access to member exclusive resources and advance previews of our ads in our Screening Room. Our aim is to provide a safe space to share views and ideas with likeminded resisters, to help form policy ideas that we can promote through our collective voice. We will send out a monthly community email, but you can opt out of this if you would prefer. Other than that, nobody will be bugging you and your participation is governed by what you feel comfortable promoting.
The purpose of this soft launch tonight is to get resisters to sign up to the Collective Voice Project. We will then after the weekend, present the first of our collective messages for the community to retweet. Our new video will be available in the politicsrus Screening Room on the site at 9pm ET and will be released on Twitter and YouTube tomorrow morning at 7am. Tomorrow evening, we will be releasing a second video, again as a prerelease on our site, will a Twitter and YouTube Release at 7am on Monday. We have some fantastic ads for release next week on the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan. We are about to hit the turbo button now on political engagement. All we need now is your support.
I'll be posting some short information posts over the weekend to explain our detailed objectives including the support for candidates and the introduction of some new geospatial technology that will literally change the face of political messaging in the run up to the mid terms. It will help focus messaging for down ballot races and help better focus key policy messaging. The GOP won't know what's hit them if we get this right.
Please do not sign up yet on the site, as we will not be unlocking the subscription module until we release tonight's video at 9pm ET.
I just hope I'm not going to be the kid who nobody turns up for!!