As we talked about it, I went online and asked those on Twitter at that time to chime in with their reasons why they used Twitter.

Hey, I’m in class … the students need to know … why do you use Twitter? is it a useful tool? convince them, please! ) 04:44 PM September 23, 2008

I was amazed at the number of people that so kindly responded. Thank you all very much!

Here are their tweets. You can actually click on their photos and find their Twitter accounts to follow them, too. It really is a great list to start with as it contains journalists, PR students, faculty and practitioners all in one string of about 60 to 70 Twitter users. There are some multiple responses from a few people, so it looks like about 60+ people for you to follow. That’s a great starting point.

Some terrific insights in all of those responses. Key themes that seem to repeat are:

• networking
• following news
• finding breaking stories (before MSM gets them)
• opportunity to meet people you’d not have a chance to meet, otherwise
• connecting with the industry
• discovering new trends/ideas
• experimenting with new tools
• finding internships/jobs
• news organizations use Twitter to find leads
• and many more…

Since then, some great posts have gone up on that same topic.

Barbara Nixon shared her class exercise for Twitter. She also pointed to a post from Ron Jones at Search Engine Watch entitled Using Twitter as an Education Tool. Jones, in turn, pointed to David Parry, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dave has his students using Twitter. You can also follow David Parry at academicdave on Twitter.

One of the responses even had a link to another post about why you should explore Twitter. It is from Kipp Bodnar: Microbloging: 10 Reasons Everyone (Especially Non-Geeks) Should Use Twitter. You can follow Kipp at kbodnar32 on Twitter, too.

I’m loving finding all of these examples of other schools (and “Non-Geeks”) exploring Twitter. Thanks for sharing them!

Want to use Twitter, but not through your browser? Try these various Twitter applications:

• Twitter Toolbox
• More Twitter Tools
• Twitter Applications
• Twitter Downloads

P.S. Don’t forget @journalisttweet as a resource to find journalists using Twitter. There is an RSS feed you may use to follow them in Google Reader (or another RSS reader) or you can click on the “Following” link in the sidebar and add them to your own account one at a time. There are some interesting examples of journalists using Twitter. @journalisttweet is a sampling of about 500 from the overall total of over 4,000 journalists using the service. You’ll find journalists from newspapers, television, radio, trade publications, online publications and much more.

Gee Ekachai, of Marquette University, linked to the author of the slideshow – Corinne Weisgerber, of St. Edwards University.

Both are involved with PROpenMic, by the way. Visit their profiles in PROpenMic: Corinne Weisgerber and Gee Ekachai.

Truly a great, simple slideshow that all educators should use, IMO. It drives home the point of personal brand management. Some of the better quotes, “Google is the new resume” and “Find the Skeletons in your cyber closet”. You’ll enjoy this one.

One other point of interest, Corinne shares her class syllabus (PDF), too. Can’t tell you how great it is to find all these adopters of social media curricula, like Corinne and Gee.

Given the state of our nation, there is an article with some speculation that Democrats may pick up as many as three seats in November – Alabama Democrats eyeing delegation majority. I’m not really into politics, so I won’t speculate. Also, I have written about our alumnae, Shea Snider, who is Roger’s press secretary (the incumbent in the race). So, I don’t need to get into the politics … because, well – we love Shea. She is the best, ya’ know.

It is fair to point out a look at Open Secrets, showing Rogers more than doubling Segall’s campaign contributions. More on the myriad of sites with this type of information, below.

My Focus Here

What interests me is the possible use of social media by Alabama candidates. Segall may well be the only one with even a modest blogger outreach.

Let’s look at his site, Segall2008. Now, before some folks go and get their noses out of joint, I frequently do these types of site reviews and share them with my students. So, no harm intended.

• First up, he uses a splash page at the front of the site. Not necessarily a good idea. Yes, he seems to be seeking a major strategic goal by capturing email address first, but why make people click one more time. Seriously, splash pages are considered to be bad Web design by many, if not most. The only other option is “Skip to Website.” While the “Skip to Website” option is in the ‘golden mean’ area of the page, the color choice for the text doesn’t pop out. Would yellow or white be a better color choice? To me, it seems just a bit lost on the page. It would be interesting to know if their strategy is working re: gathering email addresses. How many do they have? (Resources for golden mean: The Golden Section, Design and the Divine Proportion, Mundi Design’s Principles of Graphic Design, go to 3d for the golden mean.)
• Segall went outside of Alabama for his Web site development. He went to CDPolitical.com which is part of Chong Designs. Where is Chong Designs? Well, Washington, D.C. – of course.
  1. I have to question the online savvy of this move. First off, people here in Alabama are quite unhappy when folks go outside the state. Anyone want to speculate on the expense incurred by Segall with Chong Designs?
  2. Also, I really think Segall would have been better served by using Ning.com and letting eager supporters in Alabama help drive the site. There isn’t a great deal of interaction taking place in the Segall site.
  3. What would that Ning.com site cost? Less than $35 a month … and it offers so much more than his site has for visitors. It would even help him capture those email addresses and involve the volunteers in discussions.
• Look at the video presentation on the Segall Google ad site. The video is a YouTube embed and not well presented. It has a single sliver of a black area on the right side and large one on the top. I mean really, this is poor. I would make my students re-do such a video presentation.

I really think Josh Segall could have done a better job of incorporating social media into his site, but have to give him credit for at least trying. (Click image below to enlarge.)

When you get to that page, you’ll see that the campaign is asking the following: “Please tell us about your blog. (Traffic, topics of interest, your audience, and anything else you think we should know.)” So far, he is getting some blog pickup. This Google blog search reveals 236 blog posts with “Josh Segall” in the copy (236 to-date).

Overall, I’d give the site a C+ because it is just above average overall, and it barely dips one toe into the social media arena. At least he’s paying some attention to blogs. Maybe I’ll try to get an interview with the candidate or someone on his staff and see what their strategy is re: social media.

By the way, Rogers does have a campaign site, too. He has video on his front page and it is a much better presentation. The site is Mike Rogers for Congress.com. It is quite a static site with little more than the basics like: volunteer contact forms, ways to write a letter to the editor and the usual sundry online tactics. So, that’s why I didn’t focus on it re: social media.

Neither candidate links to their Facebook sites, for instance, so it seems they are not really sold on the idea of using social media in their campaigns. Finally, regarding video use, both candidates are simply regurgitating their TV ads, so there is no creative use of online video going on here.

An interesting sidebar to all this, Josh Segall is an Ivy League graduate. Yep, he went to Brown University (University Web Site). All we see is Segall’s focus on his law degree from the University of Alabama. That’s understandable, of course, as voters down here don’t necessarily take a likin’ to them there Ivy League fellers. Rogers, on the other hand, went to Jacksonville State University. JSU resides in his district. Both candidates are lawyers: Rogers attended Birmingham School of Law and Segall attended The University of Alabama School of Law.

Other Aspects of Online Political Campaigns

On another front, it is interesting to see how much information there is out there regarding candidates, their campaigns and their campaign finances. Below is a list of sites I found during my search.

• AL-03: Josh Segall Outraises Rogers for the Second Quarter is the report from “Left in Alabama.” Yet, they fail to point out that Rogers has much more in his war chest.
• Segall Holds His Own in 2Q Fundraising from the Progressive Electorate. Again, no mention of the overall totals for each candidate.
• “He Stood up To His own Party” : New Republican Mantra from a diary within Daily Kos, not Kos himself, by someone calling themselves alpolitics – also the author of the Progressive Electorate, above.
• Open Secrets tally of the money raised and spent by both Segall and Rogers. There we get the broader story that Rogers had $948,940 cash on hand while Segall had $209,114 – as of May 14th and a lot has happened since then. Who knows where they both are now.
• Open Secrets page for all Alabama races.
• NewsMeat listing of all contributors to Segall by last name.
• NewsMeat listing of all contributors to Rogers by last name.
• Josh Segall’s SEA listing re: his views on science issues. SEA is the Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization. Segall has nothing on file.
• Mike Rogers SEA CANDIDATE QUESTIONNAIRE has been filled out.
• Josh Segall’s ActBlue page. ActBlue claims to be “the nation’s largest source of funds for Democrats.” (Source)
• Open Secrets info on Mike Rogers’ personal finances. He’s a millionaire.
• I could not find similar information about Joshua Segall in OpenSecrets.org. Perhaps their files are not up-to-date, or they only track that kind of information for incumbents? Don’t know, for sure.

My students will get a kick out of knowing that Segall used a free Web template site for his first site, JoshuaSegall.com, which has been since replaced by his Segall2008.com site. The site he used for his template is gorotron.com, of all places.

Segall is in Facebook with a fan page touting 116 supporters, to-date. Update: Thanks to the anonymous comment below, I did another search for “Joshua Segall for Congress, as the comment states, and did find yet another group. So, there are two groups for Segall on Facebook. I must admit, I missed the second group in my previous search. Can’t remember what I used for the search, so I can’t tell you why. This search for Josh Segall gives both groups in the results. This search for Joshua Segall also reveals both groups. So, my apologies for missing the second group.

Mike Rogers is there, too. His fan page has 581 supporters, so he’s way ahead of Segall in that regard. Update: Yep, the anonymous comment below is correct. I used the wrong Rogers page. Mike Rogers has a page in Facebook, but not a group. And, there are no friends listed on that page. So, Segall is ahead on that mark.

I only found one Joshua Segall and two Josh Segalls in MySpace and neither is the candidate. Mike Rogers wasn’t there, either.

There is a Rep. Mike Rogers account in Twitter, but has no updates. I could not find a Joshua Segall.

So, that’s my look at one race and their use of emerging digital media. I guess I’m not surprised at the lack of social media use by Alabama candidates. I still get some deer in headlight looks when I mention it down here.

The news of Michael Deaver’s passing was quite sad. Deaver, a master – if ever there was one, had been serving as vice chairman of Edelman in Washington, D.C. Politics aside, this is one person that had an enormous impact on media relations. He changed it dramatically. I so hoped our former students, a few of them working there now, would have the opportunity to get to know him. Our sympathies and condolences to Mr. Deaver’s family and those at Edelman.

Update: Mike Krempasky eulogizes Deaver at RedState. Krempasky also offers a Charlie Rose interview. The interview below comes from the Edelman sixtysecondview produced by David Brain, President and CEO of Edelman Europe. The pre-election (November 8, 2006) video illustrates Deaver’s keen insight into, and understanding of, US politics. The follow up video proves his predictions true.

Speaking of former students (not mine) now working in PR, Stephen Davies is doing remarkable work with his new employer, webitpr. Their work in social media releases is interesting to watch. Stephen began his blogging while a student at the University of Sunderland (UK), studying with Philip Young. His blog? Quite silent since April. You OK Philip?

Turning to the more geeky set, I looked at the un-conferences taking place this weekend. There were four BarCamps scheduled.

1. BarCampVancouver2007 – (49° 17′ 3 N, 123° 6′ 2 W)
2. BarCampFloripa2 – (27° 35′ 53 S, 48° 32′ 53 W)
3. BarCampNashville – Exit/In, Nashville, USA – (36° 10′ 6 N, 86° 46′ 38 W)
4. BarCampBlock – Palo Alto, CA, USA – (37° 26′ 34 N, 122° 9′ 40 W)

The BarCampFloripa2 seems to not have taken place. (Interesting how they put the GPS locations on there, isn’t it?)

The Scoble Show had a very entertaining and interesting interview with Marc Canter, by the way. Who knew he had such a rich opera voice?

BarCampBlock in Palo Alto, CA was the only live video feed I could find. Bless their hearts, I’m sure the people doing the video were volunteers and it was a bumpy ride. Video was jerky and audio was mostly non-existent (in the first few hours). So, that was a bit of a bust. But, uStream.tv is, I still believe, a good service to explore. Sadly, to do a video presentation at a conference like that, you need some pretty heavy duty professional equipment. Your consumer grade cams / mics – they just won’t cut it. Ya’ need to be a Scoble or a Pirillo to pull it off well.

I also tried to follow BarCamp Nashville via their Twitter feed. It was a bit “inside baseball” and likely more useful if you were actually there. However, there was one telling bit of info revealed by one of the attendees. On Twitter, a Nashville Bar Camp participant shared “bcn the CEO of my company (200+ employees) has a blog… Our human resources writes it for him!” Oh, how that would not go over well with the blogeratti, should the name of the company be learned.

And, finally, along the lines of consumer generated content, I am still enamored with the photo shared by Kara Graves (Samford University ’09) from Camp ASCCA. Kara shared (in Facebook) this photo of Jessica’s, a camper, prosthetic leg. Kinda tells the whole story, doesn’t it?