Political Tools

Running a campaign on a tight budget? We get it. That’s why we compiled a list of free tools to include in your campaign toolbox to make your efforts more efficient. From launching your campaign to streamlining operations, these free tools can make a difference. 

EveryAction offers a suite of digital, fundraising, and organizing tools for nonprofits all in one unified platform. In this 7 questions interview they talk about the exciting changes they are making to their platform in the new product roadmap and how nonprofits can better use digital tools to achieve their goals. 

Since President Obama’s use of social media revolutionized modern campaigning, sites like Twitter have become hotbeds of political activity, discussion, and advocacy. For political candidates, maintaining an engaging and active Twitter account has become one of the most effective ways to connect with voters and expand campaign awareness. While headlines are plagued with news of erratic and inaccurate Twitter updates, succumbing to Twitter mistakes can turn your account into a detraction instead of a tool. Here are a few of my tips to ensure that you’re ready for Twitter domination.

When you get into politics, it’s hard to resist the all too common tunnel vision of focusing only on politics. But be careful – binge watching Veep or The West Wing is not going to help you run a better campaign or organization; nor will reading solely political books. So Here are some of our favorite non-political books. 

We all love life hacks. I’ll read any article that promises to show me “10 ways to be more productive at the office” or “15 secrets to make your morning better” or “5 ways to pack a healthier lunch.” Even if I just glean a single tip from the list, the sparkling promise of ease and order will hook me every time. That was why I was excited to try out the Hemingway Editor, a website that’s designed to show you simple ways to make your writing “bold and clear.”

In our last blog post, Digital Advocacy: Advertising Campaign Goal Setting Part I,  we talked about how to develop digital advocacy strategy, cost per acquisition (CPA) campaigns, email programs and the best ways to utilize ad testing. In today's post, we take a closer look at using tactics like paid digital advertising, social media and analytics for digital advocacy. You can also read more about this in our latest ebook, Guide to Digital Advocacy.

The lion’s share of your political or advocacy campaign will be spent on message development and saturation. But as Election Day looms, you’ll have to start focusing your efforts on get out the vote/ GOTV. While you should make sure to include the rest of your online platforms in your GOTV efforts, a good place to start is social media. Not surprisingly, it’s a great digital platform for social pressure. You can use social media in a few ways to encourage your target audience to vote.

As the dominant search company in the world, Google has the potential to change traditional, political, and advocacy research. As phone surveys become more and more challenging, using digital polling and testing will become more commonplace. But are Google tools going to replace polling and focus groups in the short term? Not likely.

In my 20 years working in politics, I have seen a lot of things change. Technology in particular has done a lot to change the way that we communicate with voters. Yet somehow, we in politics have access to more information about our audience than ever before, but our audience engagement is at an all time low.