Media equips us with the tools to persuade, influence and win. So its an exceptional opportunity to have two seasoned professionals here who have been engaged in online battles and have won in National Policy fights. Together they publish an email called write social daily that delivers an overview of the top news of the day with a conservative yet funny bent. If you dont get right social daily already, you can subscribe through their email. Their Creative Genius comes partly from their extensive experience. Erica currently manages heritages vast social media presence, which leads on many issues of the day. Previously, she was a political reporter, a digital strategist for the House Republican conference and a Communications Director in the u. S. House. Eric is one of the original leaders of the conservative movement on line. He founded right online, a long standing conference that serves as a counterweight to the net root nations. Today he serves as Senior Vice President at the Franklin Center for government and Public Integrity. Perhaps erics proudest accomplishment, though was being named by Keith Overman as the number 2 worst person in the world. A truly exceptional accomplishment. So take a moment to look up from facebook and please join me in welcoming, erica and eric. [applause] [music] thank you, allen, for that wonderful introduction. Its always a fun one when youre out at a bar to get a call from your parents, saying the neighbors just called and said youre the secondworst person in the world. Were so proud of you. Ill fix this microphone for taller people. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Steamboat Institute for having us out. Our colleague, bill murphy, was going to be joining us. Unfortunately he had a personal situation arise and was unable to make it. But dont worry. Erica and i are twice as fun. Im with the Franklin Center, as allen mentioned, pleased to be joined by erica anderson. As allen pointed out, go to rightsocial. Com. We wouldnt be doing our job if we didnt ask you all to follow along. Just really quickly, how many of you are on facebook . Thats very good. How many of you are on twitter . How many of you have a blog . How many of you are on youtube . Have your own channel . How many of you have a kid or a grand kid who shows you how to do things on your computer . The point we want to make is ultimately how everyone in this room can make a difference. So if youre afraid of technology, dont be. Theres so many things we can do to help you. Theres so many things that arent that high of a bar that can allow you to have a huge impact. Thats what were going to talk a little bit about today. If you want to learn how to use these tools, its always harder to delve in and teach those kind of things here, so weve got a stack of business cards. We both have associates at our offices who can get on the phone and walk you through signing up. But our goal today is to talk a little bit about some case studies that show the impact of online tools and how its transforming our polical landscape and talk about effective strategies that everyone can get involved in. So with that, i want to talk about a major challenge that we face as a nation with the rapid decline in the Mainstream Media. However, from our perspective, this is a huge opportunity. This is a study conducted by the american journalism review that shows a 30 loss in the number of reporters covering statelevel politics from 2003 to 2009, as Mainstream Media is bleeding profits and laying off reporters left and right. They cant afford to support journalists who can tell us what is happening at our State Capitols. The biggest threats occur when nobody is paying attention. Its at the local School Board Meetings where the media doesnt bother to show up and report on it, in those Committee Hearings where nobody is there to tell us what decisions are being made. The ironic thing about this study, in 2009, they ran out of money to continue the study. The largest point here is that old media is dying. Of course it still has a lot of sway. It cant be ignored. But when you look at radio, newspapers, tv, theyre on the decline. And digital tools, all of the resources we have Available Online, are vastly increasing in influence. Were facing a major paradigm shift. The way we consume and use information has fundamentally changed. Never before have we had so many tools at our disposal. Studies show a major loss of trust by the public in Mainstream Media institutions. People dont trust whats being reported on tv or in their newspaper anymore. What people do trust is what they hear from their friends. That is where people are getting their information now and its a very selfselecting media environment. We decide who we follow on facebook. We decide who we follow on twitter. And so the connections that you have, you have the ability to influence them. And in fact, i think a responsibility to make sure that we get the right information out to the public and in an effective way. I think the other aspect of this is, when you look at old media, tv, radio, print, you could get angry, write a letter to the editor, but they would decide if they published it or not. You could call talk radio but theres a producer deciding whether or not your call makes it through. You can call the tv station and tell them to cover a story, but its them who decide. Theres nothing in the way of your using these online tools. In fact, if you write that letter to the editor, you have to read the article, go to your computer, and send it to them. Now you can tweet it out, share it on facebook, email it to people. You can be an activist or information sharer right at the moment youre consuming the news. There are three important areas that were going to touch upon today that we think you should be aware of. Now, you dont have to be somebody who sits behind your computer all day, being an online activist or helping on any of these fronts, but i think you should at least be aware, whether youre a donor, a supporter, an elected official, a candidate, if you work at a nonprofit, you should know the impact these tools have and the importance that they hold, when you think about strategies or ways, not just for yourself to get involved, but for those organizations and other efforts that youre aligned with. So we want to talk about politics and advocacy. We want to talk about campaigns and elections. And the shifting tide of media and journalism as well. Biggest thing i get when i talk to people about this topic is, okay, so youre on twitter, facebook. You have a blog. Youre preaching to the choir, talking to a small bubble of people. Doesnt actually make an impact. I want to give a few examples that im sure youre all familiar with that would never have been possible before the advent of the internet. How many of you remember dan rather . We can now call the former anchor of cbs evening news because of a report he ran on president Bushs National Guard service. The Mainstream Media picked up this story well beyond cbs and it became a major issue in the campaign. A conservative blogger posted the documents that dan rather had used as the basis for his story. It was actually, i think, a typewriter expert in montana who looked at the documents and said the type setting used to create these didnt even exist in the years they were supposedly created. The blogger picked it up, forced the Mainstream Media to cover it, which forced an investigation that led to dan rathers downfall. Never could you imagine somebody calling cbs news saying im a typewriter expert in montana and ive got to tell you something about dan rather . I dont think it would have made it up the food change. George allen. How many of you remember former senator george allen, from the state of virginia . He was headed toward what looked like a landslide reelection to his u. S. Senate seat in 2006 and in fact many thought he was the leading contender for the u. S. Republican president ial nomination in 2008. That was until a video tracker following him got on his nerves so much that he pointed to the guy and said, hes been following me to every event. He said macaca. He claimed it was a term he made up. But liberal bloggers found an ancient racial slur that apparently is associated with that term. It became the defining issue of the remainder of his reelection campaign. Sad thing is george allen could have stayed in bed during his whole campaign and been handily reelected. But this youtube thing brought down his political career. Below him, van jones. Do you remember . Van jones was a prominent official in the Obama Administration who wasnt really properly vetted, certainly not by the media, but wielded tremendous influence. Citizen journalists started to uncover all of this information from his past. His involvement during the riots of rodney king in l. A. , him being in prison, saying hes a socialist. He had actually said these Green Energy Initiatives are a tool to redistribute wealth to impoverished africanamerican communities. It wasnt reported by the Mainstream Media. Glenn beck picked it up. The first story the New York Times ran was van jones resigns. Before that, they didnt even touch it. Never would have happened in the age of just the Mainstream Media. Former congressman Bob Etheridge, 2010 was a major year for republicans sweeping control of congress. But Bob Etheridge was considered probably the safest democrat in the country, in a Rural North Carolina district. The state Republican Party wasnt even going to put up a nominee against him. A tea party activist, elmers, a nurse, decided thats not right. Im going to run against my congressman. Thank god she did. A student confronted bob and asked him about obamacare. Rather than responding, he grabbed the student by the arm and started twisting it. You can hear the student, in a video, saying let me go, please let me go. And he was being very aggressive. Anyway, the video went viral and that is why he is now former congressman Bob Etheridge. Of course, Anthony Weiner, i dont need to go into the details of that. [laughter] that story, most of you are familiar with. But that was something that happened going into memorial day weekend where most of the media was probably off at the beach enjoying a holiday. Conservative bloggers picked up on it and wouldnt let it die. They forced the media to cover it. If they hadnt done that, Anthony Weiner would probably still be a congressman. But they forced his resignation. And in the following special election, a republican won that seat for the first time in over 100 years. Again, all of these never could have happened before the age of the internet. So when you say, does this have an impact . Can i, as one person using these tools, even if youre just sharing something, emailing it to people, hitting that like button on facebook, retweeting it, you can have a huge impact. It influences the Public Policy agenda. It increases and enhances activism and it spreads our message to a broader audience. One example you guys may have seen in the past week, governor rick perry in texas, indicted on two felony counts, from a district attorney, who was caught drunk driving. The other year, i think she had three times the legal bloodalcohol limit. She was in charge of the Public Integrity unit, holding politicians in texas accountable. Have any of you seen the video . Not just the arrest video where she cant even walk a jagged line but once shes booked, shes kicking the door, screaming for the sheriff to come, let her go. Shes being verbally and physically abusive to the people who have taken her into custody. What i thought was really odd, when i saw the article, i got a google saying rick perry indicted on two felony counts. The article said rick perry threatened to veto funding, and then i saw the video on rosemary lundberg. I said, they dont mention her name, talk about her drunk driving. Theyre just trying to impugn rick perry and not explain the context of why he threatened to veto that funding. Should someone who is in charge of Public Integrity in the state of texas, driving around drunk, have a multimillion budget . Rick perry said no. That wasnt included in the article but by that night, it was the only thing i saw online and it forced the Mainstream Media to cover it. It got to the point where the New York Times and David Axelrod have called this investigation inappropriate and clearly political retribution. So that shows the power of the internet. I think i should go back for one second. When you think about tom delay or ted stevens, there are so many politicians whose careers have been ruined and later exonerated. And that was because either the time it happened, the tools or the savvy to fight back. I think rick perry is a tremendous example of turning two felony indictments against him into a political plus. Now hes the talk of the, you know, 2016 field. And everybody is rallying behind him. So i think that really, really, truly shows the power of the internet. But we hear a lot about the digital divide, especially in the fallout from the 2008 and the 2012 elections. And its true. There is a major divide between where the left is and where we are online. A lot of that is not due to any gap in enthusiasm from the grassroots on either side. Its a lot of the organizations who arent taking advantage and using the appropriate tools to engage us in their campaigns or their organizations. So in 2008, for example, barack obama launched his own social media website. We all know hes a very humble guy. Mybarackobama. Com had 200 2 million members. They generated millions of pieces of content online, blog posts, tweets, that got his message out virally across the internet. He broke historic fundraising levels and it was the backbone of his get out the vote operation that led to his victory. In 2012 we hear about the role of big data. You know if they mention big bird or a country song in a certain area, the impact that would have on polling, whereas mitt romney, his get out the vote tool couldnt even connect to the internet because they never tested it. 200 million down the drain because they never tested it from the facility it was going to be run from. I think one thing that exemplifies more than anything else the approach its not always about the tools. Its about the approach and the way you use even rudimentary tools, things that we can even come up with ourselves in terms of tactics if we dont have the tools. The iphone application that obama did in 2008. You could download this onto your iphone. It would take all of your contacts and look at the area code and prioritize them by swing state and you could start calling through. How many of you get robocalls . You hear the delay, the click . How many of you actually stay on to listen to them . I have one hand over here. I hang up immediately. But if i get a call from my mother, brother, best friend, im at least going to take it, listen to them. So when people were calling their friends and saying, hey, listen, im supporting barack obama this november, heres why. I hope you will be do. Do you expect youll be turning out to vote for him on election day . It would revert back to a screen, likely obama voter, unlikely, undecided. It all got zapped back to the obama database for them to activate you to follow up. Meanwhile, my phone was getting inundated by robocalls from john mccain. More than anything else, whether you do it online or in person, some of you are involved in activist groups. How many of you are just a citizen, an activist versus being an elected official or with an organization . If youre an activist, raise your hand. If youre with an organization or an elected official, raise your hand . Wouldbe elected official. Well, now that you stayed for this presentation, you will be. We always like seeing more citizen hands go up than politicians, so we have a better balance here. But it all goes back to the principles of community organizing. This is thing we attacked obama for as a punch line. Hes nothing more than a community organizer. Thats probably the only thing hes good it. We should actually learn from it. This is a wheel that shows the principles of community organizing. I think theyre worth walking through, because they really highlight the mistakes and the flaws or the ineffective use that people or organizations often make when using social media. First, i think this has a laser. Right there. We have this. Social media is not about blasting your message out. Thats the age of broadcast. Tv, newspapers, radio, they all blast a message at you. Again, you can scream back at it, but theyre not gonna hear you. You can write a letter to the editor, everything we talked about, but they control the information. What makes the internet different is that its a conversation. If you want to engage people, you have to talk to them. And when you talk to people, you have to listen to what they have to say too. One of the biggest flaws is that organizations will say, oh, lets use facebook or twitter to post our press releases or push out that ad. Same thing as citizens. I want to tell people whats going on, come to this event, come to this event. Youve got to listen. Youve got to ask questions. Youve got to engage them. If you want people to take time away from their families, their business, their jobs to get involved, youve got to make them feel a part of a community. And that requires you to listen. Youd be surprised what you would learn. When i was at americans for prosperity, we ran a petition and it was the first time we had tried in a petition, puttin