Joan Stewart posted a question on LinkedIn that I found really compelling, Do online petitions carry any weight in PR campaigns? I will post her full question after I post my answer:
My company does blogger activation, which does not equal a one-to-one activation. When it comes to activating bloggers or anyone online, you always need to offer the recipient something actionable to do. People are busy. Not everyone has the time or the interest in calling or writing or the capacity to fax. So, when you activate, offer the simple, the easy, and also the more complex actions like phone numbers.
However, we make staffers and politicians super anxious and responsive when we forego the calls or petitions for real online protestation. Twitter, blogging, retweeting, status updates, and general noisiness online – YouTube pleas, even – can be passed around, shared, and so forth.
If you search google for ‘tea party talking points‘ you will see that you’re almost better off preparing a one-pager list of talking points to make it easier and simpler for people to become briefed and also offer online activists a simple source of info to repeat message along to friends, family, and community.
Long story short is the goal is to light up the Hill’s staffers’ Google Alerts as much as anything else. Rapid crisis response in the Government can be gamed. You can create a perception of revolution that is often equal to or greater than a real revolution if you leverage the media.
Here’s Joan’s question, Do online petitions carry any weight in PR campaigns?
Circulating petitions online has never been a very effective way of promoting a cause or issue. If you’re angry about something, you’d be far better off calling to voice your disapproval.
But now that social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube can spread the word about a cause or issue within minutes, and mobilize huge numbers of people, has that changed? If you manage PR campaigns, what do you tell your clients? If you’re a social media expert, what’s your take on this?
Witness what happened to Amazon.com over the weekend when feminist, LGBT and sexual-empowerment themes were removed from the sales rankings, numbers that show how well a product is performing on the website. Authors went nuts and, among other things, circulated online petitions. You can read more about this at http://budurl.com/cheu
Are online petitions effective?
What do you guys think?
