A perpetual work in progress, today we officially unveiled our new creative reel on our Facebook Page. With the popularity of Facebook and the fact that Pages can now be indexed by Google, it kind of makes you wonder why we need to have a website at all. Think about it and hit us up with your thoughts. To our regular followers, please take a moment to head on over to Facebook and become a fan of Rearden Killion Communications.
As a part of our effort to get out the vote for local candidates in the Tampa Bay area, we looked to get past yard signs and introduce the candidates and their positions in a series of online videos. Days of taping yielded some great interviews, and plenty of flubs.
Looking for viral element to give the effort a final push, we put together this set of outtakes and released it 48 hours before the elections. Within 24 hours, it had shot up to nearly 1000 views and caught the attention of the local media, including several political blogs and newspapers.
Facebook is the leading social networking site. Rearden Killion Communications’ Candidate Button Application maximizes the opportunity for political candidates to create awareness, start a fan base and, most importantly, build a constituency that will influence voters and fund raising.
How it works: Users add the application and become fans...
In the process, users invite other friends to add application and become fans...
Application appears in user's news feed that is seen by other people in their network...
Button appears prominently on user’s profile and can link to the candidate’s website or Facebook group page with latest news updates, videos and photos of campaign.
If you have a Facebook account, you can test drive the application here.
A campaign using the advertising and social media tools on Facebook is getting credit for Kevin Beckner’s win in the District Six democratic primary for Hillsborough County Commission.
The Facebook campaign, kicked off in early August, was more targeted and cost-effective than traditional advertising, according to a release from Rearden Killion Communications, a St. Petersburg firm that handled the campaign with political consultant Larry Biddle.
The campaign, including content, video production, management and media buying, was valued at about $7,000, Rearden Killion said, although the company also said it charged a bit less to prove the effort could work.
Beckner, 37, a certified financial planner, won 45.6 percent of the vote and defeated Joe Redner and Denise Layne in the Tuesday primary.
Facebook advertising tools can target specific user variables such as age, gender, education, profession, employer, interests and hobbies, the release said. The ads themselves also can address specific issues.
In one example, Beckner used a Forbes article about the lack of opportunities for young adults in Tampa to call for more proactive business recruitment efforts on the part of the County Council. The video had nearly 700 views and online discussion, the release said.
Rearden Killion also created a Facebook application, allowing supporters to put a campaign button on their own pages and providing a link to Beckner’s page.
The overall effort increased Beckner’s Facebook group membership by 50 percent, the release said.
In November, Beckner will face incumbent Brian Blair, who won the republican primary with 65 percent of the vote, defeating Don Kruse.
ReadWriteWeb
Written by Sarah Perez / August 28, 2008 9:00 AM
In Tampa, Florida, one of the cities that comprises the megalopolis known as the Tampa Bay area, home to Busch Gardens, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and only minutes from beautiful beaches on the Gulf Coast of Florida (oh, and this author's stomping grounds, too), a local politician is giving credit to Facebook for his recent win in the primaries for the local County Commission.
On Facebook, the crowd is still very young, with an average age of 22.96 as of this February. Typically, the youth vote, although coveted, could not be counted on thanks to low turnout of young voters at the polls. However, this small time local election may prove to be one of the first examples of the huge impact Gen Y can have on the political process.
Now that many members of Gen Y are of voting age, their sheer numbers can no longer be ignored by politicians. The biggest generation since the baby boomers, Gen Y has been poorly characterized by some as lazy, unfocused, and self-centered - a generation that would just as soon stay home with mom and dad than go out and climb the corporate ladder. While it may be true that Gen Y has the good financial sense to maximize their time in rent-free accommodations, they are certainly proving themselves the opposite of lazy when it comes to involvement, be it social involvement, community involvement, or political involvement. Considering this recent "Facebook-powered" win, it could be that this generation is all talk and all action, too.
According to Rearden Killion Communications, the St. Petersburg advertising firm that handled the campaign of Kevin Beckner in the District Six democratic primary for the Hillsborough County Commission, the Facebook effort comprised of content, video production, and media buying valued at around $7000. There was also a Facebook app which let supporters put a campaign button on their own pages and provided a link to Beckner's page. The overall effort increased Beckner's Facebook group membership by 50 percent.
In this local election of this County Commissioner, you have to wonder if this is a hint of things to come in the upcoming presidential election here in the U.S. The Obama campaign has defined themselves by the way they have embraced technology. From blogs to social networks to even SMS text messages announcing the VP, the campaign is "a revolutionary shift in our country's political media ecology," says Andrew Rasiej over on techPresident. Although it has yet to be seen whether or not the use of technology will propel Obama into the Oval Office, the results of this local election prove that there is merit to targeting the online crowd and asking for their vote.
We’ve followed it all along. And so has the media. Our client, the Merlin Law Group handed out checks to forty-eight Central Florida families, finally providing them with the funds they so desperately needed from their insurer years ago.
Last October, we worked with St. Petersburg Times reporter Tom Zucco on this story on behalf of our client, the Merlin Law Group. It chronicled the hardships of 48 low-income families in Central Florida that were hit by Hurricane Charley, and then subsequently low balled by their insurer United Casualty, a division of Unitrin.
After the suits were filed, United made a successful bid to have the cases put into appraisal. A process whereby an independent source would determine how much, if anything, the insured were underpaid by. Perhaps it wasn’t the best decision on their part.
As reported, again by the St. Petersburg Times, the total underpaid amount for all residents was determined to be just under $1 Million at $944,056. Looking at the underpayment for each policyholder revealed an average underpayment of about $20,000 per household.
With a branded glass tower at 1 Wacker Drive in Chicago and over $3 billion in revenues (that’s billion with a B), that’s not even a quarter of the $6.5 million Unitrin CEO Richard C. Vie made, according to Forbes.
Merlin Law Group attorney David Pettinato and resident Betty Cooper were also asked to share their story and perspective on the situation on the Ft. Myers CBS affiliate.
There’s no website, no commercials and no exclusives on Access Hollywood. In fact, you can try Googleing Bolt and you’ll only catch a glimpse of what I’m referring to via an Internet Movie Database listing and Wikipedia page.
But check out YouTube and you’ll see the trailer for the upcoming Disney-Pixar movie, due this Thanksgiving, is spreading like wildfire while not even as much as a single poster has appeared in theaters.
This is of course not the first time this has been done, but it is an example of how important viral activity and venues like YouTube have become to even the biggest marketers in the world.
With no lack of budget to be spent, Disney is making use of the viral potential Bolt cast member Miley Cyrus provides as an often-searched term. Makes you wonder if studios will start casting actors based on their Google status.
What’s also curious is they’ve managed to break the no double dipping rule, but without actually double dipping. Here they are building buzz around Bolt without taking attention away from their just released Wall-E, which currently sits atop the box office.
