Presidential Candidate Social Media Analysis #16: Sen. Fred Thompson (R)

Social Media Analysis: Sen. Fred Thompson (R)

Sen. Fred Thompson has the following:

• Website: http://www.fred08.com/Index.aspx
• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/fredthompson
• MySpace: http://myspace.com/freddthompson08
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fredthompson
• Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/9313013@N04/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/fredthompson
• Delicious: http://del.icio.us/freddthompson
• Blog: http://fredfile.fred08.com/

Website: The Thompson website looks pretty much like everyone else’s – instead of the Action Center we have the “Make it Happen” section on the right, along with the important video piece taking up the main section of the site. Upper navigation provides a quick look at what the site will provide and a scan of the home page allows the user to see information from the “Fred File”, “Fred in the News” and graphics for donating, shopping, the Iowa Bus Tour (wonder if that will change tomorrow), phoning Fred, and pictures of Fred. Whole lotta Fred going on! Social media sites are noted at the very bottom and appear on every page of the site: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Delicious and Flickr.

Navigation is simple and the video is very current with a message direct to Iowa voters. I like this – Thompson looking directly at the camera talking directly to the voter. Clear, to the point, nice. I wonder if this message will change tomorrow as well.

There’s an Issues section that is poorly laid out and requires extra clicking to read the info. Another “cliff notes” brand of policy information – easy to read, clear and to the point. If you want more information check out the White Papers – which really are just short position papers that outline some interesting specifics. Again, doesn’t take a lot of time, but does provide the information a quick browser is looking for.

The News room is pretty standard – news releases, mentions in the news, and speeches. There is an RSS feed though!

There is “Fred TV” which has a series of videos, the volunteer HQ (aka action center), the audience segmentation – lawyers, veterans, students and young professionals – um, I guess women don’t count here, eh? (Grin). There is also ample links to buy “Fred Stuff”.

The Fred File is the campaign blog – more on that below.

Overall it’s a general campaign site – nothing outstanding but nothing terrible either. Easy to find information and a good mix of video and text and graphics to not overwhelm. As always, I really like the direct from the candidate to the public video pieces that aren’t “Advertising” with polish, but rather gritty and direct.

YouTube: This YouTube site is fairly basic and has lots of videos – although the video that runs when you come to the site is his “I’m running for president” video. There are many more current videos to run – I wonder why this hasn’t been moved! No profile here at all. Videos range just like the others, although this candidate is more likely to talk directly to the constituents as well as run the ads and the news show clips. Not seeing these videos ported directly to the campaign site, by the way, but there is overlap between those on YouTube and those on FredTV. 1,155 subscribers.

MySpace: Ho hum. Not much here. The MySpace blog hasn’t been updated and at most there are a bunch of badges to download, porting in of Twitter and YouTube and Flickr. Not much real activity or engaging here at all. Even people on the blog are asking the campaign to “step it up”. 13,747 Friends

Facebook: Login screen of doom. Sigh. Anyway, once you log in there are some basics and some activity on the Wall posts. News items are old and it doesn’t seem that anyone from the campaign is actively engaging here in the discussions/wall posts. Too bad. Opportunity missed! 17,616 supporters.

Flickr: Lots of pictures – many from today in Iowa. Not any commentary though. Pretty basic – not much on the profile either. Could do more there.

Twitter: Fairly active Twittering – last post from two days ago urging people to watch his video message for Iowa. Not bad. I’ve signed up and am following the candidate. 799 followers.

Delicious: There they are – all of the bookmarks for the campaign. Odd…they all have something to do with the candidate and news items! (grin) Good place to go to get an overview of information about the candidate from outside sources.

Search Results: A search on “Thompson” over at Google was impressive – the candidate website at number one – although it takes a click to verify as the description is about the “Friends of Fred Thompson” site, which doesn’t sound “campaign official”. Now, nothing else for the candidate shows up after that, but given the name, that isn’t surprising. Adding the candidate’s full name reveals top listing at number one, along with WikiPedia.com in second, and a host of outside sources including news sites, fan blogs and congressional bio pages. The CPC campaigns on the full name include ABC pitching their debate as well as the official Fred store and the Fred store (guess that one isn’t official!), plus other product sites. Doesn’t look as if the campaign is running any CPC. Over at Yahoo! search on the last name only doesn’t do as well as Google. The candidate site comes in fourth below cigars, books and guns (hmmm…no comment!). Lot’s of sponsored ads here – but nothing candidate related. So, you’d think that a full name search would provide similar results with the campaign site doing better…um…WRONG! So no campaign site on the first page of results as far as you could tell. There are several draft Fred sites, news items, references to commentaries that he has made…but no campaign site. His MySpace comes up on the second page – but still no official campaign site. However, if you go back and look carefully at the first result for “I’m With Fred – Friends of Fred Thompson” at http://www.imwithfred.com/ and you actually click on it, you’ll get to the campaign website. Huh? Sure they generate more links; kinda…since it doesn’t go to a different fan site which then links to the campaign site, it just is a straight redirect. A better description would help a lot here. Sponsored listings are from Café Press and the Fred Store. No official campaign. Wow! So what about Live? Dismal on last name only. Even the related searches don’t provide information on “Fred Thompson”. Yipes! Full name search …the campaign comes up fourth – although it is hard to tell as the “Friends of Fred Thompson” description doesn’t lend itself to thinking this is in any way an official campaign site. WikiPedia.com comes in before that, with some news sites and several fan sites/blogs. No campaign site. An unmotivated searcher would give up – especially if they were looking for the “official site”. No CPC from the campaign either.

Overall a poor and confusing showing for Thompson in the major three search engines. The fact that the campaign site doesn’t clearly come up at all for a full name search should be addressed by the campaign NOW. With the Iowa Caucus tomorrow and the NH primary looming large there is no excuse to not have at the very least CPC campaigns going on at those search engines where organic is NOT working – or where the official site is not clear. Get your description clear and add words like “Official Campaign Site” – in this day of consumer generated content where ANYONE can create a fan site, it’s a shame to get lost in a sea of ambiguity. This campaign certainly can’t afford it. Get on the ball folks! Foster the linking opportunities, but make sure that people who are searching can easily distinguish between the official and the fan site.

Blog: The Fred File is a pretty decent blog with a lot of activity from readers. It includes RSS, delicious, Digg and Facebook widgets, a decent blogroll and posts from Fred (the candidate) and two staffers. Yep…the CANDIDATE is blogging. SWEET! Most recent post was on the 31st of December. Love it! As he states, “…I am more thankful than ever for today’s technology which allows me to talk to you directly instead of having to go through the filter of the main stream media.” I don’t know why more candidates aren’t doing the same thing! In the time it takes to write a memo…a direct to the constituent posting or video blog can do amazing things! As I mentioned there are a lot of commentaries and discussions going on here at this blog. Overall, nicely done!

Recommendations: There are some highs and some lows here. This campaign gets how to talk one to one via the web – direct video and blogging from the candidate are clear winners in my book and really spark conversation and loyalty – not a bunch of walls, but a feeling that you can really connect. Unfortunately, while that is happening on the main website, that direct connection is falling down with the social media – at MySpace and Facebook in particular where there are clearly people wanting to connect – the campaign is “silent”. Too bad. Also the ambiguity with the URLs for the official campaign website is more confusing then helpful. Fix those descriptions and add a CPC campaign and even a banner ad campaign with direct links to the blog to generate more conversation.