PoliMinute: 21 August 2012

“Pull Out Your Phones, Please.”

I just got back from the Vice President Biden rally in downtown Minneapolis. There were the ample cheers, community praises and campaign promises that you’d expect at these types of events. The shift happened when Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak asked the crowd:

“Pull out your phones please. Let me see them in the air. Now text MN to 62262 so that we can let you know what’s happening.”

This is the first time that I heard anyone make this type of call-to-action in this election cycle (besides our clients). In 2008, the Obama campaign used SMS to great extent. The campaign first flashed an opt-in message during their Super Bowl ad in 2008, and added nearly 750,000 to their list within minutes. Through Election Day 2012, it was hard to miss that opt in message: Text HOPE to 62262.

And in 2012: nothing. To sign up for Obama’s was SMS list, you need to go to their homepage, scroll down to the bottom and click on SMS. That’s certainly not the best approach for building your SMS list.

Romney’s campaign isn’t doing much better. I had to do a few Google searches to discover that the campaign buried its opt-in message to the bottom of its privacy statement page: http://www.mittromney.com/privacy.

With the advent of other mobile tools, such as apps, both presidential campaigns have pushed SMS to the back seat. While other tools might be flashy, there simply is no more effective mobile tool at engaging and empowering supporters than SMS, especially when reaching communities of color and younger voters.

It’s in the best interest of both campaigns to reconsider their SMS use.

(Photo Credit: Jerry Holt, Star Tribune)