Why Political Campaigns Need Apps

MINNEAPOLIS - April 11, 2014 - PRLog -- Political Campaigns have never been shy about adopting new technologies and strategies.  When we think of a modern campaign headquarters, we think about volunteers lined up at phone banks or stuffing envelopes.  Getting people involved in and excited about campaigns means reaching out to those that want to come in and do some work.  But when campaigns send out their messages, they often rely only on one-way media.  A television commercial is a great way to get a message across.  Same with a campaign mailer that goes out to thousands of people.  And ultimately, a web page is now thought of as a crucial repository for campaign information and events.  However when using mass communication, campaigns are missing out on the real-time feedback of those messages.  They can only track based on focus groups and polling.

Social media has come along and helped bridge that gap.  In real time, campaigns can now share messages and update supporters.  They also get the benefit of instant feedback from the supporters who are using social media.  It still takes the supporter to actually “follow” the campaign, but it's a closer step.  Voters also want their voices heard.  They want to send messages to the campaigns that they feel are important.  Ultimately, you have a candidate and a populace who want to be heard and connected.

An app for smartphones and tablets is the next step for campaigns to connect with their supporters.   It goes beyond just being a fancy webpage - it can be a tool to encourage action from supporters of the app but also lets them feel a part of the campaign as they contribute ideas and share messages with their peers.  In the previous US presidential campaign, the two rival campaigns saw the potential of apps.  The Obama campaign used its very popular app to share messages and also to provide very targeted “marching orders” to supporters.  The Romney app failed technologically during the final election drive, but the goal of motivating actions through an app was the same.  Both apps were very complicated, expensive custom software that would be out of the reach of nearly every campaign.

Tiny Candidate was created to bridge the time and cost gap to encourage all campaigns to use mobile apps.  To provide an application that shares a message and creates action.  Built on a common platform with modern and secure tools, any size campaign can now build and maintain an app for a fraction of the cost of a custom product.  Campaigns can use the resources they already have in place for updating social media streams to update the app automatically.  The Tiny Candidate Apps are also flexible in that the updates are spread across all the users in near real time.

But I have a mobile website?

Mobile apps offer a high-performance native experience, but there are benefits to a mobile app far beyond just that.  A mobile website is passive, your campaign waits for supporters to visit.  An app allows the campaign to push targeted messages to users at any time.  Imagine sending a response to an urgent topic as soon as your opponent has completed their press conference.  Just like notifications are telling us traffic conditions and warning us about safety concerns, campaigns can use the same tools to alert their supporters.  Your supporters will hear a tone and be alerted to your notification just like a text message.

The power of notifications doesn’t stop at just sharing a message.  The true power comes when those messages inspire action.  Tiny Candidate has tools that combine instant notifications with a feature that lets your supporters share those messages with anyone in their contact list or social media.  Imagine sending out a response critical of an important news event.   The user would get that notification and then be able to send on the response your campaign created to their friends and family.  The power is that the messages the friends and family receive is not from a campaign address, but from someone they know and trust.  Who would ignore a message from a friend?  To put it differently- your supporters get to be active partners in your campaign by lending their voice and credibility to your campaign's message.

Tiny Candidate offers many other tools that are important for campaigns.  Managing volunteers and collecting donations are among them.  These are things that websites can do, and now they are in your supporters' pockets.  Scheduling events and sharing information is the first step.  Visit http://www.tinycandidate.com for a free demo to see how an App for your campaign can motivate action among your supporters.