The Young Democrats Working for America have launched a new Facebook page for the coalition.

Become a fan of the page to show your support for the team and to see travel recaps, announcements, and more.

Check out ydaworks.com as well, the website for the coalition.

If you want to learn more about the YDA Works team, take a look at the slate announcement email from YDA Presidential candidate Crystal Strait:

My name is Crystal Strait and I am leading the YDA Works team as a candidate for President of the Young Democrats of America (YDA).

Please Join the YDA Works Team TODAY!

During my career in politics, as I was serving as a Political Director for the California Democratic Party, as a Communications Director in the state legislature, as a State and local Young Democrat President, and as your female representative to the Democratic National Committee, I have learned that political power is divined only from the strength of your team. I’m writing today to introduce you to (and brag a little bit about) the impressive team that I am running with.

You may already know the YDA Works team. For months now, our team has been traveling around the country sharing our action plan to get YDA working again. While we have made over 50 trips to 27 states to share our vision, we aren’t done yet.

Over the next few weeks, you will be hearing more about our action plan over email, online, by phone, and at the YDA meeting in Houston. Soon, we will be having a series of public town hall style conversations to highlight our action plan to get YDA working again once elected, all while generating much needed discussion and input from the power base of our organizations – local leaders like you.

Today, I want to take this time to introduce to you the YDA Works team in the off chance you haven’t met them before or aren’t familiar with their accomplishments.

The YDA Works Team of Candidates

Rod Snyder is our candidate for Executive Vice President. Rod is an innovative leader from West Virginia with experience as a dynamic YDA Region Director and state chapter president. Most recently Rod was the Campaign Manager for the youngest female member of the West Virginia Legislature. Additionally, Rod has extensive public policy experience, specifically on agricultural and rural issues. He was an active member of the Obama campaign’s Agricultural and Rural Policy Advisory committee.

Isaac Robinson from Michigan is our candidate for Vice President. His experience as a Caucus Chair of the pioneering YDA Labor Caucus makes him a formidable advocate for caucuses in YDA. Whether it is standing up for workers rights at our hotel, or leading the charge for our national efforts advocating for EFCA, Isaac brings labor issues front and center. Additionally, Isaac serves as the political director of the Detroit Teamsters, giving him unique insights and relationships within the labor movement and Michigan politics.

Renee Hartley from Texas is our candidate for Vice President. As President of the Dallas County Young Democrats, the largest local chapter in the country, Renee has a deep understanding of both the challenges facing local chapters and effective strategies for building membership and chapter infrastructure. Whether it is planning a week long of trainings for the YDA Convention in Dallas or being a trainer herself for the Human Rights Campaign, Renee never sits on the sidelines. That is unless, she is watching her son play football or watching her daughter cheer. Renee represents a constituency that has been sorely overlooked as we try to expand YDA: young families.

Colmon Elridge from Kentucky is our candidate for Vice President. Colmon was instrumental in helping rebuild the Kentucky Young Democrats into an energetic and active organization. As a surrogate for Governor and then Senator Barack Obama Colmon has used his experience as a former CDA national leader, and currently as a local chapter president to bring issues affecting young people to the forefront. As Executive Assistant and now Director of the White House Faith Based Initiatives for Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, Colmon is experienced in and passionate about direct issue advocacy.

Emily Robinson from Illinois is our candidate for Secretary. Emily has worked at every level of YDA – local, state and national – to make the organization stronger and more responsive, most recently helping to orchestrate the Chicago convention bid and initial planning all while attending law school full-time. A detail-oriented master of multitasking, Emily wants to explore the different and new uses of technology to expand communications capacity for YDA.

Mark Newman from North Carolina is our candidate for Treasurer. Mark is the Chair of the YDA Finance Committee and has expanded YDA’s sustaining giving program – Tomorrow Club. Professionally, Mark has worked in political fundraising, in development at Georgetown University, and is currently the Assistant Director of Development for the School of International Service at American University. Mark has a broad range of fundraising and financial management experience that will enhance our team.

I am proud to lead a slate that is accomplished both within YDA and in the broader political community. As you will realize while getting to know our team, we want to move YDA beyond the rhetoric and focus on results. What YDA Works promises, we will produce. Our team matches excellent political and professional skills with a passion for growing and building YDA into a sustainable leader in youth politics and the Democratic Party.

Throughout my professional career I have been blessed with an ability to put together teams of people who can achieve the tasks set before them. I think you will agree this is an impressive group of leaders that combine rich YDA experience with a practical background that will enable them to serve you and lead as YDA Board Members. This team is the most impressive complete slate of candidates seeking YDA office since I have been a member, and with your support we are going to get YDA working again.

From my time as a local chapter president, state chapter president, and national officer, I have ideas on how we can get YDA working again and I know you do, too.

I look forward to talking with you so we can share our ideas and plan how we move YDA forward, together.

The time for words and finger pointing has passed. Let’s make each of us an example for Young Democrats across America and get to work.

Democratically yours,

Crystal Strait
Candidate for YDA President,
YDA Works

Become a fan of YDA Works on Facebook

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A number of state Young Democrats chapters have created Facebook pages. Here is the list of state pages that I have found. If your state chapter has a Facebook page that isn’t listed here leave a comment and I’ll add it.

Young Democrats of America

Massachusetts

California

Connecticut

Kansas

Nebraska

Missouri

Arkansas

West Virginia

New Hampshire

Maryland

Utah

New York

Idaho

P.S. I still need your support in the DFA Netroots Nation Scholarship Competition, so if you could send a vote my way I would appreciate it.

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I have been spending a lot of time working with Facebook Pages recently, and I wanted to share some best practices that I have picked up.

Status Updates

Status updates are the bread and butter of Facebook Pages. They are your primary source of communication and through likes and comments the primary source of interaction by your fans. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your updates:

• Update Frequently – But not too frequently. You want to find that happy medium where your fans are engaged but not turned off. Your updates will appear in your fans’ home feeds, so you should provide content that will be of interest to them. You want your page to be active, since it in turn reflects on the activity of your organization, but you don’t want to appear spammy.
• Be Personal – When I post an update to the Young Democrats of America page, I include my name before the update. People prefer to know with whom they are communicating, and unless you identify yourself in your update it will feel impersonal.
• Ask Questions, Encourage Interaction – Your Facebook Page shouldn’t be a one-way communications tool. Fans have the opportunity to communicate with you and with each other. Asking questions encourages your fans to comment on your updates, which elicits a feeling of participation as well as boosting the exposure of your page (updates that receive a lot of interaction appear on the homepage sidebar). It also provides you with an opportunity to learn more about your fans.
  

• Share – You shouldn’t solely post updates based on your own content. If you see a news article that would be interesting and relevant to your fans, share it. If an allied organization is doing something impressive, let your fans know.
• Promote and Recognize Members/Chapters – If one of your members or chapters is doing something interesting, received press coverage, or wrote a great article, share it with your fans. People like to know what other members and chapters are doing, and your members/chapters that you mention will appreciate the recognition.
• Don’t Update Using Twitter – While Facebook Page status updates and tweets seem like similar media, there are differences between the two, and using a one-size-fits-all approach will not be as effective. Though you may end up sending the same update to both sometimes, it should be a case-by-case decision.

Content

Status updates aren’t your only communications tool on your page. Here are some tips for other types of content:

• Blog Syndication – If your organization has a blog or website with an RSS feed you should import the posts into your page using Facebook notes. This will increase the reach of your blog content and help drive your fans to your website.
• Multimedia – You can share photos and videos on your Facebook page, and often this content generates the most response from fans. Post multimedia content from events, rallies, campaign videos and photo galleries, etc.
• Help Fans Connect to You – You should make it easy for your fans to connect to you on different platforms through your page. Occasionally share your website, Twitter account, YouTube or Flickr accounts, etc. You want your fans to be as engaged in your organization as possible.

Insights

Insights is the built-in analytics tool for your Facebook page. It is important to keep track of the statistics of your page and fans in order to chart your progress in growth and engagement.

Through Insights you can see how many new fans you have added each day compared to the number of fans that have removed themselves, which is a good way to measure whether you are posting too frequently or not enough. You can also see how engaged your fans are with your content.

Another useful feature is the ability to look at the demographic of your fan base by age, gender, and location.

Conclusions

Your Facebook Page can be an extremely useful communications and engagement tool if used effectively. Hopefully these tips will help you improve your results. If you have any of your own best practices for Facebook Pages, please share them in the comments.

P.S. I still need your support in the DFA Netroots Nation Scholarship Competition, so if you could send a vote my way I would appreciate it.

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A little less than a month ago we decided to make a concerted effort to increase the number of fans for the Young Democrats of America Facebook page. I want to talk about how we were able to add almost 1,000 new fans during this period.

First, we had the advantage of having a Facebook group with just under 5,000 members. Previously, these members had never been sent a message asking them to become fans of the page. Rob Dolin sent a message out to the group asking them to join and then posted about YDA’s online presence on the YDA blog. This was the first big momentum boost of the effort.

Second, we used Twitter and our Facebook statuses to promote the page. This combined with the new members joining from the group solicitation made the page rank fairly high on people’s home feeds, which brought in new members.

Third, I began to actively put content on the page. Since status updates from pages show up in home feeds, it helps bring traffic to the page. I used status updates that I thought would elicit the best responses in terms of likes and comments, which would help increase their reach.

I decided that I wanted to try out using Facebook ads to help build membership. I created an ad and targeted it to users between the ages of 18 and 35 who live in the U.S. and identify with the Democratic Party. I chose to buy ads on a Cost Per 1,000 Impressions (CPM) rather than a Cost Per Click (CPC) since I preferred the visibility (the ads have the YDA site url) and because I thought the targeting was strong enough. I set a max bid of $.25 CPM with a daily budget of $2 (this was my own money, so I really couldn’t break the bank.) I ran the ads on-and-off for a week and ended up with 49 clicks, and it seemed that most of the clicks converted into membership based on the growth numbers. While it may seem like I spent $13 for 49 new members, it will actually be more than that. With each new member comes the opportunity to reach their networks, so there is a good potential for a butterfly effect.

While the initial boost seems to have come from the group solicitation, the steady growth afterward seems to indicate that the other membership building tactics have been successful, especially when compared to the stagnancy in membership during the four months before the effort began.

What are your thoughts on building up the membership of a Facebook page? Share in the comments, and don’t forget to become a fan of the Young Democrats of America.

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I have a new post up on Future Majority reviewing Democracy for America’s Facebook GOTV strategy. Go check it out.

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I just posted an overview on Facebook’s new Lexicon tool over at Future Majority. Check it out.

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Facebook’s new design has been hotly debated, with users either loving or hating it. I personally like it. However, no matter your feelings on the design it is probably here to stay. There is a bright side though. The new Facebook design could actually be better for political campaigns.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook ads are popular with campaigns and organizations since they are inexpensive, extremely easy to target, and reach young voters. However, with the old Facebook these ads appeared all the way on the bottom of the left sidebar and didn’t really get anyone’s attention. With the new Facebook, the ads are much more likely to catch the eyes of the users.

Notice how the new ads take advantage of white space to pop out and appear above the fold. If you use Facebook, think about how many times you noticed an ad in the old design and compare it to noticing the ads with the new one. It isn’t even close. This means that Facebook ads will most likely be much more effective and an even better investment for your advertising budget.

Shared Items

Items shared on the new Facebook actually stand out for people visiting your profile to see, as opposed to the old Facebook which only used small thumbnails and some text. Look at how prominent a shared picture becomes on a profile.

Anyone visiting your profile is going to see a large version of what you shared. This helps when you are sharing political cartoons, pictures of flyers for upcoming events, etc. People are also more inclined to comment on your item, so the items you share can spur discussions about it.

This more prominent featuring of shared items also includes video.

The videos you share can be played in full size on your profile, and your friends are able to comment on it. I know that a number of the videos I have shared have been in turn shared by them. The new Facebook is good at helping things go viral.

The feature I would like to see added to the new Facebook is the ability to reshare someone’s shared item into your feed right from their profile, similar to Friendfeed.  This would definitely help things spread.

Give it a chance

Though some of you hate the new Facebook now, give it some time and it may grow on you. Remember when everyone flipped out over the news feed and mini-feed?

What are your thoughts on how the new Facebook design affects the use of Facebook by campaigns? Share in the comments.

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Click here to join the cause.

Learn more about 18 in ’08 at their website: 18in08.com.

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Link to Presentation

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