Republicans Try Their Hand at Social Media

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is readying its Web site for a relaunch that promises to incorporate the social media tools the party admits to ignoring during the 2008 election, but is today's Web 2.0 friendly to the GOP?

"Conservatives didn't use the tools" available to them during the election, Todd Herman, the RNC's new media director, told attendees at the Personal Democracy Forum. "But that's changing."

Herman, who previously served as general manager for media strategy and monetization for Microsoft's MSN network as well as streaming media evangelist at MSNBC.com, joined the RNC in March.

Herman expects to unveil a revamped GOP.com in about 45 days, he said. RNC Chairman Michael Steele has ordered him to "take the lid off" in redesigning the site, and Herman said he is eager to comply.

"To the consternation of the communications staff of the RNC, I am innately set on open," Herman said. "I am innately set to take your point of view and discuss it."

Herman suggested, however, that the "rules of engagement" regarding social media do not necessarily favor Republicans. Services like Google News are using techniques that are "anti-SEO" - search engine optimization - he said.






Herman pointed to Google News and its coverage of the American Medical Association's (AMA) opposition to Obama's plan for a government-sponsored insurance plan.

Google News, he said, provided links to an ABC news story about its healthcare town hall with Obama, and a Media Matters story about how the GOP had branded that town hall a failure, but nothing that used a phrase close to "AMA rejects Obama plan".

To find such a headline, one would have to go to a "not very well-trafficked blog," Herman said. That blog linked to a New York Times story on the issue that Herman acknowledged was "well done." He did not, however, like the fact that the Times used the phrase "doctor's group" in the headline instead of AMA.

Searching for the AMA story on Google.com, however, turned up the desired results, Herman said. Later, he also said that Google is his favorite search engine.

What does Google think about that?

Get the rest of this story on pcmag.com.

Side Note: In other Todd Herman news, on a day when CNN took some heat for referring to Twitter members as "sources", a note on Herman's Twitter feed caught my eye. He writes that his Tweets are his own beliefs and not that of the GOP or the RNC - standard disclaimer fare. But then he goes on to say that "reporters who quote tweets without calls to confirm are acting like gossip columnists." Thoughts?