How would you marketing a political social network?

[myvoternation]

Your marketing ideas are welcome! The site allows users to vote on current issues in the news and match to people who feel the same way. It's called myvoternation.com

[Dcrux]

Wow. You got a whole site up withn the few hours since the HuffPo got bought? Impessive.

First, any site that gets people to register an opinion unconnected and uncorrelated and uncommitted and unaffecting of anything, anywhere, in the real world (a.k.a the whole blinkin 'net) has a marketable value of ZERO. (Except for Conde Nast, AOL, or Google buyout purposes -- who'll pay three hundred million for anything with a hit counter).

So, the marketing plan is amp up traffic, get the addresses of the half dozen or so companies buying these sites. And hope your burn rate is sustainable.

You really think anyone who thinks the Groupon Ad was tasteless has a natual affinity for anyone else with that same opinion? Good luck matching people who get wet when it rains, then.

Your market competition is sites that cater to people who want to hear their own opinions reflected back at them, free of the incovenient facts and balanced counterpoint of genuine social interaction. Those koolaid drinkers oozing consensus from every pore? Well then, that's everything with a reply function on the 'net, now isn't it. The Whole Flippin 'Net -- from forums, to blogs, to whatever.

Sorry to say, "tastes great, less filling," and "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" isn't debate class difference worth a vote. It's hair-splitting. It's talking to yourself, while fooling yourself -- not a social network.

Good koolaid. Bad marketing position to found a marketing plan on.

Related Reading:

Autistic Social Software. (http://www.danah.org/papers/Supernova2004.html) Or why building software upon the geek idea of what social means gets you less than you bargained for.

[LloydBurrell]

There's a pretty big difference between how you feel about a political subject and your political beliefs. But, apart from that, it may work. What I believe you need to do is keep it as open as possible and allow nothing but truly politically correct opinions. Considering the profile of your website, this may require an ongoing effort.

[williamc]

allow nothing but truly politically correct opinions.

So, just censor 9/10 of the people who would use the site? Anyone who is truly politically correct just is not paying any attention at all.

[Dcrux]

One of the "political issues" was voting on the tastelessness (or not) of the Groupon ad. The site is all over the map -- a web survey site. Not anything for organizing or carrying out social action in the political arena. You could put up a vote on a ham sandwich.

We know from exit polling, immediately after people have just actually voted, the results can be anything from skewed to completely wrong. People do not say what they do.

Want marketing? Okay market it to entrenched political interests who want the status quo by diffusing action through the new opiate of the masses: The Web Poll. More to the point, the level of technology for social computing is stuck on the level of water cooler gossip. Telling people about your Farmville accomplishments has become the new forcing people to watch your lame home movies. Sad and pathetic is social. Just not something with good marketability.

[MrPolarZero]

I think promoting through social networking websites (Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace) would be a good choice :)

[Dcrux]

I think blind buzzword compliance -- for instance using "social network" as if it were an incantation -- would be a good way to brand yourself a cargo cultist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult).

[mike95910]

Well 1 i would go through other social networks and market it, 2 i would need to offer some cool features like polling rates and statistics that are user generated for elected officials, 3rd i would network as much as i could to get campaigning officials on it

[myvoternation]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Just for record, we don't allow stupid questions. We just want to keep a mix between interest controversial topics in the news and politics. Every question submitted will need to be approved.
What do you think about the match part? Each users selects 5 private votes and other users on the site can match to them. That's why users and mix and match different votes for their profile and find a targeted match.
In terms of taking action, we build a groups feature which allows users to use any question on the site and launch a group around that issues, especially by displaying the group's point of view. This way, no one is confused what the group stands for.

[Zippy Cart]

Promoting through "social networks" as people have already mentioned, can be a useful course of action, as many types of political groups are already using established social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter (um...Egypt). You might want to tout your service as a tool for organizing directly for political action, though, again, Facebook already has plenty of functionality for that. You might also try aligning yourself with politically charged blogs. Consider going local: where are you located? Where do you have most of your staff? Start in that community. Get some good will going, some support, some testimonials about how well your site works. Then, powered by these positive reviews, take the model to other nearby communities, then keep expanding.