One Feed, Two Feed, Red Feeds, Blue Feeds

As summer draws to a close here in the US, we look forward to the fall colors, Talledega Nights and back-to-school shopping for the ultimate Trapper Keeper. We're also thinking a lot about politics, especially the two of us who represent the bi-partisan-fullness of our office.

The variety of FeedBurner publishers is nothing if not diverse, but what many of you in the studio audience may not realize is that a whole bunch of political bloggers and candidates from both parties (all two of them!) use FeedBurner to help manage their content. With a number of elections just around the corner, we thought we'd take this opportunity to draft a "Get out the Vote Feed" post to spark some ideas and highlight creative ways politicos are feeding their campaign strategies using FeedBurner's suite of free services.

Make Your Blog "Subscribable"

Many campaigns recognize the value that a blog can add to their communications strategy; it's easy to update, visitor comments often let supporters connect and identify ways to help the campaign, and reports from the campaign trail make for great reading. Smart campaigns take their blogs one step further by making it incredibly simple for people to subscribe to blog content.

Check out how the Delaware GOP is publicizing its feed to keep supporters up to date on the latest races and news coverage in Delaware. They provide one-click subscription options on their homepage for My Yahoo! and NewsGator, ensuring supporters don't have to work to get the Delaware GOP's news delivered to them right away.

Offer Feed by Email

Are your constituents not yet up to speed on subscribing and reading RSS feeds? No problem. Offer a "Subscribe by Email" version of your feed content. FeedBurner Email takes care of emailing a complete digest of your blog posts to supporters every night. Think of it as an automated newsletter service. In the lower right corner of the Swain County Democratic Party Web site, you'll see their FeedBurner Email signup box, ensuring that even those who don't know what a feed is can get the benefits of subscribing to the Swain County Democratic Party feed.

This Brand is Your Brand

If brand consistency is a top priority for your campaign, check out the MyBrand service. This allows you to showcase your feeds from your own domain (e.g. feeds.electmeorelse.com) and is a great way to reinforce consistency across all of your online properties.

Produce a Podcast

With more than 58 million iPods sold and millions of other handheld devices in use, podcasting offers one of the best ways to get audio and video into the hands of a tech-savvy audience. It's really easy to get started which must explain why today, FeedBurner manages more than 60,000 podcasts and videocasts (that's more than the number of radio stations worldwide).

Likely 2008 presidential candidate Governor Mark Warner, who heads the Forward Together PAC, runs both an audio podcast and a video podcast through FeedBurner. In doing so, Gov. Warner is able to track the number of subscribers and episode downloads and he knows media files are correctly formatted for inclusion in the iTunes directory. Not too shabby for a free service.

Using BuzzBoost to Boost Buzz

Blog and podcast feeds contain great content, so why should they be limited to just your blog? Thanks to a little bee and a some nifty engineering, FeedBurner's free BuzzBoost service can re-publish your headlines on various parts of your site, like putting the latest five podcast episodes on your homepage. Even better, share your BuzzBoost code with your supporters, so your headlines show up on their sites. You get your message out to more people, all automatically.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a good example of BuzzBoost in action. Sister site TPMCafe has an ongoing Election Central site, and Josh uses BuzzBoost to show the last few headlines from Election Central on Talking Points Memo.

Add the Freshest Headlines to Every Email

Most campaigns rely on email as a primary communications vehicle. Whether you're raising money, informing supporters about an upcoming event, or asking for help, each e-mail is an opportunity to ensure supporters know what you're up to and what you need. FeedBurner's Headline Animator service is a handy way to infuse every email with the latest content from a blog or podcast feed.

U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk, regularly communicates with constituents and supporters by e-mail and uses each e-mail as an opportunity to include the latest headlines about his campaign. This increases the likelihood that supporters are in the loop when it comes to campaign news.

FeedFlare

Just under a year ago, we introduced FeedFlare, a platform to add interactivity to feeds and Web sites in the form of useful links. (View an example). In addition to an ever-growing catalog of FeedFlare services available today, we also offer an open API so that anyone can create their own FeedFlare units. With minimal programming, you can create custom FeedFlare that encourages supporters to take action on campaign-related activities.

To kickstart the brainstorming process, here are a few ideas for custom FeedFlare units:

• Provide a link to a candidate's contribution page
• Cross-promote a candidate's related content (e.g. link to the podcast from the blog feed)
• Direct traffic to online polls
• Encourage petition signings
• Promote voter registration sign-up
• Advertise volunteer opportunities
• ... and on and on

Full documentation for creating your very own FeedFlare unit can be found here, along with a handy scratchpad.

Get the Word out with Advertising

Looking to put your message in front of the most politically active readers around? Check out theFeedBurner Ad Network, the most affordable way to do just that. The largest political blogs already run their content through FeedBurner. On the left, we have: Daily Kos, Talking Points Memo, and MyDD; and on the right, we have: Instapundit, RedState, and Texas Rainmaker to just to name a few. If your campaign is looking to boost its profile, attract attention and drive activity to your site, the FeedBurner Ad Network is the place to be. Get in touch with our ad sales team today to discuss how to customize a campaign, or get started right away using our self-service tools.

Vote for FeedBurning this Campaign Season

Now is probably a good time to remind you that FeedBurner's logo includes both red and blue colors, meaning that officially we remain neutral in these upcoming races. As always, our motto remains, "Ask not what you can do for FeedBurner, but what FeedBurner can do for you." Happy campaigning!