Erika Napoletano is Redhead Writing

Photo courtesy of hyperbolic pants explosion on Flickr (click to see photostream)

I’m a Twitter fan. A big-ass, monster fan of Twitter. I have a stuffed Fail Whale on my California King bed.

I’ve also notice that I get some of the best news coverage I’ve ever been privy to through my use of Twitter, especially with regards to the 2008 Presidential campaign trail.

I’ve ALSO noticed that the folks I find on Twitter are a sound yet energetic, educated bunch of folks, ready to make change, try change on, see if it fits — and if it does, they blog about it and “tweet it” out to the world.

Put those three together and what do you get? The nummiest concept in democracy since John McCain’s peanut butter fell into Sarah Palin’s chocolate (moose)…

TWEET THE VOTE!

(WTF is Tweet the Vote?)

For those of you reading this, it’s likely you know what a blog is (if not, you’re reading one right now). A blog is social media. It’s a form of media that brings people together in communities to discuss and share ideas. A virtual collection of people.

MTV’s got “Rock the Vote.” So this election year, I encourage you to join Twitter and Tweet the Vote. Here’s what you can do with Twitter to express your political convictions in one of the fastest growing online social media platforms. It takes just a second, and best part is: you might actually like it!:

• Join Twitter and invite your friends to join. Make sure your friends Follow you and their candidates of choice. Want to learn more about Twitter? Click on the red Watch a Video button on the home page.
• Use Twitter as a tool to share information about the race for the presidency that’s important to you by posting links to news stories, blogs, videos and more.
• The more people you encourage to join Twitter and follow you, the more people you’ll be able to share your information about the campaign trail with as the race goes on — and the more people you’ll have to feed YOU relevant, funny, pertinent, laugh-out-loud information with as well!
• Tweet all of your new online friends, and email the other ones to join Twitter, to make sure they’re all registered to vote before the eligibility window closes.
• Tweet your friends on Election Day to make sure they get the hell out to vote! (and by the way, go ahead and let your boss know now that you won’t be in on November 4th until you’ve voted, dammit.)

Follow Your Candidates:

It seems that the McCain/Palin train is still at the station when it comes to social media. They don’t have a Twitter account. (WTF?)

However, if you support the Obama/Biden ticket, you can follow:

Barack Obama HERE

Joe Biden HERE

You can also search for people with similar viewpoints as yours by searching Twitter using the “Trending Topics” on that page or by the following search terms: DNC, #DNC, RNC, #RNC and the candidates names themselves (I recommend using last names only).

*FYI – Twitter users use hash marks (#) to tag content, so you can search for #DNC and easily come up with people who have tagged content about that. For example I sent a Tweet during Obama’s acceptance speech at the DNC that said:

What is it about viewing all of those people in that stadium in Denver that makes me proud? #DNC

See what I mean, jellybean? So don’t be afraid to tag your posts. You’ll start to see some common tags people use once you get into using Twitter. And not everything has to be tagged. I’m sure as hell not going to tag my post about what I’m eating for breakfast!

Now, here’s the final scoop: TWEET your vote!

In the 2004 Presidential election, there were over 200 million people of voting age with 122.2 million voters casting ballots. The Primary season this election year has seen an incredible jump in voter registrations, so why not do our part:

• Open a Twitter account
• Follow your candidates of choice (whoops! McCain & Palin have no account! be careful to not subscribe to the wrong accounts…I’ll amend this post if the Grand ‘Ol Party gets off their bee-hinds and gets with the times and opens them, but thus far, the two accounts for Biden and Obama above are the only official ones. You can always follow FakeSarahPalin.)
• Post your vote! Use the following 2 codes and register your voice for the 2008 election

#TTV

and then add

#two letter state abbreviation

So, for me, my Tweet would look like this:

Obama #TTV #NV

Let’s let the candidates see who’s really out there speaking on their behalf in the world of social media.

Social Media – We’re like a virus, but good for your computer AND your marketing message

Special thanks to JD Lasica for his input on Tweet the Vote. Check out SocialMedia.biz, his phenomenal and timely blog about all that IS social media.