After Michael Steele became chairman of the Republican National Committee, he said he would not only have the Republican party catch up with the Democrats, but surpass them in the technological space. And one look at the old GOP.com could tell you that to do that they would have to start from scratch.
“I’m not even going to critique (the old Web site) it’s so bad,” said Darian Rafie, of BEP interactive, the company that did development for the new Web site.
When rolling out a new Web site and totally new brand for the GOP, chairman Steele looked outside typical political consulting firms, including the Sensis advertising agency, which has most of its business come in from the private sector on the West coast and only a small D.C. office.
“We brought in new ideas,” said Danny Allen, managing director of the Sensis D.C. offices. “We branded this like we would a company or product.”
Furthermore, the GOP started more focus on their social media efforts, spreading the brand across all platforms.
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It is a smart move for the party to get more involved with the Internet. Although it doesn’t seem as if they are in any position to severely top the democrats—at least not soon. This is something the party should have looked into earlier.
Teaming up with Sensis appears to be an effective move in the Internet rebranding. The site is cleaner, more fluid, and focuses on the Republican message. They have integrated relevant videos and Social Media into the site making it far more interesting, easy to use, and powerful. They still need to find the next big step if they wish to pass the Democratic Party.
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First off, I find it pretty frightening to know that the GOP is just now starting to focus more on their social media efforts. Where have they been for the past 5-10 years as social media has been exploding?? Clearly it does not take a rocket scientist to be fully integrated with the social media world, yet it seems like the GOP is really just getting the ball rolling. I wonder how the “updated version” of the GOP will be.
Knowing how poorly they have been keeping up with the emerging digital trends, it does not surprise me they had been losing quite a bit of ground in the political trenches to the “technologically savvy” Democratic Party. It will be interesting to see what kind of face lift these new branding renovations give them.
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I think this speaks to the impact of younger generations on the democratic process in America. The GOP has finally realized they are missing out on the social media wave. The concern for them now is it may be too late.
One thing this may portray that is a consistency with the GOP is their approach is reactive instead of proactive. But at least they are catching on. lol
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I think that it’s good that they are trying to get into the whole social media thing because it will get more attention to the younger generation. But it is kind of concerning that they finally realized that social media can help them now and they finally realized that social media can be good.
I wonder how their new website will look like and how using social media will change things. But also as Rhea has stated, they still need to find a next big step if they want to pass the Democratic Party because it seems the GOP hasn’t been keeping up with trends but we’ll see.
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I assumed that democratic congressmen twittered more than republicans but if you look here http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Members_of_Congress_who_Twitter it seems pretty evenly split.
It should be the point of every party member to embrace social media. Social media provides a great way for representatives to interact with their constituents. I think it’s a great idea for any politician, regardless of party, to focus some of their efforts on social media.
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I agree with many of the previous comments. The GOP is way late to the game here. This is one of their inherent problems in reaching the younger audience. They are set in their “grand old” ways.
Social media is just a start for them however. I think their problems in reaching the social media audience run much deeper.