With a mayoral race, city council seats up for grabs and a battle for the King County Executive slot, to name a few, Seattle has a summer of campaigning and, yes, political advertising ahead. The re-election campaign for incumbent mayor Greg Nickels showed that it won't be political advertising as usual, however. The mayor's team announced they have launched a campaign on 13 Seattle area sites including several neighborhood news blogs.
There have been some experiments with political advertising on select neighborhood news sites in Seattle and on other sites in the city in past campaigns but it's really exciting that people are starting to see neighborhood and community news sites as a better way to get the word out. There is no better way to reach specific neighborhoods than to be part of sites that are dedicated to covering the area's news, events and people.
It's a great beginning but hopefully these campaigns are just getting started. First, there are a lot more sites to be part of. There were at least 29 great Seattle neighborhood blogs the last time we counted. Second, why stop with ads?
If there is an event calendar on the community site, make sure your campaign activities in the area are part of it. Look for where in the city the strongest, most active sites are developing and look for opportunities to be part of those communities' events.
Campaigns should look at the growth in neighborhood news as an opportunity to change their relationship with information gatherers. On sites like those running our Neighborlogs service, that means the opportunity to go beyond the press release and be part of these sites by adding content and comments. I'd welcome a post from any candidate on an issue important to my neighborhood on the site I run. And, yeah, while I'm happy that capitolhillseattle.com was one of the Seattle sites included in the mayor's online campaign, I'm open to any candidate joining the conversation on the site.
The ways neighborhoods and communities communicate and gather information have changed. The arrival of political advertising in the mix all the way down to the hyperlocal level was inevitable. These are the sites where people come together to learn about the place where they live and work and how to make it better. Of course the candidates want to be there. But some candidates will also go beyond the ads and be a true part of the communities they are trying to reach. Those candidates, no matter how many ads get bought and sold, will win.
