| | July 2006 - Free campaign advice from Radagast Solutions |
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In this issue
Save your organisation both time and money by hosting some or all of your content using free or inexpensive web services. Keep your focus on the most important part of running internet campaigns - marketing.
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Free fast track websites
It's amazing what you can get for free or for very little cost these days on the Internet - without even the need for your own web server. Blogging software has become so sophisticated that many organisations can build decent news and feature sites using free services like Blogger, Live Journal or WordPress. Image galleries offer gigabytes of storage space for nothing. Free or low cost list tools like Topica allow you to subscribe and email thousands of people interested in your campaigns. Social networking sites like MySpace have group features that make it possible to create satellite sites that can take your message to thousands of people.
There are a few downsides with free software, of course, most notably having to tolerate paid advertising. In some cases, the ads are small, relevant text links or ad-free services are available for a small monthly charge. Other perceived downsides, such as some design inflexibility or the inability to choose your preferred URL may not be very important - in the new Kingdom of Google, making sure that people can quickly find your content with a memorable search phrase may be a lot more important than getting exactly the right design or URL.
Read the full article
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Marketing your campaign
If you build it, they will not come - if you forget the marketing!
One of the most important parts of any internet campaign is marketing your message. Like any marketing campaign, a good press release can play a key role. But internet campaigners have other options as well, including promoting your campaign on high traffic blogs, coordinated email blasts, targeting potential supporters with Google Adwords, converting a visual advantage into attention on Flickr or YouTube, or even developing a communication channel directly to your supporters' desktops.
Read the full article
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In the next issue
The bombs began to drop in Lebanon - and within hours campaigning began on MySpace, Hyves, MSN Spaces and other social networking sites.
Ordinary people now have access to the same tools - websites, blogs, image galleries, mailing lists and viral marketing - that were once the domain of organisations. The result is that campaigns can start and spread to thousands of people within hours and slower moving traditional organisations can be left behind in the cyberdust.
In August we'll look at how social networking sites are changing the rules of online campaigning.
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