Democracy for America's Facebook GOTV Strategy

Democracy for America has created its own application and online GOTV campaign on Facebook. The application creates a contact list of your friends that you invite to pledge to vote for Obama and is based on the online peer-to-peer model.

Here is the introductory email DFA sent:

Kevin -

This week we launched our innovative Get Out The Vote campaign which focuses on each of us getting the people we know to vote for Obama by Election Day.

Today, we're making it even easier to reach out to friends using the nation's most popular social networking site: Facebook.

FACEBOOK MEMBERS CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED!

NOT ON FACEBOOK? USE OUR WEBSITE INSTEAD!

We all know peer pressure works. When you ask someone you know to commit to do something for you, they won't want to let you down. Now you can leverage that energy to help elect Barack Obama.

That's why our Get Out The Vote campaign focuses on mobilizing your social network. Pledge to vote right now and commit to getting at least 3 of your friends to the polls by Election Day. Together, we'll get 3 million votes for Obama in 30 days and everyone who votes will get a free "I voted for Obama" bumper sticker too.

Get started right now!

ARE YOU A FACEBOOK MEMBER? CLICK HERE TO MAKE CHANGE HAPPEN

NOT ON FACEBOOK? USE OUR WEBSITE INSTEAD!

No matter what the polls say right now, this election is going to be close. Don't leave victory up to chance. Take action today and keep it going until every poll is closed.

Thank you for making change happen.

-Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

I was impressed at the level of horizontal segmentation used by DFA in this campaign. They are using their email list to recruit participants in their online GOTV program which is available both on their website and through Facebook. There are not that many campaigns or organizations that are doing this yet.

The application itself is robust, though it is hindered by Facebook's policy to limit the number of application invites to 20 per day. You invite your friends that you think would vote for Obama, and DFA emphasizes that with limited invites you should focus your attention on your friends that you aren't sure will make it to the polls without a little prodding.

All of the friends that you have invited show up on a contact list that shows whether they have accepted your invitation and how many friends they have invited. It will also track your contact efforts with your friend, with scripts and options for face-to-face, phone, postcard, and Facebook message contacts. Here is the built-in script for a phone contact:

The one thing that could make this better would be utilizing Facebook's phonebook feature to show the phone number of your friend on the page if they have one listed, though this may not be possible based on Facebook privacy policy.

The application has a few additional elements to boost its potential to spread virally. You can give the application permission to post a status update about the application. You can also add a badge to your profile that links to the application page. The application will also include an item in your mini-feed when you invite more friends to join.

To sweeten the deal DFA is offering a free bumper sticker to each person who signs up and provides a mailing address.

If you want to check out the application click here.

What are your thoughts on this online strategy? What features do you like or think or lacking? What other organizations are engaging in similar efforts? Let us know in the comments.