Blogs are short for Web Log, which started as diaries and journals. Now they've expanded into something useful, especially the comments sections of newspaper, and specific political discussions like the New York Times, DailyKOS, etc. The term has lost all meaning lately amd ecompasses about every website on earth anymore.
Most political blogs function as opinion columns, though some do feature what looks suspiciously like original journalism. The biggest, like Daily Kos or RedState.org, particularly if they have a variety of columnists and allow comments from readers, become the center of entire online communities. A common approach is for a blogger to discuss a story from the mainstream media or from another blog, with readers contributing their own opinions as comments.
Though they often lack access to sources and documents themselves, blogs can still be news sources even when they can't indulge in their own investigative journalism: they certainly can help promote a story that's getting lost in the shuffle or keep a fading story alive long after it's disappeared from cable news. And, acting in concert or in competition, they can also leverage the collective intelligence of widely scattered sources to discover truth faster than traditional journalists ever could. All the mainstream media wonks have temas to follow the major blog site now for stories and to see what is hot on teh blgosphere.
Bloggers' opinions have certainly become a major part of the political discussion, An issue raised by Instapundit or Atrios can reach tens or hundreds of thousands of politically active people in a day. Daily Kos and several other of the leading progressive blogs have also worked very hard to raise money for candidates whose opinions and approach they favor.
First, should campaigns and activist groups start blogs? Most bloggers would say yes, They would argue that anyone trying to influence politics should participate in what they see as the collective conversation about politics. But of course they'd say that, since if they didn't think that blogs mattered, why would they have one?
My answer would bepsossibly yes. Ablog can be a useful tool for just about any kind of political campaign. For one thing, because of the tools that have grown up to allow bloggers to communicate with each other (trackbacks and rss, for example), a blog allows you to respond quickly and effectively to bloggers in their own sphere and using their methods, both to promote your ideas and to answer criticism.
And here's the main qualification to my yes. You definitely CAN become part of the conversation, assuming you have something to say. A blog that's obvious hackery or clearly an afterthought isn't going to do much good and may do a lot of harm, particularly if it's so bad that people make fun of you (the blogosphere can be a tough playground). Politicians and political candidates should be particularly careful, since few will have time to write their own blogs, just as few write their own speeches. A good candidate blog can help connect with voters, but a bad one will make you look phony. An out-of-date one just looks bad. Edwwards just got slammed for a couple of his bloggers shootint their mouths off and sounding hateful and he got blamed.
The other problem is this. Why start a blog no one will read, instead of participate in a blog a lot of people read? I much prefer going to where the politicos are and blogging my opinion there, then trying to get them to come to me. You can alwasy adverstise your website where ever you go, and it's a better way to get your website out there, than most. For political activists going to the reichwing redneck blogs and nespapers to get in teh dialogue is crucial and that means not doing your own blog, or at least taking time away from it.
Blogs regularly get mastabatory in nature and they started out that way with people just posting everythign that happened in their day like it was important to the cosmos. Be different! Be one the few left wing, liberal people that aren't whiney, self absorbed, self diefication addicts, practicing self worship all day! Learn the issues. Have the facts, stats, and data at the tip of your tongue. Go to the blogs where the reichwing hang and tell them the truth.
Whether or not you start a blog, you can certainly work with bloggers to promote your ideas or your candidate or campaign. The basic rule: treat bloggers as journalists because they ARE journalists. They just hppen to have a particularly cheap printing press. That is if they desreve it and donl;t waste yout ime with those that are diarists and journalists. Come of the blogosphere is a nasty place and not for the faint at heart. On the unmoderated political sites, and most of the moderated blogs, you'll be insulted, defamed, teased, and tormented for saying anything. Fuck 'em! The riechwingers are particularly nasty group of idiots, basement dwellers and reactionary fools. Keep your calm, don't take the bait, and plug away wtih calm mature demeanor. Let them act like immature.
First, you should have an RSS feed for your site if at all possible. Many bloggers use RSS feed aggregating software or web pages to keep track of articles from many sources from a single place, and having your own feed lets them add your content as well.
You should definitely be using blog search tools such as Technorati to keep an eye on your issues and to look out for any mentions of your group, candidate or campaign. I run a Technorati search on several URLs every day or two to see where my sites are popping up. It's far better to catch an emerging rumble of approval or disapproval THIS way than when those blog stories have led to New York Times coverage and a call from your funders.
Consider advertising on blogs. Blogads are usually quite inexpensive for the number of people they allow you to reach (though prices on popular blogs have gone up significantly in the past year), and they're putting you before a targeted audience: activists on a red-meat wave-the-bloody-flag political blog, pacifists on a peace-oriented site, enviros on a green energy blog, and so on. Candidates have used blogads for fundraising, advocacy groups to build their email lists, authors and publishers to promote books, and campaigns of all stripes to publicize their positions and to help launch viral campaigns.
The blogads.com website lists sites by their readership and by cost; you'll usually pay by the week. Pick your blogs carefully and try to balance the breadth versus the selectivity of the their audiences: a popular political site may have more readers, but a site the focuses on your topic will have readers more primed to respond to your ad.
Design is critical for a successful blogad. The visual part of your ad should catch the eye and give enough information to intrigue a reader but without dulling his or her appetite for more. Don't just adapt your print piece! You're speaking to a different audience in a different medium, and design for the size and placement of the ads.
If you can, have several versions ready, you can change an ad's content at any point in the run, and you'll find that your results are better if you rotate your visuals. You can even run several variants at once and see which garners the best response. Also, pay close attention to your text, since you can embed links to several sites or pages and expand on the message in your visual component. For inspiration, the blogads site has a list of good ads on different topics.
Once your ad run begins, watch its statistics throughout the weeks of your buy. As with most advertising, blogads give you some benefit just from exposure, but you'll probably be most interested in the number of clicks your ad gets. If you're advertising on several sites, compare the amounts you're paying per click on the different sites, you may find that a relatively cheap site is giving you the best results.
For more about getting the most from a blogad campaign, see this recent e.politics article and follow-up piece.
Another way to work with bloggers is to contact them directly to promote your issues, just as your press team works with the reporters who cover your beat at major newspapers and the tv networks. Like most writers, bloggers are hungry for fresh topics, particularly if they're among the first (or absolutely the first) to write about them, and a good number will be eager to hear from you.
To contact blogs, you'll need to find them first. Technorati.com a good place to start, and Google is even more effective. Start by googling your topic or topics along with the word "blog" and begin reading sites and keeping notes. Not every blog will have contact info, but grab email addresses where you can. I've found that a big spreadsheet can be very useful for keeping track of sites and for breaking them down by the topics they tend to cover.
Once you build your list, you can start pitching stories. You'll want to reach the most influential blogs first (more bang for your buck), so use Technorati to rank the sites you're tracking by the number of other blogs that link to them (ranking them by authority). Technorati's search results automatically show you how many links it sees to a given blog. Fiddle around with the listings and you'll see what I mean.
Some cautionary notes: before you contact a blog, make sure you've read enough posts to know that the author actually might be open to your story. He or she's going to ignore off-topic pitches and may think you're an idiot for making them. Craft your messages carefully, since you want each email to be a personal contact and not a form letter. ANY time you contact a blogger, write professionally and keep in mind that your message may end up in front of his or her entire audience verbatim.
Also, ALWAYS let bloggers know that you're with a group or campaign. You may get away with hiding your affiliation for a while, but if you're found out, your credibility and that of your campaign will be shot, and often skinned alive in public. Paying bloggers to post stories is completely out of bounds.
Once you get coverage, you'll want to keep track of it, both to help fine-tune your blog-relations project and to justify its existence to higher-ups. Again, Technorati and a spreadsheet can be useful tools. As you work with bloggers, you'll begin to build the kind of journalist-source relationships that good P.R. people treasure. Note that a serious blog-relations project can take an enormous amount of time, as you've probably already guessed.