Building Strategic Digital Partnerships In Politics
In an ideal world, politics puts people first.
Politics is about relationships. From the first semblance of government, the foundation of politics is how people relate to one another from an individual to a societal level.
We certainly don’t live in ancient times anymore, and I doubt the Founding Fathers ever dreamed of an “iPhone,” but even in a digital space, these relationships and partnerships are still important. In fact, in our digital culture, collaborating has never been easier and more crucial to success.
When everyone is given a soapbox, how can you stand out? You can try shouting louder, but it’s a lot easier when we help each other. Here’s why building digital partnerships is important and how to form connections on social media and beyond.
Why should you build digital partnerships in politics?
You may be thinking: if my campaign or my organization already has solid support, from a good number of followers, newsletter subscribers, and a steady stream of donations from my online community — I don’t need to work with others to achieve my digital strategy goals.
If you have all of those things, you’d be doing pretty well for yourself, but the key here is that having more digital partnerships will almost always help you reach your goals quicker and easier, lift up other organizations doing tangential work by reaching a wider audience, and make you more effective for the movement. Here are three reasons why partnerships are key to political success:
Reach new audiences.
Having other people refer their audiences to your campaign or organization, whether that’s through a simple shout-out or a full collaborative event, is a fast track to gaining the attention of an immediate, invested audience. It’s not just reaching out cold to hundreds or thousands of people, hoping they’ll be interested. These new audiences already trust your partner, so they’ll more easily extend that trust and attention to you.
Open the door to more involved collaborations.
You don’t count on getting married right after a first date. You also don’t count on someone donating thousands of dollars to your campaign or organization the second you meet them. Digital partnerships are low-commitment ways to start warming up a partnership that might blossom into something more developed down the line, such as a donor list or collaborative events.
Expand your network.
Coalition-building is essential for achieving political goals, and building digital partnerships is one way to meet other like-minded people and organizations. You can fight for your goals and policies by leveraging the collective influence that your coalition holds.
What are some strategies for building political digital partnerships?
Clearly communicate your goals.
Do you want to reach a larger audience? Get to know the members of an organization you admire? Attract donations? Whatever your purpose is, make sure you know why you’re reaching out before you ask to collaborate. Your goals should be in alignment if you want a successful partnership. Plus, if you let them know your goals, they might have their own ideas on how to use your combined digital power.
Cross-promote events, volunteer opportunities, or anything you want a lot of people to hear.
If you have an email newsletter, you can have a section dedicated to promoting your partners’ events. You can also identify newsletters you want to be featured on, and ask how you can get a feature. On social media, resharing partners’ content or even making original content about what they want featured can help amplify each others’ message.
Collaborate on social media.
Finding ways to engage both of your audiences is key here. For example, inviting each other as co-authors of a post on Instagram shares that post to all of your combined followers. You can also co-create content, like featuring each other in a TikTok crossover.
Spotlight each other through digital channels.
If you really admire a certain person or organization, making a post spotlighting their work or featuring them in a section of your newsletter can be a great way to show your appreciation (and send the message that you’d love to collab). Spotlights also work great with themes, such as highlighting an organization that fights for environmental protection policies on Earth Day.
Mutually benefit your organizations.
Coalition building isn’t just about propping up one person or organization above everything and everyone else. Digital partnerships are a great way to help both you and your partner by bringing in new donors, followers, and supporters. You’re exposing new audiences to each other’s work. The best part is, it can take minimal effort for both of you but bring exponential benefit to each other.
We are more connected than we’ve ever been. If you want any sort of political success in today’s society, whether that’s working in a campaign or organization, you need to build strategic digital partnerships.
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