Twitter for years has been my main source of keeping tabs on events - basically if anything newsworthy happens, discussion and links fill my stream instantly. Last night my LA connections list (leans left) told me as soon as Rick Santorum began speaking at the RNC convention (basically with a series of groans). And something else was going on with my saved search for NationBuilder, which picks up not only company account mentions but also links to the secure donation pages on our domain.
Mia Love's donation page was going viral.
Mia Love, a congressional challenger in Utah's 4th district, had been popular in conservative circles, but really hit the big time last night with her short primetime speech on the convention floor. At NationBuilder, we've been watching Love for some time as an early adopter of our software in Utah, where our organizing tools have proved extremely popular at all levels, from Provo City Councilor Hal Miller to former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson and his presidential campaign with the Justice Party, to Congressman Jason Chaffetz and CD-1 challenger Donna McAleer.
Since last night, Love's campaign and digital team has demonstrated brilliantly how to merge offline and online efforts to take advantage of media attention. About the time I was sitting down to dinner, Love and her supporters were working to push a "Love Bomb" one-day donation target towards the $50,000 mark. By morning, her site displayed that goal struck through and was hitting successive $25,000 stretch goals, at times bringing in thousands in just minutes.
I want to fight for you in Washington—help send me there by donating to our #lovebomb now! bit.ly/Rk33LA #utpol #GOP2012
— Mia Love (@MiaBLove) August 28, 2012
Along with compelling language and design, the Love campaign used several NationBuilder features to maximum advantage, including our ability to scale spikes in traffic across our global network at no additional cost.
The Love Bomb started with our money bomb countdown clock, and when it opened up to a donation page, featured our goal progress bar. Upping the progress bar to a new goal throughout the day kept donors excited at each phase of the drive. The campaign also placed a leaderboard on the donation page, highlighting individuals and teams using NationBuilder recruiter links to gain credit for donations.
NationBuilder prompts Facebook and Twitter shares each time a donation is completed and customizing the default text for those shares helps campaigns capture social media momentum. NationBuilder also displays the name of each donor who wants to publicize their support, as well as every tweet and Facebook share of the donation page.
Love's donation page is closing on 1,500 public reactions as I write this post. In all, the Love team did everything right to capture the offline and mainstream media attention to her website. It was a great display of integrated organizing in the digital age, and of the power of NationBuilder's fundraising features.
