TIP #35: What NASCAR teaches political candidates about Twitter

GT friend Brad Todd wrote an opinion piece for CNN.com today extrapolating valuable Twitter lessons for political candidates from a viral tweet sent by a NASCAR driver from his car during Monday’s Daytona 500. Brad’s terrific lessons below.

NASCAR drivers and politicians have the same objective on Twitter: grow an echo chamber of supporters for unfiltered communication to build loyalty.

[The tweet] bore all the characteristics of effective communication on this most personal broadcast medium: 1) It was authentic, 2) It was revelatory to what the tweeter was thinking and experiencing, 3) It was time-sensitive, 4) It added value to a national conversation that was already ongoing.

Campaigns and elected officials should work hard at developing a Twitter following that is organic and earned. It provides a mechanism to communicate directly to the people most interested in what they have to say, for free, and without the filter of a hostile opponent or a skeptical media.