Archives for October 2017

Happy Anniversary Arc 3 Communications!

October 30, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Arc 3 Communications Celebrates Its Sixth Year in Business!

Happy Anniversary Arc 3 Communications! As we celebrate the 6th year of our agency, I wanted to stop and reflect on those things that I’m grateful for as its founder. My entrepreneurial journey has been an amazing ride of ups and downs, but I have so many things to be grateful for. Here are some of those things that I’m most thankful for:

1. I am grateful for our clients in the public affairs space that have entrusted us over the years to help with their content, digital and analytics needs. We have worked with clients ranging from government agencies to trade associations to political campaigns at the local, state and national levels. We have developed new websites, social media campaigns and all types of amazing content to help them accomplish their legislative, policy, electoral and civic engagement goals.

2. I am grateful for the talented team of designers, developers, social media, technical and public affairs experts at Arc 3. I am also thankful for our interns that breathe life into our agency with their new ideas and energy. Our current interns from Kennesaw State University, Paul McNally and Kirbe Bostick are doing an awesome job for us.

3. I am grateful to our trusted partners in helping us to carry out our mission. These knowledgeable experts in accounting, law, finance, human resources and technology are invaluable.

4. I am grateful to the great team at Ignite HQ who provide us with an affordable and innovative office space to work in that is filled with other startups. The shared learning from other entrepreneurs has been immeasurable. I’m especially grateful that its located off of historic Marietta Square and close to home.

5. I am grateful to the many innovators in digital, social media and technology that have transformed media and marketing to a world driven by content and sharing. This includes not only the creators of well-known platforms such as WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn; but the countless other innovators who developed lesser known platforms that have helped to create a competitive marketplace that produces amazing channels for communication and sharing. Most noteworthy of late are those who have made website hosting extraordinarily better such as Flywheel.

6. I am grateful to our agency competitors, who by their efforts in the marketplace, push us to do better and strive to be our best.

7. I am grateful for the digital, social media, creative and tech start-up community of Atlanta in which we are constantly learning new tools and tactics through shared knowledge and learning. I am most grateful to the WordPress community.

8. As Founder of an agency focused on the civic space, I am grateful for the many long-standing institutions in government, politics and civic life and the people and ideas that sustain them. While its been under siege by a time of technological transformation, the great civic life of our country depends upon engaged citizens, media, candidates, elected officials, association executives and government public servants at all levels.

9. I am grateful for mentors, friends and colleagues throughout my career in government, politics, academia and the agency world who have offered sound advice and encouragement. Many have also referred business our way and I’m thankful.

10. I am most grateful to my family for their constant love, patience, prayers and support throughout my entrepreneurial journey. My wife Mary and our four children have shared this experience with me every step of the way. Mary has been a sounding board, critic, and cheerleader. Her kindness, patience and love has been the rock upon which my successful agency has been built.

Most of all, I am grateful to God for these last six years and the opportunity to embark on my entrepreneurial journey. Without his love and my faith in him, nothing is possible.

How to Secure Your Campaign Social Media Accounts Immediately

October 23, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

4 Ways to Keep Your Campaign Social Media Accounts Safe

In the wake of hackings in the last election cycle of 2016, the issue of cyber security and political campaigns has come to the forefront. Both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committees are making significant investments to help prevent hacking in the 2018 election cycle. However, every day new data breaches and hackings are announced. Just recently a Republican phone polling firm announced a hacking that involved the compromise of hundreds of thousands of GOP donors personal information. The hacking of the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 election is well documented in the media. Cyber security is an urgent issue for campaigns, parties and candidates at all levels. We’ve written about the importance of a WordPress Maintenance program for campaign websites. But equally important is the securing of campaign social media accounts which are often the gateway upon which hackers enter campaigns and cause havoc.

How can you keep your campaign social media accounts safe? Here are 4 security tips to implement now.

Strong Password Management

In analysis of passwords by security companies, “1234” and “password” remain the two most popular passwords. Strong passwords are one of the only things that stand between your campaign’s social media accounts and hackers. Weak passwords are often created and unchanged in order that they are easily remembered by staff. While this is understandable, investing in a password manager such as Last Pass or 1Password is critical to keeping your passwords strong, safe and secure. These tools make it easy to create strong passwords through a random password generator and stores them in an encrypted vault. They also take away the hassle of continuously logging in. A password manager ensures your passwords are strong and changed frequently and not misplaced. You want to keep the hackers guessing, and managing your passwords on a consistent basis is the best way to do it.

In addition to proper management of your passwords in a password manager, be sure that you use different emails than your campaign email to sign up and manage your social media accounts. If possible utilizing different emails for different accounts ensures, that if one email is hacked into, not all of your social media accounts are compromised.

Limit Access to Your Social Media Accounts

Controlling access to your campaign social media accounts is vital. Limit access to your social media accounts to as few people as possible. Manage your social media accounts through a management system like HootSuite or Buffer. These systems allow you to grant access to social media accounts to staff without disclosing sensitive account information such as security and privacy settings. You can also limit which social media accounts that they have access too.

If you have a large team posting for you, consider narrowing it down. Consider asking your social media team to send posts, written text and graphics to a special inbox or Dropbox and let one person have access to the actual accounts. In the rough and tumble word of politics and campaigns, don’t give full access to accounts to anyone without great consideration. Unfortunately, hackers don’t always come from the outside, but can be a rogue or disgruntled former staff member.

Be sure that you have a software such as LogDog that alerts you before a social media account is compromised through its scanning for a variety of unauthorized-access indicators. Its alerts allow you to take back control of your social media accounts quickly.

Two-step Authentication

Two-step (two-factor) authentication protects your accounts by requiring users to provide an additional piece of information after they enter the password to get into your social media account. The most common method of two- step authentication occurs over text messaging via cell phone. After putting in the password correctly, the social media platform will send out a specific code to the cell phone number on file. That code is then entered to log into the social media account. By enabling two-step authentication and having a particular code and cell phone number on file for your social media account, it is less likely to be hacked even in the event that someone gains access to your password. When two-step authentication is in place, if a social media account is accessed from an unknown device or IP address, the administrator will automatically get an alert notifying them of an unauthorized attempt to access the account.

The most popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter offer two-step authentication and instructions for locking down the accounts. Most of the other social media platforms work basically the same way with a little nuance to each.

Two-step authentication is one of the best ways to make sure your accounts aren’t compromised.

Manage Your Privacy Settings

Be sure that you check the security and privacy settings for all of your social media accounts on a routine basis. These settings help you to manage your online experience on these platforms. For example, Facebook’s privacy settings allows you to control who sees what you post from your account and customize your default settings for posts. As a campaign, there may be posts you would prefer you weren’t tagged in. With Facebook’s Tag Review and Timeline Review options, you can decide if you want a post to be published prior to it showing up on your timeline.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networks adjust their privacy policies and security settings frequently. The platforms update these policies to keep your profiles secure. Keep up to date and follow all the new privacy and security policy changes on a regular basis. Enabling these policy changes may make life more difficult for the next person who tries to hack your campaign.

Need more help?

We offer social media training for candidates and campaigns, including in the area of security. Contact us here or via Facebook Messenger. Or sign up for our newsletter to get the latest tips here.

Meet Social Media Marketing Intern Kirbe Bostick

October 16, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Arc 3 Communications Social Media Marketing Intern Kirbe Bostick is a third year student at Kennesaw State University majoring in communications with a focus in media and entertainment studies. Her interests include comedy, anthropology, digital marketing and all things social media. In the future, she hopes to be a creative director for a marketing firm or a magazine.

Kirbe developed an interest in marketing and communications well before college. During her time at Marietta High School she began a grassroots breast cancer awareness fundraising effort. The project entitled “Pink-y Promise” was created to honor her mother, who had previously fought with breast cancer. Kirbe created and sold several rounds of t-shirts to the local Marietta community. The campaign was spread by word of mouth and social media outreach. The entire campaign was able to raise $5,000, that was then donated to the American Cancer Society. The “Pink-y Promise” project was pivotal in Kirbe’s life, as it introduced her to the world of marketing and communications and the importance of an effective message.

In her spare time, Kirbe enjoys volunteering. “As a college student, I have a variety of volunteer experiences that have contributed to making me a motivated and passionate public servant,” says Bostick. She currently serves as a volunteer with the Marietta Square Art Walk that promotes local artists in the city and is an office volunteer with Bristol Hospice, which provides palliative care in the Vinings area. She also serves as a mentor to Kennesaw State University freshman and transfer students as a part of the university’s Odyssey Peer Mentoring Program.

Kirbe’s interest in the arts also finds her attending as many music concerts and comedy shows as her schedule allows! She’s been lucky to see some of her favorite acts this year such as Hannibal Buress, Hasan Minhaj, Chance the Rapper, and The 1975.

Her diversity in music is reflective of her own ambitions and experiences in marketing. Her goal is to gain as much marketing experience as possible. “I am grateful for the internship opportunity at Arc 3 where I can work on a diverse range of projects and gain comprehensive experience in social media marketing,” Bostick said.

Welcome aboard Social Media Marketing Intern Kirbe Bostick! Look for Kirbe’s upcoming posts regarding social media marketing on our blog.

Website Development Case Study: Georgia Secretary of State

October 6, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Project Goals

For several years, the Georgia Secretary of State conducted the Peanut Poll, a straw poll held every year at the Georgia National Fair in Perry. Each year, the straw poll focused on participant’s choices for federal elected office such as President and U.S. Senate. One of the most successful straw polls in the country, the poll was a part of the Georgia Secretary of State’s mission to raise awareness about elections and encourage voter registration.

However, in 2017 with no major election pending, the Secretary of State’s office sought to re-brand the Peanut Poll to be a contest to have Georgians pick the best high school football team in the state. In addition to a re-branding to reflect the change in direction of the poll, the Secretary of State sought to develop a new website and online polling system that would allow Georgians to vote for one of the 460 high school football teams online and on tablets at the Georgia Grown booth at the fair. After voting, participants would be directed to the Secretary of State’s online voter registration page to check their registration status and register to vote if they had not already. The new “Gridiron Showdown” Peanut Poll sought to engage high school students who were now eligible to register to vote, but had not yet done so.

Our Solution

With the Georgia National Fair coming up quickly, the Arc 3 Communications team worked expeditiously with the Secretary of State’s Outreach Staff to create a new and unique brand for the Gridiron Showdown Peanut Poll. A new mobile first website was developed that incorporated a polling system that allowed for visitors to quickly vote for one of Georgia’s 460 high school football teams. Upon voting, Georgians were directed to the Secretary of State’s online voter registration page. At the Georgia National Fair’s Georgia Grown Booth visitors were presented with i-pads upon which they could visit the website and vote for their favorite team while voters from across the state also submitted their ballots on the website. The website polling system calculated and displayed the results in real-time as they happened. Each day at 5 p.m, a special guest would announce the results at the Georgia Grown Booth at the Fair. Voting results announced on the website were easily able to be shared on social networks.

Results

The new Peanut Poll brand incorporating a football referee raised awareness about the new nature of the poll and athletic directors from across the Georgia High School Association were excited about the poll and encouraged students, athletes and parents to participate. The Georgia National Fair also publicized the straw poll and the opportunity to vote at the Georgia Grown booth.

By the time of kickoff and voting began, media outlets around the state had already started talking about the Gridiron Showdown Peanut Poll and social media was buzzing. After ten days, over hundreds of thousands of votes had been cast making the Peanut Poll one of the most successful straw polls and voter registration efforts in the country. The Peanut Poll was embraced not only by high school communities in and around the Georgia National Fair in middle Georgia, but by 460 school communities from across the entire state. Participants from all walks of life participated in the Peanut Poll, including some celebrity voters such as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue who visited the Georgia Grown Booth and cast his vote for his favorite team. Special guests who announced the daily results included Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black who also cast the first vote at the fair online.

In the end, the new Peanut Poll was a success in its ultimate goal of encouraging folks to register to vote. The Georgia Secretary of State’s online voter registration page saw not only a surge in visitors, but also an increase in voter registrations. Because of the 2017 Gridiron Showdown Peanut Poll, new voters will cast their ballots in the 2018 Elections for the first time. These new voters will cast their ballots for something more important than their favorite football team; they will have the opportunity to vote for who will serve them in public office at the local, state and federal levels.

Website Development Case Study: Georgia Secretary of State

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