Oh Twitter, how I love thee. Let me count the ways…

I first became interested in Twitter a bit over a year ago while reading Seth Godin’s book, Tribes (for my full blog review of the book click here). Before I even finished the book I had to log online and get my account set up (@razshafer). Since then it’s been a non-stop ride on the twitter train for over a year. Here I sit, 6248 tweets and 3834 followers later, more fascinated by it than ever!

While I’ve been active with social media since the advent of Web 2.0 I had never aspired to use that medium for political ends. After reading Tribes and a few blog articles about the political uses of Twitter I began to see how powerful Twitter could be when used for a specific purpose.

Twitter.com was created in March of 2006 and went live for the world to use on July 13th, 2006. Since that time it’s membership has swelled to well over and its ranked among the most popular social media sites online. For in-depth information about Twitter’s history, check out the Twitter page on Wikipedia.com. You can even see The Story of Twitter in Picture Form if you so desire.

Because Twitter has released no official estimate of its membership, we are left to guess or estimate likely membership. In my own search of an estimate I took a few factors into account: 1, Twitter.com has received between 23 and 24 million unique visitors per month over the last several months. 2, Only 45% of Twitter users use the website. While many users no doubt visit the site at least once per month, a rough estimation, given these two statistics, is about 50 million users. Considering that 21% of twitter users have never actually tweeted, our estimate of active accounts comes to: 41 million. Regardless of the exact number of active members, Twitter has a huge audience which is heavily engaged. It’s an incredibly powerful venue for broadcasting information, digesting news, debating viewpoints and building relationships.

I believe that in the “David vs. Goliath” battle we are engaged in we must approach the fight much like asymmetric warfare. There was a phenomenal article written by Malcom Gladwell in the New Yorker last May titled “How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break the Rules.” The thesis of Gladwell’s article is that when Davids write their own rules, rather than fight by the conventions that their opponent tries to impose then they will win more often than not. He supports this with a study conducted by Political Scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft. In the study Arreguín-Toft studied every war within two hundred years in which there was significant imbalance (10 to 1 based on military power and population) between combatants. He found that when the weaker power (David) fought by the rules and conventions imposed by the stronger power (Goliath) that David lost 71.5% of the time. This is still quite impressive considering the 10 to 1 power imbalance but when he focused on wars where David wrote his own rules, like in the Biblical account, David won an incredible 63.6% of the time.

Right now we are faced with a David vs. Goliath fight. Conservatism is riding a populist wave but the principles which we advocate and the policy proposals we promote are far from being understood by the majority of our elected officials. While conservatives are indeed a majority, we still fail to demonstrate our size and power at the ballot box. In this fight we need to look to unconventional tools, such as new media, to promote the principles we champion.

I’m convinced that, in this new era of political communication, discovering and utilizing tools like Twitter is not an option. It is a necessity. The question of where we fight the battle is not up to us but if we leave tools un-utilized or under-utilized then we set our movement up for failure. For those of us at American Majority, failure is not an option.

In support of your efforts to become more active online, our Staff has created a Guide to Twitter and Activism: The Twittivism Guide. It is a 40 page document (free to view or download) which will guide you from being a non-user to a Twitter Power-User. American Majority trainings also offer in-depth new media training as part of  our Activist and Candidate Political Training sessions.

If you remain unconvinced of the power of social media, check out this video. It was created by Erik Qualman (@equalman) and blows my mind every time I see it.