Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. EST, I will conduct my first-ever live Twinterview (Twitter interview) with Patrick Ruffini - Senior Online Strategist for Bob McDonnell's victorious campaign for Governor of Virginia. Ruffini and his team led an incredible online effort for Bob McDonnell's gubernatorial campaign that is being looked at as a model for state-wide campaigns moving forward to 2010. In Ruffini's first Twinterview since McDonnell's landslide victory, I will ask how exactly the McDonnell online team pulled it off and what secrets they have for online campaign teams in 2010.
Here's how it will work. Beginning at 11:30 a.m. EST, I will begin directing questions to Ruffini via my Twitter account (@JordanRaynor). Ruffini will then respond to these questions via his Twitter account (@PatrickRuffini). After I have finished asking my prepared questions, Ruffini will take a few additional questions from other participants on Twitter. If you have a question for Ruffini, please direct them to @JordanRaynor or @PatrickRuffini on Twitter.
How can you follow this live Twinterview? Here's 5 simple ways:
- Follow @JordanRaynor and @PatrickRuffini on Twitter. This will allow you to follow the Twinterview in whichever Twitter client you prefer.
- Follow this Twitter list specifically for the Twinterview
- twitter.com
- search.twitter.com (no Twitter account required)
- Watch the conversation right here at JordanRaynor.com:
Patrick Ruffini bio:
Patrick Ruffini is a political strategist whose work has helped define the convergence of new media and politics for more than a decade.Ruffini is currently a partner at Engage, a political media firm he founded in 2007. In this role, he helps political and public affairs clients navigate the seismic shifts in today’s media landscape from the top-down broadcast model to an open and participatory online ecosystem. Shortly after founding the firm, Ruffini was recognized by Campaigns and Elections’ Politics magazine as a Rising Star in American politics in 2008.
From 2005 to 2007, Ruffini served as eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee. As part of the RNC Chairman’s leadership team, Ruffini worked to maximize adoption of new media throughout the Republican Party, producing record online fundraising, architecting best-in-class online organizing tools, and spearheading the party’s blog and social media strategy. Under Ruffini’s leadership, the RNC’s Web traffic led that of the Democratic National Committee for 11 out of 12 months in an otherwise challenging 2006 election year according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
In the 2004 election, Ruffini served as webmaster for Bush-Cheney ‘04, managing day-to-day operations on the campaign’s Web site and helping oversee development of the grassroots tools that mobilized an army of 1.4 million campaign volunteers. Having come to the campaign with experience as an early political blogger, Ruffini launched and ran the campaign’s blog — the first ever affiliated with an incumbent President — and led rapid response outreach to the then-burgeoning political blogosphere.
