A Portal for Progressive Political Engagement
Avalanche is a game-changing platform that takes social media users and their influence to the next level. By integrating the key elements of political messaging into a single workspace, Avalanche connects expert messaging firms and content creators directly with social media influencers.
THE MISSION
The Problem
Organizations distributing open-source tested messages that move and persuade voters faced a challenge. Their messaging guides were difficult to find and use.
The increasing number of social media platforms made it difficult to keep up with updates and activities across them all.
Different social media platforms may have unique post requirements in terms of the length of text and size of media content. Additionally, these platforms can have distinct user demographics.
With changing demographics, maintaining a big tent voting bloc has become a challenge as once-reliably progressive voters shift towards the right.
Overcoming the opposition's lies and truth-twisting tactics has become an obstacle in communicating effectively.
Large well-funded national and statewide campaigns have the resources to conduct research, create digital content, and buy ads. But what about state and local candidates?
The Solution
The primary brief was to bridge the gap between content creators and the average social media user.
A solution was needed to enable users to manage multiple accounts from a single location.
We needed a system that would allow users to easily modify their message for each platform, ensuring maximum engagement and relevance for their audience.
The solution had to enable tailored messages that resonate with different voter segments, ensuring effective outreach and engagement.
Our system needed to provide a solution that allows users to stay focused on a topic and communicate in a clear and targeted way, cutting through the barrage of misinformation and improving engagement.
We wanted our system to be available to all progressive candidates and make it simple for social media users to amplify a candidate's message.
During the 2022 election cycle, we saw the challenges of creating strong messages and sharing them effectively on social media.
That’s why we set out on a mission to revolutionize the progressive conversation by bringing the impact of strategic messaging into the mainstream and leveraging persuasive dialogue to create real change and galvanize action.
Partnerships
At Avalanche, we understand the strength of collaboration. Great partnerships are the cornerstone of our success. Harnessing the power of research, with writers and content creators allows us to build a library with tested messages, graphics and videos. With these tools, social media activists can create messaging that truly resonates with our targeted audience, inspires action, and drives real change.
The Composer
Avalanche makes it easy to create and share effective political messages. The composer screen allows users to access all of the Avalanche elements in one workspace. Users can choose from a variety of templates, add their own text and images, and schedule their posts to go live at a specific time.
Key components:
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Multiple platforms: Messages can be posted to all major social media platforms at the same time. The message can be exactly the same for each social media account or modified to accommodate the differences between platforms.
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Libraries: messages, graphics (images, gifs, memes, videos), hashtags, quotes, slogans and fact-based research for policies and political figures.
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Categories: entries are tagged by policy, style and audience. A user can also search any library for a particular word or phrase.
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Favorites: Messages can be saved as “favorites” for quick, easy access.
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Posting Options: the user can send the post immediately, schedule it, or save it as a draft.
Expanding the Message with AI
What is “artificial intelligence” (AI) and how can it be applied to progressive messaging? Artificial intelligence describes any computer process with traits associated with a human mind - such as learning and problem-solving.
Meet Ava, the Avalanche AI Assistant that you didn’t know you needed.
The power of Ava takes social media messaging to the next level. Press a button to rephrase your message to appeal to different audiences.
Tell Ava to rephrase for:
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Generation: Ava can change the voice of the message to appeal to different generations (GenZ, Boomer, Millennials)
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Platform: Each social media platform has slightly different requirements. Ava can modify the message to fit each platform's specifications, (e.g., character counts, image dimensions, etc.).
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Tone: Ava can expertly change the tone of a message to be more professional or casual, appeal to a suburban mom, or even persuade a conservative.
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Candidate: Ava can produce candidate-focused content. For example, it can summarize candidates’ backgrounds, policies, and priorities, list endorsements, and spotlight upcoming events.
Languages
We know that inclusivity and accessibility of messages are key to reaching voters and that voters are more likely to feel empowered and participate in the democratic process when they are informed. Avalanche provides translations into the most commonly used languages in the U.S. Ava uses high-level technology for the most accurate translations, but AI is not perfect at picking up nuance, therefore users are encouraged to consult with native speakers whenever precise translation is required.
Creating Trending Messages
We are more powerful and persuasive when we join together and coordinate our messages. That’s why we encourage users to share Avalanche’s daily featured message and hashtag of the day to leverage the power of social media. Users can collaborate and increase their messaging power by using Ava to create hashtags and target content that will drive trends, create buzz, increase reach, and move voters.
One-Click Messaging
Avalanche users have access to Template Messages. A range of topics are available such as “Get Out the Vote” or “Support Grassroots Candidates.” Select a topic and Avalanche randomly pairs a pre-written message and graphic on that topic. For example, a user can select “abortion” and Avalanche will instantly generate a random abortion-related message paired with a graphic.
Avalanche Vaults
Avalanche Vaults create an entirely new way to coordinate our messaging. Messages, graphics, and videos can be stored in vaults and managed by administrators.
Administrators control:
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Content in the vault (They can add or delete materials)
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Accessibility (private, by invitation, or public)
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Timing (when they want to open, close, or empty the vault)
A candidate might create multiple vaults for easy accessibility and amplification of messages. For example, school board candidate Albus Dumbledore might create the following vaults:
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Messages for volunteers to share via Owl Post
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Messages announcing the House Cup Champions
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Messages about the benefits of a new course called “Modern Magic”
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Messages promoting upcoming events on the Floo Network
Understanding the Impact
Avalanche empowers progressives to craft effective, persuasive messaging that resonates with every target audience. Now, more than ever, we need to harness the power of messaging, drive the narrative, “flood the zone,” with strategic messages, and defeat disinformation.
The case for careful discourse and moderated speech:
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About 25% of social media users post content that is political in nature.
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And of that Democrats hold a sizable advantage of users.
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71% say the internet does more to divide us than bring us together.
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90% believe social media makes spreading extreme viewpoints easier.
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76% say they distrust what they see on social media.
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32% say debates make them less likely to engage on social media.
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But we also know that people who see political messaging online are more likely to
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vote
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follow the news
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take action and
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donate
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Avalanche represents a powerful resource for progressives equipping them with the most effective tools for reaching persuadable voters and motivating them to vote.
Who is Avalanche for?
The variety of users within this system is its strength, with each segment bringing something to the table that benefits the others. We created Avalanche for the following users:
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Advocacy groups: Whether a group conducts focus sessions or creates messaging or content in the form of graphics or video - Avalanche allows them to easily reach the people who need their content.
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Social Media amplification groups: providing message and graphic pairings to social media influencers in an Avalanche Vault expands the reach across all social media platforms.
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Individuals: if you post about politics on your social media accounts, you are a digital activist, regardless of the size of your account. We say it a lot - every vote matters. And that is why every voice matters.
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Candidates from local to state and federal offices: Avalanche goes beyond social media posting. An Avalanche message can also go out through SMS and email. In Avalanche a candidate can create their own social media posts and expand their reach by providing influencers with all of the information they need to create quality content for them.