tune into c-span's coverage of the 2024 republican four day event in milwaukee. next up, catch the democrats as they convene in chicago kicking off on august 19th. an uninterrupted glimpse of democracy at work. watch the conventions alive on c-span. online at c-span.org. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> next, a training session for future aggressive candidates in atlanta. candidates learned campaign techniques and how to network on social media. this is about an hour.

>> hello, everyone, how are you doing today? i hope you are awake after lunch. hopefully i will keep you awake. my name is kiana mackey nance. this is about building your campaign voice. just a little bit about me, my pronouns are she, her. i'm originally from tennessee and i lived in atlanta for about eight years where i started my political career and i am glad to be back. i'm the director of digital strategy at the dnc convention. i am hiring, please come see me tonight, i definitely need to hire people. i just finished reading the vp of digital enemies list.

i also was a deputy digital director for warnock and i also was an organizer on abrams in 2019. i'm excited to be back and excited to be here with all of you. all right, i will move this mic because i feel like i cannot walk around. what we are talking today about is how to build your campaign voice. the entire goal of this session is, how are we crafting a unique and authentic voice for the campaign. i am stressing, authentic. that is a big piece of your campaign voice. we will get into what that actually looks like, how we are going to be doing this and we will definitely dig into, what is this voice? what does it mean? those are all the things we will talk about today. understanding the what and why of your campaign voice.

and how to actually apply that in your campaign. we are going to develop a voice guide at the end. we will start with high theory and then go very practical. there will be an actual way to craft your strategy and a voice guide. all right, we will do a callout for our activity. i want you to actually think about someone with a unique voice. i mean a unique voice, think about either the way that is sounds, their tone, persona, raise your hand, let me know. someone with a unique voice. oprah, that is a good one. what about oprah's voice makes her unique? yes. that is definitely true.

you can know that is oprah even if you just hear audio. exactly. >> president barack obama. >> yes. one more question about that. what makes that voice unique? you can go back to the mic. yes. >> he has a distinct voice. it is different. you know when you hear him talking, it is distinct. it is kind of sauve. it is distinct. >> thank you, that is exactly right. we will get into his voice later. we will come back to that one. we will take one more. i saw your hand first.

>> fran jesser. from the nanny. i think her voice is unique because it is high-pitched, it carries, she laughs a lot and that is very infectious in my opinion. >> right, that is so real. just like everyone describe the voice, there is a part that talked about their persona and essence. when you think about your campaign voice, it is not just necessarily the words that you are saying. it is why. what is behind this? that is what we are going to be discussing. when we mean voice, we are actually just talking about what we say. our personality behind what we say and how we are actually

saying it. when you think voice, you immediately think that this is the message. this is what we are bringing to the world. you are just making that strategy come alive. when you think about your voice, it will be how most people will experience your campaign. i have a saying, if you think of a campaign as a body. you have your campaign management which will probably be that brain. the whole strategy together. you have your organizers which are hands on fee. they are doing the movement. coms, that is your physical voice. digital is the persona. voice is carried out through digital. that is where people experience your campaign first. they will see the touch points and feel the campaign.

they will have that personality of the campaign through digital. what is voice not? it is not the core message like i mentioned earlier, it is not your policy position. when you are thinking about your campaign voice, this is not just your policies. it is not just where you stand. it is not your content strategy. you can definitely build your strategy out of your voice, that is not your plan. these are the tactics i you learn when the campaign voice is. we will do a short exercise where you will pair with someone at your table. find a partner, if you do not have an even number, get in a group of three. the stable over here, you three can be together.

what we will do next, we will talk about campaigns that have a unique and distinctive voice. obama is one that you can use. brands, organizations, if you cannot think of a specific campaign off the top of your head. we will take about five minutes. pair with someone next to you. talk about a campaign with a unique and distinctive voice and i will take three groups to share with what you came up with. all right, now we will take examples to see what you all came up with. >> we talked about trumps campaign and the notion that america is a horrible place unless he is in charge of it. and how that relates to each version of the campaign that he ran. we talked about aoc and the voice of the campaign and how it was the progressive politics

that are possible. and how that was embodied in so many different layers and that led into bernie sanders which is also a similar kind of narrative. we talked on andrew dylan in florida and how his campaign had a very distinct power to the people voice where you might have forgotten about us were counted us out in the beginning and we are here. we won the election that way. >> thank you. there was a lot of extreme contrast. even starting with trump and the message that he brings to america. sadly, he has targeted the hard- working american. the lower-class and rural american. his messaging reflects that. the merchandise, everything he puts out is very consistent to that message. versus aoc, definitely has a more youthful energy.

very much trying to bring everyone back together. yeah. i like how you shared the different contrast with that. all right, another group. >> we talked about aoc and how in her initial campaign ads she was waiting for the subway with tender shoes saying, i am not usually the person that is sent to to congress. she looks like the district that she lives in. the person in the seat was not showing up for the district. we talked about john also. here in -- >> i talked about how after he had to go through the runoff, he changed his entire messaging in less than a week and pivoted

around to go into january. you saw it in real time. the constituencies he decided to go behind. deciding to link up and run their campaigns and share that stuff together. he took a step back. that was his speech. he is here for all of georgia. i shared with him, he sends his constituencies and representatives down to all of the counties in south georgia so that they do not have to call to atlanta to get help. because of him, the lieutenant governor of georgia has a constituency office around fort stewart. i was talking about how he did a 180 within a week and a half of having to go straight into the runoff. >> thank you. all of the examples that you gave, what would you feel when you would see him do things like that?

>> he heard and understood that he did not win that general because he was not listening. something clicked with him having to go into the runoff he paired up, that they were going to sink or swim together. i hear you, i hear that they are saying that they want this. he pivoted and reshuffled himself and now he has been in congress. that was that. >> that's true. just like you described that. when they were able to come together, that showed that they were together to make that happen. you know, like you mentioned, you got the feeling that he was finally listening to people. all right, we will go to this table. we will do one more with your table. >> all right. >> was remarkable when

democrats flipped 40 seats in 2018. we saw all of these powerful candidates, nationally. katie hill flipped the historically republican district that had one of the highest proportions of police officers. that was katie porter. she utilizes ads and started off in a suit. the scene completely changed and she said, this is not me. she related and was featured on device. she resigned in light of the incident. her campaign narrative itself was incredibly compelling. since we are in georgia, lucy mcbeth flipping the congressional district. i think that her whole narrative about her son and utilizing certain policies, gun

control, amazing. flipping a district that had a longtime gop incumbent. in oklahoma, she lost in the 2020 general. narrowly. but to a fellow female candidate. she was able to flip that seat. it was incredible that democrats could flip on oklahoma. so many powerful stories. 2018 women candidates, really powerful. >> thank you. one consistent theme that i heard about the campaigns in their tactics, relate ability. you could tell from the tone, the tactics that they are bringing, they are relatable. that is what helped to seal the deal in some of those races. all right, just like we talked about, your voice is an essential part of a winning campaign strategy.

as you can see in the slides right here, how you are expressing yourself. feeling yourself as noble with press and constituents. this is how you are going to win. who you are, what relates to the people you are trying to turn out and vote for you. even people you are trying to persuade. this is how you are connecting with those voters, and motivating your supporters there are candidates that started and you did not understand why they were running. you did not feel the reasons behind it. how we masked the things that they were putting out. over time, you started to understand that. they were developing their voice. what about them.

you are not creating a persona that you think will work. what about you and your essential story will connect to the people that you are trying to get to support you and vote for you. all right, we will talk about the three cs of your campaign voice. thinking about these three cs. consistency. when you were talking about the campaigns that you could tell their tone of voice. there was a very consistent expectation that they are setting with their audience. to see this campaign and you can tell what they are about from top to bottom. that is how you have a very consistent campaign voice.

internally, you have to be unified in that. when developing the strategy, you need buy-in from everyone. you need to work together so that your messages different. the way that you talk about it to voters. organizing is different. it all has to be consistent. the next c is connection. thinking about your connection, how are you building that trust? how are you connecting to people? someone mentioned relate ability. that is how you are building that connection and building that trust. you have to think what about your candidate or brand that is actually connecting to people. just like i mentioned earlier, you do not have to change your candidate and create someone you are not. you have to pull out of the personal narrative what matches your voters. what do people care about? what about your candidate meets

those answers? internally, it is about the department collaboration. how are you collaborating to carry out this connection point to make it relatable building up trust. again, it is clarity. who you are and who you aren't. being very clear and specific understanding what your candidate brings to the table and what do they not? how are they different from their opponent? these are things that provide rarity to the external audiences. and then also, how you will communicate and respond. those are other things you will have to figure out internally. in your team spaces, how we will communicate, how you will respond, and how you will draft content. all right. when you are defining your

voice, as early as possible, you have to understand, what is your campaign dna? it will all be built together as you are defining that voice. you have to do this from the top. this is not something you should do at the end of your campaign. start from the beginning. when it came down to the actual runoff, they re-evaluated. essentially they are building a new campaign. building a completely new campaign. new staff, everything. we had to re-evaluate what we did right during the primary. or for the general. and what we are going to do during the runoff period and what we can tied together what we learned to carry that message and carry a home. some people will join midcycle. after they had a very specific voice. working at emily's list, i came

in when they wanted to reach younger audiences. our message was to elect pro- choice democratic women. we want to make sure that this is translating to other people. i came in the middle of this process. having to turn that voice and how we will tell that story. this is going to happen, you will come in midcycle. you need to know that is fine. you can pivot and refine. you can make those adjustments. based on polling. you might get a poll back. what can you pull from their story that will do that? how can you change your tone to make sure that you are still relating to these voters? also, as your campaign evolves, when you are going into turnout, you need to amp up the

volume. you need to get people interested and motivated so that they can go out and vote. there might be more excitement, new energy to that. in georgia, runoff versus general. a turn of that energy to get everyone together. the tone changed. then as you are getting feedback. when you are sitting down and actually talking to voters and you realize that this is not registering with us. not that your candidate changes. your candidate is the same candidate. how you are telling their story is what changes. pieces of their story might resonate to one voting block more than it does to the others and that is fine. we want candidate to represent everyone. also, it will evolve as you know your audience better.

as you better understand who your audience is, connecting with them online, that is a big one. you might realize, okay, the tone that we are doing is not registering online as well as it is in ads. we were very much that tough cop persona at the beginning. making sure that people knew that she was tough on crime and not leak. she had another side of her personality that was very relatable, very personable. we would be on the campaign trail and voters were so inspired by the familiar tone that she would bring when talking to voters. online, we decided that would be our focus. social media where we are reaching people that might not see our campaign ads all the time. we focused on ways to uplift that more personal personality when we are online.

now we are going to talk about how to actually do this and craft the campaign voice. this is how i look at building out a strategy. think about election day. what do i want my campaign to look like on election day? what do i want people to say about the work that we did? the one that turned out young voters. the one that was fighting for labor unions. a champion for the working class. you have to start with your election day, defined those goals and go backwards. i always start with the ultimate goal, election day. checkpoints and milestones along the way that will check with us, is it working? this approach does help as you

are building out your platforms, content, even staff. in florida, we had to reach that spanish audience. we had a bilingual content strategist to create content in spanish. everything had to be bilingual. things like that, who will i hire to reach that goal? that is the way you will keep the campaign on track and know if things are working or not. i call this the northstar strategy. think about your northstar, the point that you want to have at the end of all of this. as you build out the digital program, any program, you need to think about what it will look like on that final day. this can translate to organizations. you are building out a messaging campaign. think about what you want to

happen at the end of this. work backwards so you can think through the clear and specific objectives. what is the narrative that will get to that goal and how will you get this message to the public to make sure that they are able to connect to the purpose of that. then you will break it down into specific tactics. not to diminish the examples you gave earlier, a lot of people were talking about tactics, ads, talking about the things that they did in the field, that comes from your voice. from what you are doing. these are the tactics you will develop thinking about the northstar. and then milestones, when do we need to re-evaluate and realize this is not working on try again? understanding the progress of those objectives. how you can adapt your program to what is needed. all right, like i mentioned, you have to have this buy-in and make sure that all of the departments understand what is

going on. we had four departments here. when we take our voice, how will this translate across the way. you are thinking through press releases, talking points, fact sheets, how is your tone of voice carried out through those specific tactics, digital, website copy, social copy, emails when you are thinking about fundraising. how is your tone going to look through those pieces? political, speeches. messaging materials, thinking about the sentences you are choosing. and then of course, finance, thinking about fundraisers. what fundraisers you need to have that match your overall tone. that is a big thing. how can you say you are fighting for the working man and then taking money from corporate donors, there are

ways that you can do that which are unique and special to your candidate. you have to make sure that is all the way across in every area so it does not feel like it is disjointed. building buy-in. you have to figure out how to put yourself in your stakeholders shoes. do they understand what it means? if you are the one that wants to champion the voice lessons we are learning right now, how will you communicate that to your team and say, look, what we are doing right now is not working, we need to craft our voice. helping them understand, what is the value of having this voice. you can show them what you learned and why this is important. what are the solutions? how are you understanding that your voice can be the solution to what you are having problems

too. and then defining the campaign voice will directly benefit the team. it will directly benefit your organization. how will you explain that to your team? as i mentioned at the top, authenticity is essential. you want your voice to be driven by the candidate or your overall brand and organization. this is so authentic. this is the crucial part of what you need. like you all set in your examples earlier, when you don't have authenticity, you can tell. you can spot campaigns where it does not feel authentic. name a campaign that you saw that was not authentic. you felt like this person is not living up to what they are saying. what specifically about that? >> she was the candidate to

challenge eric paulsen in a congressional race and this was before dean phillips was elected in 2018. she had this ad. she was kayaking by herself in the water. it was nothing about her body language. there was something, if you looked at the aggregated presentation, it just struck me as off. insincere. this lady is trying too hard to get my vote, it's too much effort and it does not feel organic or natural. you should not have to put so much effort, you should be a natural and it should show why people want to vote for you immediately. >> one big thing about knowing if it is authentic or not, if you are giving a speech and your teleprompter breaks down and you forget what you are supposed to say, is your

message authentic enough that they can keep it going. some people might crumble. that message is not authentic to who they are. that is an example. that is real. it did not feel authentic. it was not connecting. i completely understand what you are saying. oh, we have a hand. sorry about that. >> i have a couple. governor kim had an ad where he had a gun across his lap. he was not a country boy and that did not hit. marco rubio, ron desantis, all of them are very insincere. there message changes any which way they want to go. they are obviously in it for them. obviously.

you are exactly right. you can tell. thinking about how you connect your voice to a message. the examples of your values and visions. why is this candidate running? if you are teleprompter would disappear, would they know why they are running. the general principle that your candidate stands for? are you able to say, i know what they stand for and i know what their principles are. if you can't, it's time to re- evaluate your voice. can the candidate connect that value with the future? if they get elected? why does it matter? what are they doing in this election that is going to make sense when they are actually in office. how you will articulate your core message across your

platforms. i keep talking about this. there is so much power and value inauthenticity. i stress this so much whenever building digital programs, you have to be authentic. digital fundraising is one that we have seen the inauthenticity. right now, specifically in this cycle more than ever, voters are catching on. they can see when something is not authentic. people get these emails, if we cannot raise $20,000 tonight, we will not have the light on, is that real? you have to think about these authentic pieces that all fit together. people are catching on. they do not want to blindly believe someone. you have to touch those points. what are the common connection points, how do they show up in

different settings? what do supporters value? these are questions you need to think about when you are thinking about authenticity, the power behind it, these are the things that people care about. now we are going to look at building your voice and finding that voice when looking at materials. think about what you are working on right now. think about all the materials you have for your campaign that has been produced. do you see a consistent tone of voice in that? when you are looking at your tone of voice and you are trying to put together that plan, you need to review everything, you need to watch the candidate's greatest hits, if someone did not run before, think about the messages that they had that got them to the point to run. watching this and being able to define those moments through the videos that they brought to

life. finding the commonalities. the theme across the way. something you can really look at through the history of this candidate. these are all things that you need to look at in your materials and have a chance to understand, what are they talking about most often, why is this essential to who they are, and being able to pull that out when you are looking at materials. having a point person, going through the chains of approval, they are looking to spot the tone of voice across material. is this how we talk about it, part of the candidate's personality? okay, then you will sink through adjectives. putting a list together of those adjectives that can go back to your candidates story.

honestly, google university works very well. pull out adjectives that go with the overarching message. go through the list and identify which ones are easy, and which are not so easy. when you have a full list of adjectives, break it up. these are the ones that we know we can translate. these might take a little more work to make it happen. you can do this with your full team. this is a good example to show. we can take 10 minutes in the meeting today and try this. then they can actually see how this works. talking through that alignment. having disagreements. this does not represent. pushing back and saying, how can we get to this overall voice? what are we going to do? settling, okay, this is what we

will do. finding your voice. this, not that. these are examples. we are confident, not arrogant. we are approachable, not too casual. in thinking about the ways that you do this and not that, is a good example of how you can pull out that tone. you want me to go back? okay. you are welcome. okay. more than, less than. when you are thinking about finding your voice, take those key adjectives that we were talking about and use that to really refine what you are talking about.

some of you might have done the message box where it is us and them. think about what their tone of voice is. when we talked about donald trump, his tone of voice versus biden. what your opponents tone of voice and how that is not who your candidate is. this could be the opponent, what other districts are like, versus the district that your candidate lives in, thinking of all of those pieces as the competitors. once you have fully defined that, that is when you are going to be able to pull those messages together. and you can understand how these tactics are going to work. you are more fired up then donald trump. les fired up then donald trump in these areas. let's think about the economy. how is your candidate more fired up about the economy then donald trump? how is he les fired up about the economy then donald trump and writing those things out is

how you will know, is this working? is this not working? how does this translate to voters and supporters? all right. we are sending out all of the slides. hopefully you can work on them again. applying the criteria. as you hone in on what your voice adjectives are, you need to think, is this authentic? is this recognizable? you can pick out what she sounds like and what she will talk about by her tone. it is distinctive and recognizable. does this work across all platforms? we will take a phrase and see how it translate across different platforms. what do you need to adjust? do you feel like you are trying too hard? is this not registering? these are things you need to

think about. all right, back to our favorite, if you said obama, look at that. obama said applied what it means to have a true tone of voice. you can think about that hopeful narrative, the change that he brought. that was the picture of how we got to all of these building blocks. when you think about barack obama, listen up, fires up, the phrases that he would use. we have been counted out before, all of these things really show that he is going to come in and bring this change. hopeful that this was going to work. these were all phrases that came out of that overarching narrative. the pictures you are going to use, that shows your tone of voice. bringing pizza to field

offices. he is different. he is not hiding behind his own office, not wanting to go and think his supporters and volunteers. this picture at the very bottom, his hand is up, hope, change, i am different. you can see and feel that hopeful change narrative in the pictures you take. okay, now we will see what this is like. craft your own campaign voice. i will quickly go through the different types of storytelling tactics that are in different social media platforms. twitter, x, whatever you call it. it is very concise. focused on reporters, we are very focused on short and engaging phrases that will tell your narrative on twitter.

>> we will leave this program. you can watch it in its entirety on our website. do you now to capitol hill with a hearing of the federal highway administration. testifying on the 2025 budget request before the senate public works committee. you are watching live coverage here on c-span 3.