About Rally

Rally Initiatives is a marketing and engagement consultancy based in West Michigan that leverages social media, web publishing and constituent activation and management strategies to engage your community or constituency on behalf of your business or issue.

Social Media Marketing

Twitter, Facebook and the many other social media applications have revolutionized how we share information. “Like” buttons integrated in all sorts of websites are but one way you can use one customer or volunteer to connect with many more through their network.

Real purchasing or activation decisions are driven by this new peer-to-peer marketing, and your business or campaign loses out by not leveraging this new technology.

However, reaching someone in Colorado through a social network doesn’t directly help a local political effort in Grand Rapids, nor a small-time book seller in northern Michigan; this is where a boots-on-the-ground strategy coupled with that social media initiative can be most effective in creating real sales or activation opportunities.

Rally Initiatives is your ally in creating an effective and coordinated campaign that leverages social and on-the-ground tactics to achieve your engagement goals – both for customers and allies.

Volunteer Management

Almost all grassroots initiatives start with Margaret Mead’s “small group of committed people”. Usually its a group of 4-8 people who provide the key leadership to the initiative and guide it to its goals and vision. Problem’s start when that group of 4-8 begin reaching out and others start raising their hand to help out and support.

Grassroots campaigns and volunteer organizations spend so much money and effort trying to raise their profile in the community, but often are ill-prepared for the returns that will be offered in the form of time and talent; returns which will turn around and advance your profile if used effectively.

Community Blogging

According to the Wall Street Journal, there are 20 million bloggers in the United States. Many of those 20 million write into cyberspace, writing with little desire or chance of being picked up as the next ESPN sports commentator – or simply read by more than a few accidental visitors.

At the same time, websites without blogs are giving up on the key role that content plays in Google’s Page Rank equation.

In response, Rally Initiatives advocates blogging as a community, leveraging your local connections to create a break-out web presence. The key to blogging as a community is that your blog becomes about your idea or issue first, not the author.

This is where community blogging comes in – creating a web publishing platform for your team allows you to take your passion online, but not just as an individual – as a group. A blog with 4 or 5 writers allows content to be generated much more rapidly, but also shows a level of engagement to the outside world – in a single visit, visitors know there’s a committed group already bought in and engaged. This level of engagement both creates a snow-ball effect, but also allows a easy entry point to further partisans.

With a community blog, potential supporters can engage with the topics via comments first, and later, even write their own commentary on the blog, using their voice (and its accompanying twitter/facebook network) to add to your cause. This all can be done anytime of day, and from the comfort of the supporter’s home – eliminating the barriers of time and availability to activation for your supporters and allies.

See the Mecosta County Democratic Party’s Case Study to learn more about Rally Initiative’s Strategy.

We’re undergoing a site redesign….

Stay tuned for a new site!