Vincent Harris wants details, and he’s not
getting them. The 26-year-old political consultant is quizzing two Facebook guys who’ve showed up at the Austin headquarters of his media firm, and all he’s getting back is a pat lecture about the value of social networking for online campaigns.
Harris and the dozen staffers gathered in his company’s conference room don’t exactly need to be convinced: This is what they do. And by the time the 2016 presidential campaign is over, these twentysomethings expect to be paid millions of dollars for doing it well. They already spend all day everyday on the digital front lines, producing content—videos, graphics, games—tailored specifically for Facebook, tallying likes and clicks, dissecting what caught fire and what fell flat. They already get why Facebook matters. What they want to know is how to crack the code.
“Is 23 seconds the ideal video length?” Harris asks, interrupting the well-rehearsed presentation. The most successful Facebook videos often clock in at 15 to 30 seconds, and Harris read a study suggesting 23 seconds might be the sweet spot. The answer from the Facebook rep veers toward the philosophical, and Harris tunes out after a few seconds, tapping at his iPhone instead. He gets a message.
“The Meerkat guy is here,” Harris announces abruptly, rising from his seat. The Facebook pair exchange a look.
The Meerkat Guy, whose name is Ryan Cooley, has popped in to make the case that the new, Twitter-based video-streaming
application could be useful to digital politics shops like Harris Media, which has amassed a marquee roster of conservative clients, from Sarah Palin to Rand Paul, and established itself as the buzziest GOP firm of the cycle. Cooley is wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with a cartoon of the friendly-looking African mongoose. Harris leads him into his office, closes the door, and minutes later, the two are furiously meerkatting—a verb that did not exist a few weeks prior and, given Twitter’s recent purchase of Meerkat competitor
Periscope, one that may rapidly fade from the vernacular.
For the moment, at least, the Meerkat Guy is the purveyor of cutting-edge coolness, and Harris doesn’t hide his excitement over the clever app. He tells the Meerkat Guy that he wants his client Rand Paul to be the first presidential contender to use it; Harris is so bullish on the Kentucky senator that, last November, he
ditched Senator Ted Cruz, the client who put him on the map, to work for the rival campaign—and he knows exactly how to help win over Paul, who also attended Baylor University, to an untested new tool: “Can you bring him a shirt? That would help,” Harris says. “Rand loves shirts.”
Originally Posted by dannno
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