SOUTH ORANGE MAYORAL CANDIDATE TO SPEAK TO SOCIAL MEDIA’S ROLE IN CAMPAIGNING AND GOVERNMENT

Posted on April 18, 2011 at 1:14 PM

Monday, April 18th, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SOUTH ORANGE MAYORAL CANDIDATE TO SPEAK TO SOCIAL MEDIA’S ROLE IN CAMPAIGNING AND GOVERNMENT
Torpey an Invited Speaker at Monthly Meeting of Regional Tech Professionals

South Orange, NJ – 23-year-old South Orange Village President Candidate Alex Torpey will address over 120 technology professionals at the Hoboken Tech Meet-Up monthly meeting on April 18th at 6:45 PM.  Torpey will be speaking about the role technology and social media can play in today’s government and how these tools are helping to allow him to run a grassroots political campaign in South Orange against a political slate that occupies all of the elected positions in South Orange’s governing body.

“The social media platforms that hundreds of millions of people use every day, like Facebook and Twitter, have enormous value outside of interacting with friends and colleagues or sharing photos. These platforms help someone in a position like mine to communicate with large groups and provides tremendous untapped potential for government to engage with the people that it serves,” said Torpey. “We have the opportunity in South Orange to be a model for how connected, innovative and transparent a government can be, and I want to work with my community to turn us into a leader in this field.”

Torpey is the founder and President of Veracity Media, a South Orange based digital strategies firm specializing in media consulting and advocacy for businesses, political candidates, nonprofits and government entities. Torpey officially announced his mayoral candidacy in South Orange in March and has made the need for a more accessible and accountable government using modern technology one of the themes of his campaign.

Using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and email/text blasting software built into the campaign’s website (http://alextorpey.com), Torpey for Village President has been able to advertise and communicate to supporters and voters quickly and efficiently. Torpey’s campaign saw over 100 donations in just four weeks beginning in March, most of them coming in smaller denominations through internet fundraising.

“We have seen a large number of donors giving us what they can and getting involved in our campaign. I want the same thing to happen in our governance process. If someone can contribute a half-hour of time at 2 a.m., and an hour Thursday at lunch why shouldn’t they be able to?” said Torpey. “We need to make sure our government is accessible to every single person who wants to access it. Technology, social media and the internet are still rapidly growing forms of communication that will only give us more ways to engage with people.”

Since Torpey’s campaign launched in March, the website has seen over 2,500 visitors in addition to several thousand followers between Facebook, Twitter and the campaign’s email list.

“The connections our campaign has been able to make through technology are connections that would have taken more people, more money and more man power to reach previously. I love knocking on doors and meeting people face to face, but I don’t want to limit my interactions with voters to just that and I don’t want our government to either,” said Torpey.

The innovative software the campaign uses for their website and management is called NationBuilder, which is “the essential toolkit for a new generation of leaders and creators. “ The software ties together social media, email, text messaging capabilities to help grassroots campaigns take full advantage of the tools available.

The Hoboken Tech Meetup is a monthly meeting of 100+ entrepreneurs and innovators, pulling from a group of over 650. The event focuses on innovative start-up businesses, with a goal of providing an atmosphere to share best practices and learn about successes and failures.  Past speakers include Ben Sun (Community Connect), Tad Martin (COO to take Overstock public), and Steve Messer (Linkshare).

A video of the talk will be posted for people to watch on the campaign website at http://alextorpey.com.

Media Contact: [email protected] or 973 287 4159.

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