You too can get involved today!

In 1994 when I wrote the original Taxpayers’ Tea Party, it was believed that each of us could reasonably influence 20 people, basically our close family members and close friends. Writing a letter was labor intensive and long distance phone calls were expensive. Now, with the explosive use of computers and other technological advances, the ability to share our ideas (and thus our influence) is almost unlimited.

Without leaving your home and with the touch of a mouse, you can start your own nationwide tea party. Just start listing the people you know and can contact across this country, school friends, distant relatives, mere acquaintances, etc. Contact them and ask them to share the information with all the people they know. Soon someone in Wyoming will be quoting you or sharing a piece of the information with a friend you will never know.

My media consultant friends, Kathy & Alan Lipsett, were kind enough to help me prepare the following list of current technological trends and I hope our suggestions will spur you to expand the ways you reach and influence others. Using our social media outlets to help throw the tax-and-spend rascals out of Congress is much quicker than passing term limits.

When we published the first Taxpayer’s Tea Party, there were only 3.2 million Internet users worldwide and email was in its infancy. At that time, congressmen were wary of using email because of the lack of security and the inability to track constituent comments.

Now every Congressman has an email address (a complete listing is included in my book) as well as the White House and probably the Obama’s dog.

While emailing your Congressman, the President and other elected leaders is one of the quickest, easiest and cost-effective ways to voice your opinion, don’t forget about using email in your networking. I used to advise political hopefuls to drag out their Christmas card list for the names and addresses of friends and family to contact for support. Now it’s even easier to pick through your Outlook address book – or hit send all – to spread the message that you wish friends, family and even business acquaintances to hear.

The term Social Media may be a term that’s foreign to those of us born before the laptop era. But these websites – Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, Care2, Classmates, LinkedIn or Bebo – are growing at an exponential rate.

Let’s look at how to use just a few of these.

Facebook: It’s not just for kids anymore. With more than 70 million users, Face book has nearly doubled in usage in the past year. You can use your “Wall” to preach the message about conservative issues or join or set up your own “Cause” fan page. The Causes Exchange on Face book has nearly 25 million monthly users. There’s an interest out there in cyberspace with your name on it.

Twitter: Do you speak in bumper stickers? Twitter allows you to send short messages of up to 1402 characters to followers. You can update and comment on the foibles of your tax and spend congressman or comment on what the President just said in a news conference. This is designed for cell phone – better yet smart phones like the iPhone – so you’ll need to become proficient in texting.

Blogger: If you’ve got something to say that requires a long form of communication, as in multiple paragraphs of reasoned logic, you can set up your own blog for free on Blogger. Other services are Typepad and WordPress. Since these are on the Internet, it’s possible a search engine on one of the Google, Yahoo, or other news sites will pick up your comments.

YouTube: If you would rather say it than type it, make a video of your comments and add background and music and post it on YouTube. Use a webcam or cell phone video.