Yesterday, some of those same advocates marked another day of action with similar goals: Balance Transfer Day, which urged consumers to move money from high-interest credit cards to new credit cards offering low or zero-percent interest rates for an introductory period.

While it’s difficult to say what kind of impact these two movements will have on the nation’s largest banks and credit card companies — proponents of Bank Transfer Day (November 5) cite numbers from the Credit Union National Association that indicate a $60 billion increase in assets since June 30 — Jersey City residents we spoke to saw moving their money as part of a long-term trend rather than a one-time action.

The powerhouses of the financial sector loom over Jersey City — literally in the case of Goldman Sachs Tower at 30 Hudson Street, the tallest building in New Jersey and headquarters of the investment giant.

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase, Fidelity Investments, Citigroup, TDAmeritrade, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley all have offices here. Many banks and brokerages scrambled to find temporary office space on the west side of the Hudson in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, and several established permanent spaces. In fact, the only one of the four largest US banks not to have a major office in Jersey City is Wells Fargo, acquired from Wachovia in 2010, which even so maintains three branches here.

And it is exactly the role of the “Big Four” banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup — in the economic crisis of 2008-09 that played a major part in spurring people like Heights resident Galo J. Bonilla to move their money from a large bank to a local one or credit union.

Bank of America and Citigroup each received $45 billion in bailout funds under the federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, while JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo each received $25 billion, according to reports by public-interest news organization ProPublica. At the same time, testimony at House Financial Services Subcommittee hearings in September suggest the big banks have become “too scared to lend” to ordinary Americans and small business owners.

“I’d been thinking about it for over a year,” says Bonilla, a truck driver who transferred money from his account at Wells Fargo to two accounts, one of them at Jersey City’s XCEL Federal Credit Union, which has branches on John F. Kennedy Boulevard and at the Journal Square PATH station. “This is the kind of stuff that needs to be taught in high school and elementary school, but isn’t. I brought my son with me, to teach him the importance of knowing who your money is with.”

Downtown resident Kimberly Warner-Cohen, a writer, moved her money on November 5 from a big bank to a smaller community bank because she wanted to send a message.

“The bank I used to belong to took bailout money and is now posting record profits,” Warner-Cohen says. “They give their executives huge bonuses while denying small businesses loans. I don’t want to contribute to that anymore.”

She says the push toward credit unions and smaller banks will only get stronger over time. “Banks get desperate to keep money coming in, and start raising every rate as high as they can,” she says. “People are realizing that there’s no advantage to being with big banks anymore.”

This growing move-your-money trend has only recently grabbed national headlines following the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which will have its three-month anniversary Dec. 17. Protesters have been fueled by anger over the financial crisis of 2008, the government bailouts for banks and big companies that followed, and increased rates of foreclosures and unemployment.

Big banks have done little to reassure wary customers, announcing new fees such as Bank of America’s plan to charge consumers an extra $5 for every debit card purchase (which they have since retracted).

“I was planning on moving my money for a while,” said Downtown resident James Hodgson, who opened an account with a smaller, regional bank last month.

Hodgson says he feels the “Big Four” banks having too much influence over the economy, but the videographer downplayed the importance of the November 5 date. “The date was not that significant. People shouldn’t feel as if they missed some deadline.”

For their part, local credit unions and small banks are eager to attract new customers and members. The Greenville branch of Liberty Savings Federal Credit Union promoted Bank Transfer Day heavily last month and had extra staff on hand November 5 to sign up new members. Branch manager Anna Perez says most visitors that day were new members opening accounts and the number of new accounts and inquiries has grown.

“We have been hearing from many new members that they left larger banks to come to us,” she says.

Much of it goes back to the higher fees that large banks are charging, she suggests. “When you compare our fees to bank’s fees — they might charge $40 for overdraft, while we charge $25,” says Perez. “That’s a $15 difference.”

Some of those in Jersey City who made the switch saw the day as less of an ultimatum than an open invitation, one Bonilla sees staying relevant for some time to come.

“November 5 should be a holiday to remind people about what the big banks are doing,” he says. “You know what they say: think globally, act locally.

Details:
If you are planning to transfer your money from a large bank to a smaller bank or credit union, for whatever reason, here are a few things to consider:

LESS: Location, Eligibility, Services, & Savings

Location: Smaller banks and credit unions do not always have the same widespread access that larger banks do — think ATMS — but often make up for it with reduced or waived access fees. Shop around using online resources like Banxodus, the Move Your Money Project, or CUlookup to find out what banks and credit unions are near you.

Eligibility: If you plan on joining a credit union, look for any requirements for membership. Some require you to work for a specific employer or be related to someone who does, while others have open eligibility. XCEL FCU requires specific employment or a recommendation from a current member, while Liberty Savings FCU only requires that you work, worship or live in Hudson County.

Services: Many credit unions and smaller banks offer services beyond banking, including financial consultations or insurance plans. Ask a representative.

Savings: Always check out the fee and rate structure of prospective banks. Also, shop around for deals. Some smaller banks are offering promotional deals with cash rewards if you fulfill certain requirements.

But Jersey City is changing in many ways, as the Technological Society becomes more fully realized each and every day. So it’s only fitting that in this year’s campaign, we were treated to a high-tech version of the notorious sound truck: the truck for incumbent Mayor Jerramiah Healy blasting video advertisements (many featuring President Barack Obama). Yes, indeed, the nature of politicking in Chilltown is changing.

Meanwhile on the web, the past five years have birthed an interactive multiverse of social networking, content management, bleeding edge hardware, mobile web applications and the disappearing barriers between content creators, distributors and consumers. The difference is staggering. It has changed the face of everything it has touched, including politics, and those who ignore it face a major disadvantage when facing those who embrace it.

We saw just how far this new web can affect the outcome of an election during Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The Obama campaign did what no one had done before: it embraced new technologies as a fundamental and integrated component of traditional campaign organizing and fundraising, rather than a sideshow. Technology was not just a tool in their toolbox, it was their drive train.

MyBarackObama.com allowed local organizers to plug in with the national campaign, taking the reigns on grassroots organizing while staying connected and relevant to the overall strategy. It also offered a suite of tools that allowed organizers to easily send out email blasts or coordinate with others. Twitter social messaging was used to get information out to people, but it was also used to focus organizers and engage supporters in an energizing and interactive way. Facebook groups were used to cement the youth vote in a way that had rarely been seen before. And now, this is the standard by which other campaigns are being judged.

Well, I might not go that far. The Obama campaign had one thing most campaigns only dream of having: Barack Obama. But lessons from the campaign could be learned by any candidate for any office.

So how did Jersey City’s mayoral and City Council candidates use these lessons and emerging web campaign technologies to bolster their bids for office this spring? With the hangover from the elections receding into the background and the runoff passed, we take a look at how well the campaigns integrated new technologies into their own strategies, and what impact that had on the outcome.

Team Healy

The website for incumbent Mayor Healy and his roster of City Council candidates was fairly simple and informative, with links to news, biographies, platforms and positions. The site’s page loading was slowed down by objects and images, but the content was easy to navigate.

The Team Healy site was also tied to the social web, with outgoing links to Facebook and YouTube pages.

The Healy campaign boasted two Facebook pages in addition to individual candidate’s pages. Healy For Mayor 2009 was the most active. A political organization page with 236 members, it dwarfed the nascent Young Professionals for Mayor Healy, another political organization page with only 27 members.

One Healy candidate, Ward C’s Nidia Rivera Lopez, had her Facebook page notably hacked in late April. Links to pornography were sent out to her 44 Facebook supporters. The fact that her account was compromised and porn sent out over it — during a campaign — is real slacking on her tech team’s part. What was the password on it, 1-2-3-4? (Remind me to change the password on my luggage.)

The Healy team had 13 videos on YouTube, including each campaign ad. They also put longer videos of high-profile Healy endorsements from Newark mayor Cory Booker and Sen. Bob Menendez on the page, as well as several clips used to bolster the messaging of Healy’s ties to Obama. The page is rounded out by clips from Healy’s most recent State of the City address and from the Sustainable Cities conference that took place at Liberty Science Center in March. Of course, the campaign was also shadowed on YouTube by the user “JerryHealy09” which posted a parody ad that apes a Hillary Clinton ad from the Democratic presidential primaries and plays on Healy’s reputation as one with a wee bit of a thirst.

The Healy campaign was one of only two that waded into the Twitter waters this election. Both Healy and Lopez had Twitter accounts, but judging from the number and dates of their updates, it was little more than a passing fad.

@MayorHealy, with only five updates over its apparent lifespan of ten days (May 6-16), still amassed 67 followers; while @NidiaRLopez sent out 13 updates (the last one on election night) and picked up 24 followers. Her use of Twitter seemed more organic than Healy’s, but only slightly (mainly because of this May 7 tweet: “Doing an oral hygiene presentation at the Grandview Senior Center.”). Overall, both accounts feel a bit cold and spammy.

Both Healy and Lopez seem not to have learned one of the basic tenets of Twitter marketing, whether political or not: If you follow people, they will be more likely to follow you back. Healy was only following eight other Twitter users, while Lopez was following six.

Manzo for Jersey City

The website for Lou Manzo and his team of council candidates had a solid amount of information, but it was hampered in load time by too many images and embedded videos all on the home page. It also featured a strange site architecture that tells us it most likely wasn’t set up by a web expert.

The Manzo campaign had videos, but used the relatively obscure service Blip.tv rather than YouTube or Vimeo. The campaign’s Blip page featured several Manzo ads and longer-form segments where he spoke about issues. Manzo’s campaign was largely absent from Facebook and Twitter, even though Manzo did maintain a personal Facebook page, which he used for campaign messaging on occasion.

Smith Team for Positive Change

In the beginning stages of the campaign, the slate headed by Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith had a remedial website that was tough to navigate and sported poorly cropped headshots of Smith’s council candidates.

Smith’s web strategy didn’t really get going until its relatively late-in-the-game hiring of longtime local journalist David Cruz as communications director. One of Cruz’s first tasks was to set up a new website.

The site Cruz went with — which unfortunately can no longer be retrieved online — felt more like a blog than a traditional campaign site, with each candidate “contributing” entries and first-person accounts of life on the trail. The site also included the relevant links to biographical, policy and background information. It also included a schedule of upcoming events, debates and campaign appearances.

One of the Smith team’s other web strengths was the use of YouTube video, both on the YouTube site and embedded in the Smith site. This is not surprising considering Cruz’s recent experience in radio. He took the skills honed at Newark’s WBGO and turned them into campaign videos that, while not slick by any means, were effective in other ways.

The two campaign ads were obvious candidates for the YouTube page. But the nine longer clips, of candidates out campaigning and sometimes talking off the cuff about various issues, were the real diamond in the rough here. They were entertaining (at least to a political wonk!), touched on policy (always a plus) and revealed more about the real person behind the candidate than any campaign ad did this season.

One Jersey City

For a campaign with very little money, the One Jersey City team, led by mayoral candidate Dan Levin, made good use of the web and social media.

The campaign’s main site featured a traditional layout, but at times was hard to navigate and was slow to load. The site also suffered from a few false starts.

In the nascent stages of the campaign, the One Jersey City team was using its site to illustrate one of its main campaign themes: using programs and policies that have worked in other places to help solve the problems facing Jersey City. To that end, the site briefly began uploading policy papers, research and related news articles about issues like community policing. It was a strategy that merged well with the web, with its endless interconnectivity and borderless geography. But unfortunately as the campaign heated up, the campaign (understandably) had little time to do such rudimentary blogging.

A similar phenomenon took place with the campaign’s use of short web videos designed to illustrate a problem in the city and the solution that the campaign was offering. Billed as a series, the last video was teased on the blog in February, and they ended up only touching on land use and zoning issues — important issues, no doubt, but not exactly the “hot” issues in the campaign.

On Facebook, One Jersey City was disproportionately well-represented, when compared to the overall vote total it received. Its One Jersey City common interest group sports 222 members, with a more active “Wall” than most of the other campaigns and a variety of on-the-scenes photos and messages from Levin. The group is still active as of this writing, which is fitting since Levin has said the campaign was only the beginning for One Jersey City.

For a low-budget grassroots campaign, One Jersey City was lookin’ good on video, thanks to help from Jersey City’s own Colin Comstock of Le Arsenal AV. The campaign was the only one to go with Vimeo in addition to YouTube, and they’ve got 15 videos on their Vimeo page, including the one campaign ad they produced, those short issues videos we mentioned above and solid footage from campaign events and from public hearings where Levin spoke.

Phil Webb

The website of mayoral candidate Phil Webb was by far the least technologically advanced, and also hardly included any relevant information about the candidate. Webb’s site was an out of the box solution from CompleteCampaigns.com, and while it is not a bad idea to go with such a product (especially if money is an issue, as it was for Webb), if you do, you should modify it to make sure — at the very least — that the majority of links aren’t empty pages.

Webb did do some ingenious advertising on Craigslist, as proven by the ad that read: “MAY 12, 2009 IS THE ELECTION. PLEASE GO TO YOU TUBE.COM AND TYPE IN PHIL WEBB NET, TO VIEW HIS COMMERCIAL…. THANK YOU AND PLEASE PASS THE WORD…”

Doing so takes you to Phil Webb’s YouTube presence, which is poorly branded (the video is actually part of Champagne Films’ page, not a dedicated Webb page) — but at least he got something up there.

Steven Fulop

Independent Ward E candidate Steven Fulop’s web strategy rivaled Team Healy’s for its sophistication and bested all the other campaigns for its use of emerging web tools and technologies (perhaps no surprise since the councilman is an avid iPhone user).

His main site was contemporary in design, with a Flash banner headline and various multimedia elements prominently displayed. The navigation was clear, the content was easy to find and the site loaded relatively quickly.

The Fulop campaign was the clear leader on Facebook, with three different pages, in addition to his personal page.

The largest page was the Councilman Steven Fulop common interest group, which as of this writing boasts 449 members and an active “Wall.” The older Steven Fulop 2009 common interest group has 36 members, while the related Fulop Commitment profile page has 45 friends.

Despite placing no traditional video advertising on local cable, the Fulop campaign did produce web videos and hosted them on their YouTube page. Most of them feature Fulop speaking on issues at events, with the exception of the one post-election video — a slick “thank you” video shot on election night.

The Fulop campaign was the only one besides the Healy campaign to use Twitter, and was a very active tweeter during the campaign. He’s since discontinued one of the Twitter accounts and now lives @StevenFulop. His Twitter page, which he still updates, is worth following for random bits of insight into City Council and Council Caucus meetings (June 1, 6:16 pm: “Gaughan is mad…. Vega not so much”).

From Bits to Ballots

If there is one thing that cannot be stressed enough, it is that the best new media strategy will never change a fundamental fact of politics: if you can’t get out the vote, you won’t win the election. This year’s elections were determined by about 20 percent of the city’s registered voters, and the votes broke overwhelmingly for Mayor Healy’s slate in every ward, with the exception of Fulop’s runaway win in Ward E.

Only part of this can be ascribed to voter apathy. Getting out the vote was essential to Healy’s opponents, but the votes never materialized. While traditional get out the vote efforts often require massive investment in campaign organization, funds which Healy’s opponents simply did not have, they can be overcome by an influx of motivated, coordinated volunteers.

One of the major benefits of new media is the relatively low cost of entry to a campaign. All the tools available are free, like most of the web, requiring only an investment of talent and careful planning. With said talent and planning, new media can be a great leveling device, especially in local elections, helping to mitigate organizational or fundraising difficulties. But while this year’s election was well ahead of the last election with regard to use of new media and social networks, it was still light years behind the kind of integrated use present in many innovative national campaigns, and far below their potential. This is part of what kept the big-fundraising incumbents in office.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

• Focus on search engine optimization for your sites, to improve search results for your content.
• Manage social networks effectively, interactively and in relation to on-the-ground organizing.
• Empower and involve your supporters in online communities so that they not only vote themselves, but encourage friends to vote as well on election day (bring a friend to the polls).
• Optimize and maximize online fundraising, stressing easy-to-give small, recurring donations in a secure online environment that is one click away.
• Let your supporters carry your message themselves, through their own projects. Make these satellite projects accessible and give people access to online tools that will help them do this.
• Engage the mobile web via Twitter and SMS text messaging.
• Get your organizers connected. Get them smartphones. Get them workshops.
• However: Realize there is no such thing as a social media expert.

Additional reporting by Jon Whiten.