When giving candidates advice to use social media, it has never been the intent to use this as the primary campaign media. Social media is like a vacuum. It can suck up a lot of detritus but if you do not empty it occasionally, you really do not know what you are getting. You have to be aware of the average age of the participants, just maybe, their level of interest and their serious need to get a life.
While there is a growing cohort of grannies sharing pictures of grandkids in the Facebook universe, it is still a youth movement. And 14-year olds still need adult oversight in its use. You have to realize that the heavy users are hiding from their homework. And you can be sure that the people on Twitter during last weeks leaders’ debate were more interested in their own witticisms than thinking through what was being said.
First of all, a candidate’s objective with social media is to have reach. You start with your political party supporters and use them to reach out to the community. You have to use every trick in the book to build that network. Once it has started to reach a substantial number, you want to mine it for campaign workers. You have lots of work for them and you need to build it with team leaders and teams. Use it to recognize and thank your troops. Make it fun and lay it on. That is what social media is all about.
And if someone is following you on Twitter, you have to keep them interested. Keep those witty twits going. Let the candidate spend ten minutes on it and let the experts fill in from there.
And one of the things this adviser must admit is that we have to constantly update ourselves. Nobody is an expert unless they are watching it daily. There are new sites, new apps, new uses and a whole new language. A news reader on network television yesterday said “OMG” and assumed that everyone would know what she meant.
The growth potential for targeted marketing to social media users is something that most politicians have ignored to-date. If you have the ability to use automated calls to tell your opponents’ voters to go to the wrong address to vote, you also have the ability send your own supporters helpful messages. Maybe some parties like the negative approach but there is still something to be said for the positive.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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