Earlier this month Google unveiled new tools for political campaigns using YouTube and Google. The YouTube You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit and the Google Campaign Toolkit are ways for political candidates to better access some existing tools and capabilities, as well as providing a few new tools to assist in delivering their messages. By packaging all of their various applications under two primary web sites, they have made it easier for candidates to establish and maintain a social media presence. Clearly, Google is betting that political campaigns will increase their use of social media to connect with voters. Given Google’s success, political campaigns should be taking the hint from Google and assessing how they can become successful utilizing Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
The good news is that as a whole, candidates for political office are using social media, though some are using it far better than others. The real question for the campaigns though is how do you use social media to connect with the voters? Social media, as I have said in a prior post, is about building relationships. Relationships with voters are built on more than just the issues. Remember when the question was posed - who you would rather have a beer with, Bush or Kerry? – and Bush received 57% of the undecided voters in the Zogby Poll. The voters were telling the pollster that Bush was more “likeable” than Kerry. Social media provides the opportunity to do more than just talk about issues, as important as they are. It is an opportunity to for the candidate to talk about themselves, their families, interests, etc. The candidate who connects with the voters on a personal level enhances their chances of winning. The beauty of the medium, is that you can provide one personal insight and thousands of people will be exposed to it at one time. Provide hundreds during the course of a campaign, and think about how “likeable” you could become.
I have been blogging on my Company Blog, the Triadvocate, since the beginning of the year on how Pennsylvania statewide candidates have been stacking up against one another on Facebook and Twitter. With five months of data to look at, it seemed timely too see how they are doing. First we will take a look at the race for Governor.
Tom Corbett (R)
Corbett’s Facebook Page has 8,460 people connected to it, up 6,709 from when I started following back on February 1. Their underlying social media strategy has delivered some impressive growth just in the past month adding 2,848 people, or a 51% increase. Though the campaign’s Twitter following has increased to 843, it is not seeing the same type of growth as Facebook. Clearly the campaign is far more active updating his status on Facebook than their communication with their followers on Twitter. Interestingly, the campaign has not yet established a YouTube channel, though there are numerous campaign videos that have been uploaded, but without a channel, you can not subscribe to receive them.
Dan Onorato (D)
The Onorato Facebook Page has seen an increase of 2,746 since I started counting reaching 3,651 people as of today. In the last month it has only experienced an increase of 408; far less than what the Corbett campaign has experienced. Part of this lag could be attributed to the low volume of updates on the page, though when he does update his status, there is considerable interaction from his followers. The Onorato Twitter profile has 811 followers, but the campaign has only tweeted twice in the past month. On the YouTube front, the Onorato For Governor YouTube Channel is up and running and has had 5,016 total upload views, 978 channel views and 15 subscribers. His most viewed video has been seen 1,848 times.
The race for Senate in PA is seeing a greater emphasis on social media
Joe Sestak (D)
As of today, Sestak has 7,730 signed up on his Facebook Page and 3,905 following him on Twitter. Though these numbers are less than his Republican counterpart, he has been growing at a faster rate over the past three months. The campaign is actively updating his status and tweeting multiple times a day. With the frequency and content that he is pushing out over both sites, it is not surprising that his numbers are growing. He has a YouTube Channel that has experienced 77,705 total upload views, 11,517 channel views and 129 subscribers. His campaign commercial “Meet Joe” has been viewed 13,215 times.
Pat Toomey (R)
The current heavyweight among statewide candidate social media users in Pennsylvania, Toomey has 10,396 signed up on his Facebook page and 4,958 following him on Twitter. The campaign is consistently delivering the same content over both channels and with a high degree of frequency. The Toomey for Senate YouTube Channel boasts 112,681 total upload views, 20,460 channel views and 203 subscribers. Though most of the video content was directed at Arlen Specter, his top rated video has been viewed 19,119 times.
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