Why Candidates Should Create Social Media Accounts

Why Political Candidates Need to Create Social Media Accounts

According to Smart Insights and Pew Research, more than half of the world’s population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 31 minutes. Today, 72% of Americans use social media to interact with family and friends and share news content.

Social Media usage has risen over time and has been a vital platform for federal, statewide, and local candidates to engage with voters and run campaign ads. Below are eight insights on best practices of using social media for campaigning.

1. Creating Social Media Accounts is Free

It does not cost anything to create social media accounts. Take advantage of using social media to make your campaign interactive for free. However, when it is time to advertise, it will cost money to create social media ads and to boost posts.

2. Increase Voter Engagement Reach

Your goal is to target as many voters as possible to be elected. Therefore, you should create more than one social media platform in case some of your voters only use one social media account. Some voters may only have Instagram but not Facebook or vice versa.

3. Share photos of you canvassing

Your schedule will be full of activities during the campaign season. Post photos of you and your campaign team knocking doors, phone banking, and poll greeting. Also share photos of campaign gear: t-shirts, bumper stickers, yard signs, etc.

4. Share photos of events

You should also share photos of your campaign kickoff event, meet & greets and fundraisers. There will be multiple opportunities to introduce yourself and your campaign at multiple Republican events. Have your campaign team help take photos of your events to post on social media.

5. Share campaign events

Use social media to share your upcoming meet & greets and fundraisers. You can create events on Facebook for your events, which is ideal because Facebook will send reminders and notifications of event updates to followers who have RSVP’d.

6. Share campaign videos

Share videos of why you are running for office, your priorities, and remind your followers to vote. Keep your campaign videos brief and clear. Take videos by phone. Post Facebook and Instagram reels or live videos for events and speeches.

7. Tags

Social Media tags allow users to engage an individual or page in a post or comment. For example, a voter can tag your social media page on their post if he or she met you at an event. Another example is if a political action committee endorses your campaign, they will tag your page on their social media. Tags will increase campaign visibility.

8. Run campaign ads

Social media ads cost money. Important steps prior to running campaign ads are to appoint your campaign treasurer, next get your account verified, and get authorized to run ads about social issues.

My recommendations are to create a Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts. Facebook is the most used platform. Instagram is a good platform to use to engage with voters under the age of 40. According to Adobe.com, roughly one quarter of the country’s population uses Twitter.