A Local Political Candidate Fail

Political candidates are often hurt by what they say or do on social media. A single Tweet can get a campaign in hot water. Sometimes, though, doing nothing can also become a problem.

As an example, we’d like to share a story about a campaign fail from a local candidate in our area. The name has been redacted to protect the guilty.

The election was a fairly high-profile race. The campaign had started its own Facebook page, promoted it and built a following of several hundred. and then let it wither and die. The first post was June 19th. The last post was on September 25th.

The election was in November.

So, what happened between the end of September and early November? Did the candidate drop out of the race?

No. She simply stopped posting. Nor was the website ever updated again.

There were no status updates in the weeks leading up to Election Day. There were no get out the vote reminders. Nothing. Social media posts just … stopped. After the election, the website remained unchanged. There was no follow-up message on the home page. No thank-you to supporters. Nothing.

Anyone following that campaign would have had no idea what was going on. Since no email updates were ever sent from the campaign, even die-hard supporters were left out of the loop.

To end the suspense, I’ll tell you that the candidate lost the election.

So, was a bad online campaign the cause of her loss? Probably not. She was running against a well-entrenched incumbent. Still, her poor performance online didn’t help.

There are a couple takeaways from this fail. First, don’t take on more social media than you can handle. If you don’t think you’ll be able to keep up with multiple platforms, then don’t start using them. If you commit to a platform, see it through. Don’t leave voters hanging midway through the campaign. It will look like you are either disorganized, not engaged, or perhaps dropped out of the race.

In the long-term, abandoning social media accounts may open them up to negative posts and comments that could remain indefinitely.

Keep your website up-to-date during and after the election. At the end of the campaign, before you shut everything down, you should at least acknowledge the results of the race and thank your supporters. They deserve it.

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