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Common political campaign mistakes with Facebook

APRIL 30, 2013 

Chi Tola

The use of Facebook as a tool in government and politics is a potential equalizer between the governed and those who govern. The medium can allow public officials to have more access to the public than traditional media outlets — although it is also a way for them to be more directly criticised.

Here are the common political compaign mistakes on Facebook.

Not stimulating it

I took time out last week to sweep through Facebook, strategically considering fan pages created for political office aspirants over the past three years across Africa, Europe and America and I discovered just one thing their fan pages have in common     – engagement.

Especially in this part of the world, you will discover that most of the political fan pages focused on one thing   – canvassing for vote. I say this because, these pages from beginning to the end, lacked content, drive, information and vision.

Once you create a Facebook page for your political ambition, it needs to be promoted for voters and supporters to ever find it. Add a link to the page wherever you can online, including the campaign website, Twitter account, and YouTube video descriptions.

Also, promote the page offline in places like direct mail, campaign literature, TV ads, and in a candidate’s stump speeches. Facebook ads to voters are tremendously cost-effective, so use some of the money budgeted for online ads to promote the page.

Setting up a personal profile for campaign

This is very simple and quite fundamental, but I see many campaigns get this wrong. A page should be used for campaigns and not a personal profile for a candidate.

Having both a personal profile and a page for a candidate

We are in the real jet age, with Information Communication Technology inferno capturing the world. This is the year 2013 and most people are on Facebook, including political candidates.

Moreover, many candidates have been on Facebook for years and have accumulated quite a few friends. So, the question often pops up on what should be done with a personal profile while a campaign is going on. It’s best to simply hide the personal one throughout the duration of the campaign, so voters don’t get confused trying to decide which place to connect.

Not setting up a personalised Facebook url (and as soon as possible)

As soon as a page hits a certain level of “likes” (currently 25), a personalised url can be set up for the page that makes it much easier to remember. For instance, the default url for your page will look like: http://www.facebook.com/pages/chitola/23345bb689001. A personalised Facebook url allows it to be a much simpler: http://www.facebook.com/chitola.

Also, while this isn’t always possible, ideally it should be the same as your domain and usernames for every social network you are on. For example, take the Obama campaign: the domain name is barackobama.com, the Facebook url is facebook.com/barackobama, the Twitter username is @barackobama, and the Youtube username is BarackObama. Keeping a name the same across platforms makes it much easier for supporters to find the pages.

Promoting a page on print and TV with just an icon instead of a url

On the web you can simply click an icon and it will take you to the website — but you can’t do this with a print advert, outdoor or TV ad, so including a url is important, so supporters can find a candidate’s Facebook page.

Never looking at Facebook Insights

How could you forget Insights? Most of the political pages I saw didn’t realise the wealth of information they have access to through the Insights tab on the Facebook page.

There is a wide range of data that can provide insights, things like: the demographic makeup of those who “like” a page, the best times for posting and the most interacted with type of posts, the number of people reached through a post, number of interactions with a post, and how many times a Facebook page has been viewed.

Not setting up a custom landing tab

Facebook allows a tab other than the wall to be designated as the first tab visitors that visit a Facebook page will see and are not yet fans.  Facebook allows users to customise a tab specifically how they want it.

By combining these two options, campaigns have a great opportunity to convert interested voters into supporters and supporters into donors, volunteers, and more. By default, visitors are shown the wall of a page. Take a look at how Mitt Romney’s landing tab is currently set up.

While there is more to it than is probably necessary, it includes valuable elements like an email signup, donation call to action, and more information for voters on why Romney should be President. Another example is the signup shown on Elizabeth Warren’s Facebook page.

Auto-posting tweets to Facebook

No doubt, Facebook and Twitter may both be social networks, but both are different from each other in how best to use them. Many campaigns are tempted to autopost tweets from a campaign Twitter account to a Facebook page (or vice versa), but doing so removes the ability to customise messaging for the platform.

Here are reasons why not to do this:

Facebook allows more characters than Twitter, so it makes sense to take advantage of that and use when necessary.

Facebook gives users the ability to attach links, videos, and picture with a status update. This is lost when autoposting. It looks unserious to voters.

There’s a good chance a campaign will not notice and consequently not respond to any comments people may leave on the Facebook update.

It’s much more likely that you will inadvertently saddle users with too many status updates because Twitter is set up for more frequent updates than Facebook.

Using the Facebook page to dump press releases and official statements — Keep the press releases and official statements to the reporters and customise your message with a more personal feel for people on Facebook.

Press releases are dull, so resist the urge to directly post these to a page. If you do, don’t expect fans to actually want to read what is posted. Instead post pictures, videos, and shorter messages that people will actually look at. Compare North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue’s Facebook page to Florida Governor Rick Scott’s Facebook page. Which do you find more interesting?

Adding the position sought to the candidate’s Facebook page title  – Yes! I know you will be wondering what the heck I am talking about. But I strongly believe that the title for a Facebook page should only be the candidate’s name and nothing more.

For example, use “Deji Jaiyesimi” instead of “Deji Jaiyesimi for Governor Deji State” because once Deji jaiyesimi gets elected, he will want to keep using the Facebook page but the “for Governor Deji State” will no longer be correct.

On the other hand, if Deji loses and runs for mayor in two years, the previous page will no longer be able to be used and the campaign will have to start from scratch again.

Facebook doesn’t allow changing a page title if there are over 100 likes, and it’s an awful feeling when you realise the page you worked hard to build to hundreds or thousands of fans is no longer able to be used because the title is incorrect. Keep it simple and stick with solely the candidate’s name — in the long run you will be glad.

Political mission should transcend beyond just getting your fans to vote. It has to engage them in the decision to vote. Why would any political office aspirant create a fan page and block its walls from fan comments? As a Social Media strategist, I say NO! Better not have one than create one that only dictates.