A while back we ran a social media survey just to see where political campaigns stood on using social media. As it turns out, even small campaigns are reaching a level of online sophistication that was unheard of just a few years ago.
As a caveat, we should mention that our survey is not scientific, and has a fairly small number of participants.
The survey results
A greater percentage of small campaigns are using social media and email than ever before.
What type of political campaign are you involved with?
- Local Political Campaign – 61.5%
- State Political Campaign – 38.5%
Are you using social media in your campaign?
- Yes – 92.3%
- No – 7.7%
What social media platforms is your campaign using?
- Facebook – 91.7%
- Twitter – 75.0%
- LinkedIn – 16.7%
- YouTube – 41.7%
- Flickr – 0.0%
- Google+ – 16.7%
- Pinterest – 0.0%
Are you fundraising or planning to fundraise online?
- Yes – 76.9%
- No – 23.1%
Do you have a website?
- Yes – 84.6%
- No – 0.0%
- Not yet – 15.4%
Are you running an email campaign?
- Yes – 69.2%
- No – 30.8%
Observations
It’s great to see a large number of campaigns using social media and fundraising online. It probably follows that the majority of the survey participants were using a campaign website as well. The one weakness I saw was the level of email participation. Despite the rise of social media, email is still the “killer app” of online campaigning. A multifaceted online push is the most effective way to build support.
In our experience, local elections run a cycle or so behind presidential elections in terms of technology. It started with online fundraising in 2004; social media in 2008; and micro-targeting in 2012.
A few weeks ago, I took a look at our old Online Candidate website platform software. Our 2012 content management system is at least four times larger in overall file size than it was just three years ago – and the software contains many more features than it used to. It’s an online arms race, and anyone who provides online campaign services must keep up. After the November elections, lessons will be learned and techniques will be refined for the next election.
Buckle up, because it’s not going to get any simpler from here!
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Tags: political surveys, site news, social media