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Propositions Use Limited Amounts Of Social Media In Campaigning

Shako Liu |
November 3, 2012 | 5:04 p.m. PDT

Senior Staff Reporter

No on Prop. 35 (Ashley Steel/flickr)
No on Prop. 35 (Ashley Steel/flickr)
Not many of the proposition campaigns in California have taken advantage of social media. Prop. 35 is one the few that has a strong Facebook page with more than 8,000 likes, while other propositions have very few.

Yes On Prop. 31, a campaign for establishing a two-year state budget, has 146 Twitter followers.

Its opponent, No On 31, has 278 Facebook followers. Megan Range, director of the Yes On Prop. 31 campaign, said they try to do online ads and reach out to people through social media.

She also said the issue behind Prop. 31 is complicated and the message can’t always be conveyed through 140 words on Twitter. Simplify the considerable amount of content on documents and papers on social media forums has been a struggle.

“This is new,” Range said. “I am sure it will be involved given more time.”

Some campaigns complain about the lack of funding and manpower. Though social media is a free platform, the real time engagement requires people to man the page almost all the time.

Maxine Doogan is leading the campaign against Prop. 35, which would increase prison sentences and fines for human trafficking convictions. She says the existing criminal penalties are enough. As for the campaign, she said they are often mislabeled as anti-human trafficking, and have no funds to manage social media.

“I don’t have the ability to do it,” Doogan said. “No volunteers, nobody paid to answer all the emails…nor to be able to keep the website updated. We don’t have enough people.”

Though facing problems achieving it, both Doogan and Range agree that a strong presence on social media is important.

Rachel Hooper, vice president at Marketplace Communications, a public affairs firm that provides campaign strategy and social media services for political campaigns, said some old-school politicians may be scared of social media, and don’t have accounts themselves. She added, social media is an important campaign tools besides TV ads, and she said it’s surprising how many people still don’t know how to use them.

Campaigning on social media still needs to combine with marketing methods, Hooper said. She said it’s not enough to have an intern manage the Facebook or Twitter account for a couple hours a day, and knowing how to create videos and graphics is an advantage.

“All of these are emerging, videos and Facebook and Instagram are all working together for the campaign,” Hooper said.

Reach Shako Liu here. Follow her on Twitter here.



 

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