So I live in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada population of approximately 110,000 people. I’m pretty sure that most of them have heard about Barak Obama, the now-elected President of the United States of America. I also thought he made a fair amount of media coverage by using social media to help him along with his campaign. It seems that in every photograph of him, he had his Blackberry in hand. Though there have been recent allegations that he never actually used ‘Twitter’, claiming that his thumbs are too big, you cannot deny that somebody was Twittering for him.
His Facebook fan page is currently showing 6,926,844 fans. Then again, people wanting to see Obama with an Afro also has 300,888 members.
His Social media Strategy is now part of many lectures: such as this article.
What Businesses Can Learn from Barack Obama’s Social Media Strategy!
And the Barak Obama now famous Yes We Can – Barack Obama Music Video Has seen nearly 20 million views.
So what I’m trying to figure out is for the current 15 candidates that are presently up for City of Kelowna council nominations, were they away or did not pay attention when this election took place?
It took me some time to review the social media usage of the 15 candidates.
From what I can tell, seven candidates don’t even have a website. Two candidates have websites but aren’t using any other form of social media. One candidate does have a website and went to the effort to make the video and then forgot to post it on YouTube to help him. One candidate has such a strange website that I was unsure if it was actually his website, and he is asking people to join his Facebook page but has it locked out. All this leaves only four candidates using social media, and when I say using it, I mean in a very loose way to try and increase their candidacy.
A local Newspaper article has also approached this subject matter since this posting.
Please find links to the candidates in social media usage.
Kevin Craig
Website: Alexa Rank (7,955,679)
Facebook: 592 Fans
Twitter: 186 Follwers
Rocky Mix
Website: Alexa Rank (19,291,119)
Facebook: 518 Fans
Youtube: 123 views
Vern Nielsen
Website: Alexa Rank unranked
Facebook: 8 Fans
Twitter: 2 Followers
Matthew Reed
Myspace: Using this as his leading platform site
Facebook: 102 Fans
Video: posted October 23 (with a promise to keep his candidates up to date)
Clayton Kessler
Website: Alexa Rank (23,964,486) Hard to figure out if this is even his site
Facebook: This is classic; it’s locked out
Ernie Patterson
Website: Alexa Rank unranked
Youtube: he has a video on his site but not on Youtube (So Close)
Mary-Ann (Maggie) Graham
Website: Alexa Rank unranked
Todd Sanderson
Website: Alexa Rank unranked
Mark Thompson, Andy Uitvlugt, Michael Loewen, Valerie Hallford, James Murphy, Dennis Rojem, Kim Ouellette
So what can you take away from this? The biggest thing you must realise and understand is that social media is complex and very time-consuming. For those candidates using social media, there has to be a strategy plan and a dedication of time to make it work.
My hat goes off to all those candidates running for election; I know it’s something I doubt I will ever see myself doing. But I hope I can say if I ever do decide to do it, I will try to use social media to my best advantage.
We would love to hear back from wherever you are and tell me if you think that your personal vote could be swayed. Would you better understand local candidate policies and political stances if you had the opportunity to interact with them via social media avenues?