I have the opportunity to work with a local politician setting up a social media plan. I’ve done alot of research and have my ideas together but would like input into what matters from you.
What politicians use social media well and why?
Do you follow any political social media efforts?
What information would you look to social media to find out from your local government?
Any other thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Dawn

i don’t follow any party, but yesterday I got a great kick out of a ‘pro democrat’ FB page that twisted that message ever so slightly. really worked on first glance, but if you read a few posts it was obvious the trick being played. Marketing at its best.

i follow a few   political places….and like it….  often it   links  back to their web…..  but nice for  quickie ideas….

and  facebook is a great  place for pictures if  that applies…. with a crowd, kissing pbabies,  smiling in front of the  flag.and lotsof pictures  showing  the issues, the potholes and  trash guys, the  dog pound………..etc etc….

the  nice thing is  you would have a base to pick up the facebook   page   at the start…his party…. 

it  sounds   good…. 

Thanks
@tamarnaveh-koren @annfurnivall @claudiapoeckl @richardmclaughlin @dfriesland !!
In broadstrokes the advise I gave was:
1. Use hashtags/tagging system
2. Be authentic (a) act as though you are having a conversation (b) balance politics with what you do personally (sports coach, entrepreneur, etc)
3. Quality (updates must be valuable & interesting)
4. Enagage (a) comment on other posts/retweet (b) respond, respond, respond
5. Make content sharable & Share other people’s content
6. Use the right tools (optimize each message for each sm channel)
7. Measurable Success

I’m not looking to set up a streaming photo op plan, but rather capture the feeling of the community and put this politician at the forefront of information for the area. This would include council business, tourism, arts, youth, seniors, parks/outdoor space & awards/special events, Some ideas I have, outside of FaceBook & Twitter, are Four Square – promoting whatyou can do in town, Pinterest – behind the scenes of being Mayor. Closer to election time we will be expanding that to include Google+, Google+ Hangouts. We’re starting out slowly for him to get used to the technology, maybe make a few mistakes and then lead into the actual plan.

Any other areas, ideas that you would want your politicians to do? 

My experience with politicians and social media (and the marketers they sometimes use) is that they view it as something they can hire interns or volunteer students to do for free. When I encouraged one to develop this as a marketing tool, he responded, “I can just have college kids Tweet for free.”

This may be changing, I hope. I stopped working for the marketing company that took that view about a year ago. 

There is great potential and ongoing need in this arena. There is also great responsibility — which I don’t think you want to leave to interns and volunteers.

Since this is still relatively new to many politicians, the best use of social media might be to begin WAY before the campaign to create a tribe long before ballots are counted.