Official Workshop Notes from Social Marketing for RI Women’s Political Campaign Workshop
This workshop was presented in Providence on July 13-14th by Andrea Warner (outside consultant from Utah) and Anne Holland of RI. These notes are copyright protected as the property of the two presenters, however you may share them as a single, whole document (without cutting) with other women who are running for office or helping women run for office AS DEMOCRATS.
Note: Holland is not a marketing consultant. She is a private citizen.
[Second Note: Social media sites continually change their rules and interfaces. These notes are not forever gravened in stone. Look for changes.]
Overarching takeaway:
Facebook and its brands such as Instagram own the vast majority of social media eyeballs. Even if you don’t like or don’t use Facebook (or its brands), if you are campaigning, you have to deal with them.
The average FB user is there 7-8 times per day. The average Instagram user is there (on and off) for over an hour a day. The average active Twitter user (a tiny portion of social media users) is a fervent user and checks in multiple times per day.
Facebook and increasingly Instagram are inserting as many paid ads as possible into users’ feeds because their business model depends on it. In the old days, when someone ‘followed’ or ‘liked’ your page, whatever you posted on your page would then show up those people’s feeds the next time they checked social media. So, your free posts would reach most of your fans.
Now, only roughly 1% of your fans will see your new posts.
People who ‘like’ or ‘follow’ you may never see a post from you again. And stats show they probably won’t ever visit your main FB page again. ‘Likes’ are only useful to show new visitors that you are the real deal. (A page for a famous person with no likes looks false.) Otherwise they are fairly useless.
There are a few ways around this – and luckily, they are free or fairly inexpensive. You can:
– Do Facebook Live videos at every possible moment.
– Pay ~$3 day to promote your posted FB Live Videos and other posts
– Keep posting to Instagram & (relevantly) hashtag your brains out
– Tweet routinely & include photos in your Tweets sometimes
Facebook Live Videos:
Facebook is trying to compete with various video outlets (YouTube, TV, etc.) So they invented FB Live Video. The name is confusing, because although the videos are shot and shown live, they also can be posted afterwards as canned videos, which are also called FB Live Video. If you make a video on another platform or post it on YouTube and then cross post it on FB, it doesn’t count as FB Live and won’t get nearly as good FB reach.
So FB won’t tell your fans about your new regular posts or your canned videos or your videos hosted elsewhere, but they are likely to tell your fans a about your new ‘live video’ posts.
To Do: As a user you open your page (not your personal page – but rather your campaign page on FB), start a new post and click the red “Live Video” button. Or, download the Facebook Ads Manager App from apple’s app store on your phone, and click on the Live Video button from there. (The Ads Manager App is useful otherwise as well, so you may as well get it.)
Usually, practically no one will see your Live Video. The point is not to get watchers at that moment, but rather to post the video afterwards. FB will run it as a post in your page’s feed and is likely to send notifications to your fans and followers about your video.
Tips:
– Hold your phone vertically – not horizontally, to make videos. Yes, this is a change.
– If your video utterly sucks you can delete it instead of posting it. You can also delete the post anytime afterwards. However, audiences prefer the charm of an obviously homemade video to a polished canned video. You don’t have to be perfect to be popular.
– Any length works – from 30 seconds to 30 minutes – as long as your content is interesting and clearly needs the time to be fully explained or take place.
– Start with a human face on screen if possible. Don’t start with intro logos or long verbal intros. People want to feel like this is a slice of life.
– Make sure you end with a call to action – or add a call to action in the text of your actual post. You might ask for volunteers, donations, for people to vote, to get registered, attend your next houseparty, etc. Don’t waste a post on news alone, ask for action.
– After your video is posted, you can then turn it into an ad via FB ads manager. It’s worth it.
Your goal is 3-4 live videos minimum PER WEEK as well as multiple posts of other types per day.
Topics for FB Live videos – holding up your next mailer and saying look for it in the mail. Holding up a newspaper you appear in and saying how excited you are to be in it. Talking about a new endorsement. Responding to something in the news in your area. Showing yourself canvassing (but not showing anyone’s specific house or face unless they are OK with that.) Getting ready with your volunteers to go canvassing. Walking on the steps of the statehouse or town council building. Holding up the voter registration paper at the place where you can go file it. Talking about how to get a mail in ballot. Standing outside the building where you’re about to go in to participate in a debate or meeting. ANYTHING. Plus see more ideas below from Andrea.
Instagram:
Make sure your Instagram account (@name) is THE EXACT SAME as your FB campaign page name. Of the two, your Instagram page title is the easiest to change, so change it now if you have to.
– You will need to hook the two accounts together to manage ads and posts far more easily. FB requires they have the same name though.
– It’s far easier to tell people, I’m on social @… with one single name
Pick a name that is not limited to your current race. Your page and insta account (and also Twitter) will be your political accounts (including your news from office) for the entire rest of your career! So if you named your account @SueforCityCouncil won’t you feel silly when you run for governor? Or for a national office? Perhaps put an action item in it – @ElectSueSmith or @VoteForSue
Alternate photos on Insta. They shouldn’t all look the same or be about the same thing. Alternate photos of yourself
– Doing campaign work: canvassing, signing letters, planting yard signs, affixing buttons, meeting people (who agreed to be on camera) etc.
– Doing political work: (actually appearing to do the job even if you are only doing it as a regular citizen now) walking into city hall/state house, meeting with officials, giving testimony, marching/demonstrating, attending organizing meetings, town meetings, etc.– Being human: dogs, mowing the lawn, weeding, baking, sports, etc., nothing too braggy (sailing yacht, new car)
Never include anyone, or anyone’s private property, in the photo who isn’t expecting to be in it and for it to be posted on social.
Make sure your Insta is a ‘Business account” and add links to your campaign email and web site to it.
Don’t share from Insta to Twitter because the photo won’t show up in Twitter. Better to post directly onto Twitter separately.
Take all your photos in ‘square’ mode and don’t be shy to edit them on your phone by making the lighting lighter or adding a slightly stronger color. Photos that pop are the ones that work best. Your photos don’t have to be the prettiest, but they need pep and personality.
Follow other candidates and routinely click to Like their best photos. People notice who you liked and follow. It matters.
HASHTAG YOUR BRAINS OUT. Instagram is the land of hashtags, people search by them and follow by them. A strong post has at min 6 hashtags and 10-20 is better. Hashtag using your town, your county, RIpolitics, RIdems, Progressive, ProgressiveRI, your name, and other words you might think reflect you #rhca, #ridems, #feminism#womeninpolitics etc
Facebook Ads (which can also equal Insta ads)
Tips:
– If you are managing campaigns for more than one candidate, you can get a business account on FB and handle posts and ads from one account which is easier than logging in and out of accounts all day.
– Don’t be tempted by the ‘Boost your post” button. It’s the same thing as buying a reach ad…except it’s more expensive. It’s basically for people too dumb to know there’s a better way.
– FB ads require that you choose an “objective”. In Ads Manager you’ll see a loooong drop-down list of objectives. 99% of the time, you want to choose “Reach”.
Reach is the cheapest. It works for all forms of ads – yes even videos! (You don’t need to pick “view views” as an objective to get video views.) Humans in general don’t interact with political pages much unless they are trolls, and ‘Likes’ are not that useful for you, so don’t pick engagement goals. Politically reach is the most powerful – especially when done in conjunction with heavy offline marketing.
If you have FB reach ads running at the same time as you are canvassing and/or postal mailing, then your message is boosted 3x. Multiple ads about the same thing across multiple media is always more powerful than one thing by itself.
– FB ads also require that you choose location. Be sure to define location as “live in” versus “in” – you want residents, not just passers-by. You can select by zip code, by town or by state. You can also select by street address to drop pins around the edges of an oddly-shaped area so you are targeting your distract or ward.
– You can also choose other demographics – such as age. Key: the more demographics you select by, the more expensive your ad gets. So, only narrow down your focus (such as Spanish-speaking women aged over 25) if you have a specific ad that you ONLY want that population to see. Also note, people who are IDed as “politically active” may be trolls so you may not want to target them.
– Facebook wants to grab all your budget. So if you set your budget as a ‘lifetime total’ but only give a few days for the ads to run vs a ‘daily budget’ during those days, it may push out your ads harder.
– Want to really target FB ads?? You can upload a list of voters in your area by uploading a CSV file of names and then have your ads run to them (only them or a ‘lookalike audience’ of others ‘similar to them’ in the same area.) You do need emails or phone numbers on that CSV file for the system to be able to match those names with FB accounts. (The term for this is ‘retargeting’)
– Want to super target FB ads? Have your webmaster add the FB tracking pixel to all the pages of your web site and start compiling a target list of people with FB accounts who have visited you. Over time that’s valuable. Sure there will be trolls, but also probably a great list of people to ask for donations from via FB ads and paid for videos.
More social media tips:
– Don’t delete trolls’ comments, instead “hide” the comments. The troll thinks their comment is still live and is less likely to get upset and make a stink.
– Always advertise during the days you are canvassing or an expensive mailer is hitting your area. Triple the impact of your other outreach.
– Competitive intelligence: you can now go to your opponent’s official political FB page and click on the menu (near the bottom) to see what ads they have run. All the ads they have run. It’s useful and fun. Only seems to work on a laptop or PC, not mobile.
– Want to flesh out your web site? A service called Rev.com will charge you $1 per minute of video to transcribe the video for you. Useful if you’ve got a longer video where you are speaking about important things. You can get it transcribed and then post both the video and the transcription together on your web site and call it a candidate’s blog.’ Works well for SEO (search engine optimization).
– Don’t use messaging like “Elect Women” as your main message EXCEPT for ads that run solely to women. It can backlash when shown to men. Because then you get the #merit and #wellactually and #notallmen crowd kneejerk bashing you.
– Don’t worry about ‘posting too much’ on social media. The only people who notice this are your spouse and parents…people who would notice your posts and be fed your posts by FB more than anyone else. If your mom saw you 10x this week on FB, the average person in your area only saw you once and only if you are very lucky.
– If you are super busy and want an easier way to manage posting to various accounts, try Buffer or Hootsuite – they are apps that let you do everything in one place. Yes, it does let you tweak the content depending on where it will appear.
Lastly – only registered, authorized users can post political ads these days on FB and FB-owned properties. You must register, including giving your SSN and postal mail address. You must also send back a postal card in the mail to FB. The whole process can take a few weeks. This is because Russia.
If you are not registered as a political advertiser on FB but you want to place ads, you must have someone else who is registered place those ads on your behalf. The point is someone who FB knows to be an American, located physically in America, placed the ad. They can be your campaign manager or business manager or marketer. They don’t need to be you.
How Andrea Manages Social Campaigns for Multiple Campaigns at Once This may be useful for anyone who intends to help a lot of people. This is her unique process.
1. Politician emails or texts me the post (or does live video).
2. I edit the video intro/outro if needed or amp up the color in the image.
3. I do some wordsmithing of the copy.
4. I make the post on the page (and add copy to live videos).
5. Adespresso (app) campaign I’ve set up instantly makes an ad out of the post.
6. *New: I go into Facebook Ads Manager and check the box saying it’s political content.
7. I order the captions/transcripts from Rev.com ($1 per video minute.)
8. Uploads the captions to the video in Facebook.
9. Embed the video on the web site and adds transcript after editing it..
10. Add post to Hootsuite (or Buffer app). Optimize it for each social channel. Schedule the posts to go out. Can schedule 2-3 weeks of posts at once.
Andrea’s Magic ‘Formula” for campaign marketing
Key, Basic Things To Do:
Post 3x per day.
Make your posts look good on mobile.
Start from Instagram.
Do Facebook Live Videos.
Become your own reporter. (People are losing the conscious awareness of what they saw on TV & what they saw on social.)
Post:
● An average of at least 3-4x per week in the months before the election.
● An average of 3x daily for 6-8 weeks before mail ballots go out.
Ideal ratio:
● “Issues” post: present and discuss issues ● “Candid” post: you being a real person ● “Official” post: doing things that make you look important, e.g. shaking hands with the governor, public speaking, interviews, etc.
CONTENT SPECS:
● Optimize for mobile: ○ Vertical Video (If it’s not a video, can we make it into a video using slides, animation, etc?)
○ Square Image (main subject centered as much as possible)
● Use non-stock photos/videos. Be real.
● Faces usually do best.
● No more than 20% text on images. Try to keep text close to edges. (Also best not to use too much text if you have an intro to your video.)
● Mix in some black and white, HDR, or other things that will stand out.
● Try to do 2-3 videos per week that are Insta friendly (<59 seconds).
● Do timeless posts. Don’t include time (“Yesterday”, “Today”) unless it is essential.
?
● Let me know if posts are time sensitive.
CONTENT IDEAS:
1. INCLUDE A CALL TO ACTION
● Have somebody interview you to discuss a topic, e.g. your nonprofit, your work on a cause, etc.
● Do “How To” videos: request ballot, mail in ballot, where to vote.
● News articles and mentions? You can share along with your comments or even a nice abstract on the piece.
● Check your inbox for Facebook District Insights email (they send you this once you are an advertiser) – use as basis for post ideas.
2. Hashtags:
● Use them if you want people who may be searching for a particular topic to be able to find your post.
● In other words, use them to be found! #obvs#masteroftheobvious#obviously
● Don’t use them just because everybody else is. Do your constituents use them?
● Use them occasionally to show humor.
● Use hashtest Chrome plugin
3. Write-Up:
● Start with a question? “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to balance Rhode Island’s budget?”
● Try not to start too many posts with “I”. “I did this” and “I did that” too many times isn’t great.
● Start with a headline: DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE
● Always try to include a call to action: ○ Remember to vote! ○ Please donate! ○ Become a volunteer!
POSTING CONTENT:
● Videos: upload to Youtube AND to Facebook. (Don’t just post to Youtube and share link on Facebook if you have the actual video.)
● Order transcripts and captions for videos from Rev.com, or, take the time to add the Facebook generated captions.
● Embed Facebook videos on your website with transcripts as blog posts.
● If an image or <59 second video, post on Instagram first.
● Syndicate content from twitter/facebook/insta to website.
This workshop was presented in Providence on July 13-14th by Andrea Warner (outside consultant from Utah) and Anne Holland of RI. These notes are copyright protected as the property of the two presenters, however you may share them as a single, whole document (without cutting) with other women who are running for office or helping women run for office AS DEMOCRATS.
