Using Twitter to build a political campaign

By John Fisher

I have been work working with a candidate to get interest in his campaign for Congress. The main focus has been to get people following him on Twitter. I'm going to review here some of the things I have done, some of the roadblocks I've faced, and some suggestions for improvement.

Progress report

As of March 30th his Twitter had 132 followers, 405 friends, and had made 18 updates. The site ranked 342,434th on www.twitterholic.com! (by followers) and  1st in the candidate's location on twitterholic!

Roadblocks

Not everyone is suited to using Twitter and many of those that use Twitter find the number of messages overwhelming. Younger supporters will more likely follow and re-tweet Twitter messages.

I'm not able to meet in person on a weekly basis with the candidate and his campaign staff. Although I'm in frequent phone and email contact with the campaign and other campaign workers, face-to-face is still the most effective way to communicate.

I'm a volunteer and only spend a few hours a week on this project.

Some recommendations

Continue to encourage the candidate's supporters to follow him on Twitter. Have his campaign manager send an message to his email list to suggest they signup for Twitter, build followers from their email lists, and re-tweet any messages they get from his Twitter.

Write to the candidate's friends on his two Facebook pages, asking them to follow him on Twitter and re-tweet his messages.

Follow more closely the Internet conversations about politics in the Congressional district and among other candidates. Search for people of similar viewpoints on Twitter to invite them to follow the candidate's Twitter.

Find and invite Twitter users in his district to follow him.

Send out daily updates.

Here is a good site that tells how to get and use Twitter metrics.