So I live in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada population approximately 110,000 people. I’m pretty sure that most of them have heard about Barak Obama the now elect President of the United States of America. What I thought also made a fair amount of media coverage was his use of social media to help him along with his campaign. It seems that 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 two big, you cannot deny that somebody was twittering for him.
His Facebook fan page is currently showing 6,926,844 fans then again is seems that 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 close to 20Million 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 just did not pay attention when this election took place.
I took some time to look over the social media usage for the 15 candidates.
From what I can tell seven candidates don’t even have a website. Two candidates do 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 not sure if this was actually his website, and he is asking people to join his Facebook page but has it locked out. 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.
Here is a local Newspaper article that has also approached this subject mater since this posting.
Please find links to the candidates in a 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 Follwers
Matthew Reed
Myspace: Using this as his main 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: 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 I think the biggest thing you have to realize and understand the social media is difficult 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 who are running for election, I know it’s some thing that I doubt I will ever see myself doing. But one thing I hope I can say is if I ever do decide to do it and will try to use social media to my best advantage.
We would love to hear back from where ever you are and tell us if you think that your vote could be swayed. Could having a better understanding of local candidates, If they provided you an opportunity to interact with them via such social media avenues such as U-stream , or even just open Titter chat forums, or Webinars get them VOTED?