Campaigning online to build support

Building Online Support

There are a number of ways that school board candidates can build support online. Here is a brief overview of the most effective ways of promoting yourself on the web and through social media.

Start a Campaign Website

One of the most important tools candidates of all types have today is digital. There are a variety of ways you can reach out and connect with district voters.

Build a campaign website that presents information about you and the issues that are important to you and your school district. It doesn’t need to be overly fancy. A clean design, pages featuring your issues and a way to contact and accept donations will do the trick.

Keep the site updated with news and events. In some ways, candidates for school board have it easy. So much of what they campaign on is based on news and events. Keeping up with the news, editorializing it a bit, and then sharing it is a very powerful way to connect with others.

Include on your site a campaign press kit for voters and the local media. This can include:

  • A cover letter describing the candidate and school board campaign.
  • A candidate biography.
  • Press releases in file form.
  • Digital copies of logos, brochures, flyers and any other print materials.
  • Photographs of the candidate and campaign events. Consider offering several versions for download. Low-res files can be used for web, but print requires larger, high-resolution images for decent results.
  • Newspaper or other media excerpts. Rather than reprinting the material outright, you could create a document or PDF file with links.
  • A Question and Answer sheet covering the major issues. This could include standard platform information and cover basic questions about the candidate.

Avoid fluff about how great you are. Keep your information professional and up to date.

Engage in Social Media

How can you win the online battle, particularly if your opponent is using social media? Create a Facebook page and a Twitter account to promote your campaign. These accounts should be linked from your campaign website, inviting others to follow you.

These accounts should be updated with anything you update on your website. You should also update with current news, events and your thoughts on relevant issues.

Tech Tip: Start to learn social media before you start your campaign. If you are comfortable with it on a personal level, you will be able to handle your campaign accounts easier.

Listen, engage, and monitor what is being said. Social media should be integrated into your existing marketing program. It’s simply another communication channel. Social can be a powerful channel, but at the end of the day it’s still just another way to get out your messaging.

Use Online Advertising To Promote Yourself

You may want to promote yourself through email marketing, Pay Per Click advertising, Facebook advertising and even text campaigns.

You will want to budget for digital advertising early on. While a social media account may be free, reaching your followers is not. Only a small percent of a page’s followers ever see posts from that page naturally. If you want followers to see your posts, you will need to pay for promotion.

A number of services let you process donations online. Many fundraising platforms allow you to take donations directly through your website and your Facebook page. You can even use these services to process donations at fundraising events.

Most school board campaigns have very limited resources. How much you choose to do will depend on your comfort level with new media technology and how much you really want to take on.

Online advertising is fairly affordable when compared to offline promotion. It can help build traffic to your website and support for your candidacy.

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