Keeping up with my two part series of blog posts from co-op students, here’s Shiqi’s take on political websites from back in October. I realize I’m a little behind, but I’ve just recently set up a candidate in Waterloo with a tiny website, and I used this advice.
We met with some of the people who work with our candidate this afternoon, and we talked about how GiantGoat can help the campaign from the technical side.
Most campaigns have the same goals: raise money, get people involved, encourage people to trust the candidate, show where the candidate stands on issues and leave the public with general good feelings. With respect to these goals, I’ve come up with some suggestions on how to use social media as an effective force in the campaign.
- Make the official campaign site linked to the other social networks; make it easier for people to get more information about the candidate
- Accept donations from the homepage, to help to raise funding
- Use MeetUp to let people who support the candidate get together and have events
- Create a website to clear rumors if you’re an incumbent
- Use blue as the theme color of the webpage
Meanwhile, there are things should NOT be done:
- Have official blogs or other social networks that are never updated
- Leave nobody in charge of the social networks to police against trolls and spammers
We’re also excited to take responsibility to make the front end of the campaign website. I know we will make it wonderful.
