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February 3, 2009 ·Facebook is a popular social networking website. It’s free to use and is an easy way to maintain contact with old friends, classmates and former co-workers.
There are 150 million active users worldwide, and it is estimated that one out of seven internet users have a profile on Facebook.
So it should be no surprise that amonst the mob on Facebook you’ll also find political candidates, like Julian Castro. He used it to pre-announce he was running for mayor.
“When we had our announcement in December, we used Facebook to invite folks to the event and had a great turnout,” Castro said.
Castro has collected more than 700 friends on Facebook. Trish DeBerry-Mejia has just over 350 friends. DeBerry is also running for San Antonio mayor, but she’s using the social networking site more as a political field office, with frequent postings and plugs to drive readers to her campaign’s website.
“I try to get on Facebook every single day. I am personally trying to talk to people; it’s not a staffer,” DeBerry said.
DeBerry is a professional political consultant and a behind-the-scenes veteran of many local elections.
Now that she’s the candidate, DeBerry is demonstrating that she has a firm grasp on the potential benefits of new media technologies. DeBerry also admits she has the weakest name recognition of the candidates and she needs to make up ground.
The third mayoral candidate Diane Cibrian has yet to jump into Facebook, but she says that’s coming.
“I am utilizing the new social networking, and we have a great strategy in mind. I can’t disclose all my campaign activities,” Cibrian said.
“However, I can tell you that I think social networking and marketing is very important as a new dynamic in communication, and since I have an almost teenager, I’m a great text messager,” the city council member added.
Mayoral candidates using Facebook are taking a page from the winning playbook of President Barack Obama, said University of the Incarnate Word political science professor, Lydia Andrade.
“The online presence of the Obama campaign was significant in gaining early momentum – early buzz – and bringing in new volunteers and new voters to the campaign,” Andrade said.
Obama had over a million friends on his Facebook page. He used Facebook to deliver his message directly to supporters, provide exclusive content and articulate his position on issues.
“The line between social and business use of something like Facebook is becoming less and less distinct by the hour,” said Andrade.
She said the use of social network sites by campaigns creates a buzz or “a discussion point, an interest, but it also increases a candidate’s outreach."
“Each person who goes to the website, or gets linked to it by a friend; that’s one more access point. And that’s an opportunity for a candidate to get the message out to one more person,” Andrade said.
She said it's too good of a technology not to be using, but each of San Antonio’s mayoral candidates has a different level of mastery of online campaigning technology.
After looking at all three candidates’ websites, Andrade said DeBerry had the most effective and sophisticated site — www.trishformayor.com.
“It has lots of links and information,” she said. DeBerry also blogs about her experiences on the election trail and has television political ads posted.
So far, the Castro and Cibrain websites don’t reach the standard being set by DeBerry.
Castro’s site — www.castroformayor.com — has the standard features like web links, testimonial videos and a current calendar of events. He says he’ll soon start blogging.
Cibrian’s site has even less going for it.
“The Cibrian website needs some work,” said Andrade.
Cibrian’s online presence has another challenge. She has an old website — www.cibrianforsanantonio.com — that’s still up online and littered with outdated information. It’s also the campaign website that comes up for Cibrian on a Google search.
Andrade said there is a growing number of voters who judge a candidate by their web presence. If there is old information, poor design or problems with the website, the candidate will suffer for it.
“That would suggest to me they can’t do it themselves, and they don’t even know how to get it, which is really alarming dynamic, if you are claiming to bring in high-tech jobs,” said Andrade.
All of the candidates are promising to bring more high-tech jobs to the city and keep the ones we have, like Rackspace.
Another common denominator between the candidate’s websites is that all of them make it easy to give an online campaign contribution. |
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