SocialMedia404

We’re having an election.  Signs everywhere.  Many, have a URL on them.

We’re delivering a conference Keynote next month to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario.  A room full of Mayors and councillors from across that province.  I thought I’d check out my local candidates, to see who is using Social Media for their own campaign, just to bring a little story from the Rock with us.

In this first post of the series, we look at the good, the bad, and the downright 1990’s.

I went to the city web site, and found this list of candidates, which also lists their online presence, if it exists.  Out of 32 candidates running for various positions in various locations, only about half (17) have any online connectivity beyond an email address.  Shocking, really.  This is 2009, isn’t it?

Now, what you are going to read here is hardly a scientific analysis.  So all you really hard-working candidates and volunteers, try not to get your campaign lanyards in a knot.  But it is interesting to see what they are doing, or not, when there is so much available to them in the social internet.

I gave each candidate a rating from 1 (not very good at all) to 5 (superb) in these initial categories:

• Web site: if they at least had their own site, they got a 1.  I had a quick look around each site.
• FaceBook: this is the number one web destination for Newfoundlanders, according to Google. I had a look at their presence, again, just to get a general feel.  I did not count followers/fans/members.
• Other Social Media: YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.  Did not count followers, fans, members.

Remarkably, not one candidate is utilizing mobile technology for promoting their campaign, other than to update their Facebook status with a Blackberry.  Another surprise, to me, at least.  They should have read our Mobile Data Sheet (shameless plug).

And so, here are the preliminary results of those remaining 17 candidates who have some semblence of a social presence, with comments here and there:

(Click for full size)

There’s only a couple of weeks ’til election.  Next post will examine what they are saying and doing in social media.

Good luck, candidates.