Well, last night Ottawa elected a mild mannered politician and said good bye to the sober second thought on council and a mayor who was prone to lashing out irrationally. My congratulations goes out to Jim Watson and his campaign team for running a long and well won race. They did so with a level of grace and civility (when it came to Clive Doucet and his campaign) that I had no issues dealing with them online or in person.
I learned a lot over the last several weeks, but my role as the social media “guru” on the campaign team was a lot of fun. I started off my day usually quite early. I would collect the news stories that spoke favourably of Clive and looked for little bites of text to use for tweets. I would also prepare all my tweets on his schedule and start sending out the schedule and news. When it came to interaction with voters, I was not comfortable (in the beginning) with being the voice online and constantly worried I was misrepresenting Clive. That changed after a few #AskClive Twitter sessions and getting to know how he thinks and what he believes in. I also worked on Clive’s Facebook page giving updates, sharing news stories and eventually also talking more on there with voters.
When Nenshi won in Calgary, riding on a wave of momentum that grew through social media and the support there from, I noticed an immediate response toward Clive. I had already been building the positive buzz and working 13 hour days trying to keep his name out there. Within 12 hours of the Calgary election, Doucet’s office went from a comfortable working pace to near frantic as supporters came out of the woodwork and before I knew it I was interviewing with Cory O’Kelly of CBC. That’s when I was certain I could double up Clive’s poll approval with a little more work and being less business-like and more personable through CliveForMayor.
In the end, I started on the campaign when Clive was not polling well. Within two weeks a poll showed him sitting at 5.6% and I was determined to increase this as much as I could. On my own Twitter account I decreased my agitating tweets and on CliveForMayor I increase the dialogue with the voters. On Facebook I did the same on Clive’s page and started thanking people and encouraging them to get out there and vote. On election night, Clive ended at 14.89% and while some at the campaign headquarters last night attributed a lot to me, I would like to think that we did it as a team. There are a lot of people both inside and outside of the campaign group that pushed Clive’s name online and equally, there are a lot of people who pushed for Clive in the “real world” too.
If you are interested in just how much work was put into the use of Twitter during the campaign, take a look at Professor Josh Greenberg’s latest blog Tweet, Click, Vote: Twitter and the 2010 Ottawa Election. It’s more shocking to know that 99% of the posts from CliveForMayor in October all came from me. Yikes!
W.
Voice of CliveForMayor on Twitter
ps. Now the real task is turning what I learned into career opportunities. I really enjoyed new media and politics combined. I’ll take suggestions on my Twitter account or emailed. ;)
Mr. Samuel..If I were in a position to hire someone who is as savvy a social media guru, I'd hire you.
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