Campaigns show signs of changing times as social media comes into play – Douglas County Sentinel: Local News

Rehm [noted] that today’s campaigns are still first and foremost about bread-and-butter politicking — knocking on doors, getting signs in people’s yards and maybe sending out campaign mailers.

“It guarantees that you get your message in front of the people you want, whether they’re looking for you or not,” Rehm said of traditional campaiging, adding that it’s much more difficult to get voters to proactively visit a Facebook page or website.

Still, Rehm said candidates shouldn’t ignore the online world entirely.

“You should be able to get enough of an Internet presence so that when somebody sees one of your signs and goes to Google and looks you up, they can figure out how to email you or call you within two minutes or less,” said Rehm. “That’s the main thing I look for.”

Rehm said if candidates are visible in their districts already and they’re getting that activity in front of more people using social media, “that’s smart” and “could be a game changer” in a race decided by a few hundred votes.

“I look at it as you go into a campaign and let’s try to do the traditional stuff as good as the other guy and make sure that we’re even as him or her,” Rehm said. “And then let’s find something we can do that’s different that gets us an extra 300 votes. Sometimes that’s social media. Sometimes it’s being a member of the biggest church in the district.”

#winning

via Campaigns show signs of changing times as social media comes into play – Douglas County Sentinel: Local News.