The Rumble In Missouri: Carnahan K.O.’s Blunt In Social Media

This year’s Show-Me State Senate battle for the U.S. Senate may be the most important race in the nation that no one is talking about.  Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is pitted against Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) to replace outgoing Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).

Earlier this month, I examined the social media efforts of both the Blunt and Carnahan campaigns.  My analysis is restricted to the candidates’ efforts on Twitter and Facebook, as these are the leading social media platforms in this election cycle. A complete breakdown is below:

Twitter

Analysis:

@RoyBlunt tweets multiple times a day about both national and state issues, and campaign events.  However, he does not regularly incorporate links or hashtags into his tweets.  Blunt does include calls to action, but they are directed at either soliciting donations or to publicize offline activities.  Online supporters want to help the campaign, but online.  A “Please RT” or “Donate Your Avatar For A Day” goes a lot farther than “Will You Donate?”

Blunt has the right idea with his custom background.  It is simple and includes the URLs for his other social media channels; however, the spacing is incorrect, which cuts out his name and the end of the YouTube channel URL.  The campaign’s Facebook URL is also inaccurate.

@RobinCarnahan’s tweets include articles about her campaign, national and state issues, as well as, photos and information about offline events.  Carnahan also interacts with her supports by replying to and retweeting her followers.  While Blunt struggles with the spacing on his background, Carnahan uses it perfectly to display both her name and her Facebook Page URL.  A custom Twitter background is not vital (especially with so many third party applications) but it does provide an opportunity to display a candidate’s other social media sites.

Winner: Carnahan

Facebook

Analysis:

Blunt uses the service Ping.fm to post his message to all of his social media accounts.  The problem is the language for each platform varies, which creates sloppy postings.  For example, @RoyBlunt tweeted, “No surprise – the Washington Democrats who supported the failing “stimulus” support using your money to advertise it, too. #YouCut.”  However, Ping.fm also posted this to his Facebook Page, “No surprise – the Washington Democrats who supported the failing “stimulus” support using your money to advertise it, too. YouCut.”  My guess is Ping.fm removes “#” when posting to Facebook; however, that leaves extra words at the end of the post. Services that post to multiple accounts are a bad idea; they create sloppiness and exude laziness.

If you couldn’t tell I’m not exactly a fan of Blunt’s social media operation, but, this should not to take away from Carnahan’s good works.  She posts good content with catchy descriptions on her Facebook Page.  Carnahan also includes supporter videos, which are always a plus (I don’t know why more campaigns don’t take advantage of this).  Carnahan would benefit from more calls to action.

Winner: Carnahan

Conclusion:

In a race with national implications that many prognosticators consider a “toss up,” Roy Blunt is not helping himself by being sloppy online.