Virginia Congressional Campaign Facebook Breakdown (Part 2)

Here is the breakdown of Virginia’s 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th districts.  If you have any suggestions, additions or corrections, please leave a comment and I will update my analysis.  Don’t forget to read part one of “Virginia’s Congressional Campaign Facebook Breakdown.”

* = Incumbent

Red = Republican

Blue = Democrat

Black = Independent

Post Quality = Mixture of Content (Articles, Photos, Videos, Campaign Updates, etc.)

Tabs = Anything that goes beyond the standard wall, info, photos and discussion tabs

Virginia’s 3^rd District

-Republican Chuck Smith has a group rather than a page.

-Libertarian James Quigley doesn’t have his Facebook linked to his campaign website.

Analysis:

Both Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) and James Quigley’s postings are dominated by press releases/newsletters.  Scott’s press releases do not include a description or a modification of the title to make it more interesting.  Quigley’s newsletters at least look presentable.  Neither of these candidates posts with any regularity, which also hurts their presence on Facebook.

Chuck Smith’s Facebook content is a mirror image to his tweets.  Smith’s posts are almost all inspirational quotes, “Let us remember that we, each of us, are a grateful people endowed with pride and spirit, in an America that has met every challenge with courage and faith, and because we did, America prevailed. Let this place, this time and this moment mark our faith, as Virginians, as Americans and as a nation possessed of the breathtaking strength of freedom and unity. We are united by freedom, standing resolute and firm in an America, ‘a shining city on a hill.’”  Outside of the rare “like,” Smith hasn’t received positive feedback from his supporters, yet he continues to do same thing.

Winner: Quigley

Virginia’s 4^th District

Analysis:

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) has the best Facebook page so far.  He mixes in different content (events, photos, articles, donation information) and posts multiple times a day.  However, a lot of his postings are directly from HootSuite, which creates the occasional sloppy post.  I’m not a fan of Twitter applications that post directly to Facebook because the wording that is used on Twitter is completely different than the one used on Facebook.  While Forbes has the best page so far, he still lacks innovation.

Dr. Wynne LeGrow’s (D) page has very average content.  He mostly posts events and pictures from the events.  While this is not a terrible strategy, it should not be a candidate’s only strategy.

Winner: Forbes

Virginia’s 5^th District

-Independent candidate Jeff Clark does not have a Facebook page.

Analysis:

This is more what I was expecting on Facebook.  It is clear that both Republican candidate Robert Hurt and incumbent Rep.Tom Perriello (D-VA) understand that Facebook is an important tool for a campaign.  Both incorporate a variety of different content, including events, photos, articles and videos.  Both also do a good job with custom titles for their posts.  However, Perriello squeaks past Hurt because he is a bit more innovative.  On June 26^th, he asked his supporters to donate their status to his campaign, which is something out of the ordinary (even though we saw Bob McDonnell do it in 2009).

Winner: Perriello