@Jon2012girls Campaign Evaluation

For my campaign evaluation I chose to look at Jon Huntsman’s daughters, and how they have been using Twitter and other social media resources to spread their fathers platform for his GOP primary race for the presidential candidate. Through the Huntsman ladies work with Twitter they have been able to connect with their target audience that is young and middle aged Republican voters. To interact with their target audience they used Twitter to inform when and where their father will be speaking on his platform. They also have tweeted articles that others have published regarding their father and his campaign. Their work gained national attention from a parody video they made mocking Herman Cain’s campaign manager.

Although we have seen candidates’ children contributing on the campaign trail, these ladies have taken on a new style. Unlike Mitt Romney’s sons and John McCain’s daughter they have plunged into the world of social media never seen before. By using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and a Blog they are able to connect with their target audience in a positive way that sticks with them they are able to continue sharing information with voters. With the Romney son’s they only used a Blog and went on a bus tour with this campaign they were able to spread their father’s platform but were not able to continue to engage with their voters. With Meghan McCain campaign she only used a blog that shared information about life on the campaign trail that ended up being negative coverage for the campaign.

An example of some the information that is shared on the @Jon2012girls girls twitter page is as follows, “Catch Dad now on Fox News with @marthamaccallum and @billhemmer!” and “Tune in tonight to the CNN debate at 8pm est! And catch us before hand on Erin Burnett at 7:15 pm est. #cnndebate #huntsman2012.” The ladies have also cracked some witty jokes regarding the other candidates when they tweeted, “How does Romney know anything about China? He’s only been there once and that was for the Olympics. Panda Express doesn’t count.”

Although the Huntsman ladies have done a wonderful job at using social media to campaign for their father there are a few things that I would have done differently. First, I would utilize their Facebook page more. Currently their page only has four posts and is not as informational as their Twitter page. I feel that if they were to post more information on Facebook they would be able to reach more voters this is because there are more active users on Facebook than on Twitter. I would also recommend doing a bus tour, by doing this they would be able to use the bus covered in campaign ads as a rolling campaign ad that voters would see while on the rode and when they traveled from state to state.

Although Jon Huntsman is shown to be at the bottom of most political polls in the 2012 Republican primary, in more recent polls his popularity has been steadily increasing. I feel that this recent spike is evidence that his daughters are opening the doors to positive ways of using social media in political campaigning that has never been seen before. Through evaluating the Huntsman daughter’s use of social media in their campaign work, I am sure that their actions will become a modern trend that will continue in years to come.