Welcome to Politics: A Crash Course in Community Management

I recently had the pleasure of working on a fairly large political campaign. For one month, my life was overrun with details about New Jersey politics - a state that I will freely admit I had no interest in prior to joining the campaign team. It helped that the candidate and I fundamentally agreed on nearly every talking point (an important note about that later), which is how I came to join the campaign to begin with.

The candidate was young, and understood the importance of new media, as well as the decreasing tolerance of voters for candidates who ignore them. The candidate was running a guerrilla campaign if ever there was one. He told me that he was promoting Facebook posts to the tune of about $5,000 per day. Per day, people.

As his campaign neared the final weeks before the primary, it became clear to him that he could not possibly answer all the comments he was getting himself, and so I was hired. I was brought on to be an exclusively Facebook community manager, with other team members handling Twitter, Instagram, and traditional marketing channels.

A detail worth mentioning: I met an acquaintance turned business associate who referred me to this campaign while at a political gathering completely unrelated to our careers. The subject of online networking for like-minded local activists came up, and the details of my profession entered the conversation. After the meeting, this acquaintance and I exchanged cards, and a scant 2 months later, we were emailing and texting almost hourly during a month-long primary push. You meet people everywhere - so be ready.

I've described my process for learning a new client's voice, and in this case, I read through a massive comment thread full of his responses to voters. 2.5 hours later, I had a very clear idea of how he spoke and how he addressed questions, negative comments, and antagonistic rhetoric. The candidate happened to be ethnically Indian, and was born and raised in New Jersey. This alone garnered approximately 75 million iterations of the old "go back to where you came from" or "is he Muslim?" refrain.  Remember, this is politics, and only the highest quality comments are permitted. (75 million is only a slight overstatement.)

And so I set about the almost infinite task of addressing questions and replying to comments.  The candidate is an extremely upbeat guy, and always spun a negative, dismissive comment into a polite recognition of their right to vote their conscience and a thank you for commenting. He was also prone to rather lengthy replies when asked policy questions, which presented an interesting challenge for me. Many questions were repetitive, so I immediately looked for ways that I could automate the process. Whenever possible, it is advantageous to be able to copy and paste responses to repeated questions. It maintains consistency, and saves time.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent to me that the questions were not nearly as repetitive as I first thought. Many were slightly nuanced variations on a few major themes. Even more difficult were the incredibly specific questions about individual policies or government agencies. If the subject was new to me (or contained an unfamiliar acronym), I would text the candidate to get his opinion. At first, this happened a lot.

However, eventually, I became more familiar with the candidate and the types of issues voters cared about in New Jersey, and I was increasingly able to research the policy or organization and confidently state his opinion, without having to ask.

This is a very dangerous line to walk. I DO NOT recommend best-guessing your way through discussions with customers, or voters (especially when you are putting a platform stand in the mouth of someone who might then have to defend it in real life!). But at a certain amazing point in your relationship with a client, you will be able to confidently anticipate - beyond a reasonable doubt - what that client's response will be. I spent probably 6 hours a day on this candidate's page, and even more time every day emailing, texting, and talking with him personally. Within a week, I had spent a full time job's worth of time getting to know him and his positions. It was a steep learning curve, but reaching that point with a client where they feel totally comfortable giving the reins over to you is a point every consultant dreams of.

The candidate entered the race late relative to other candidates, but in the 3 short months of his campaign, he pulled a solid 10% of the vote - besting two other outsiders, one of whom had been campaigning for this position since 2015.

He was the only candidate to host live town halls online, and take questions from the comments and from callers, live on air. He was the only candidate who actually responded to comments and questions. Even though I was hired to do so, he still actually responded about 30% of the time. I think it should reasonably be expected that a staffer or someone is sharing the candidate's opinion on their social media pages, and yet, no other candidate was. For reference, we typically received more than a thousand reactions per post, and more than 100 comments. Even the front-runner who ended up taking the nomination garnered less than 50 reactions and 20 - 30 comments per post, and all went without comment from the candidate.

For his efforts, he drew enough attention to now be on the short list for lieutenant governor on the general election ticket. There is a possibility that the campaign will pick up again if he gets the lieutenant governor appointment.  Even if he doesn't, he's likely to stay in politics, and has asked me to stay available to be a part of the team if that comes together in the next few weeks.

Politics are messy, catty, and downright cutthroat. But this candidate ran a clean campaign, never said a bad word against another candidate, and has some really innovative ideas for New Jersey. He was a great client to work for, and I am excited and optimistic for what the future holds for him. I may join his rising star, we will see. So far, it's been one hell of a ride.  After the breakneck speed of the campaign, I'm still struggling to fill the hole in my day where a 7 am conference call with the East coast used to be. (Just kidding, I get to sleep in again!)