The Columbia Missourian does a great job creating long voter guides in its print edition. But it struggled in making it easily shareable and digestible online. That’s where a team from the Missouri School of Journalism came in. They created an “all-encompassing social media campaign” for the 2020 election season.
Their strategy included using a calendar to break up information in voter guides so not to overwhelm viewers. They spaced the Missourian’s voter guide through the month before Election Day. By branding content and using specific days for breaking down the ballot, they found that viewers will expect, and rely on, learning issues and candidates on the ballot before the big day. They used Mondays as a “Get to Know Your Candidate Mondays” and Thursdays as a “What’s on the Ballot Thursdays.”
It’s important for voters to know the basic information before the election season started, so they ran a test video for the Missourian’s Facebook and Twitter in March where it described the big election dates in Missouri and what people are voting for in each primary and municipal election.
They found that people want simple questions answered. For example: “Why do I have to go to the polls four times this year?” The Missourian received almost 1,000 views on Facebook within a week of releasing the video, marking it one of the most viewed on its Facebook, and more than 600 total views on Twitter.
