The Campaign Trail

It all starts in the morning with a few statuses on Facebook. Then the profile pictures start to change. Cover photos begin to go up as well. Soon, you are bombarded with invites to "Like" the Facebook pages of each respective ticket. Videos of the candidates begin to pop up on your News Feed. Then suddenly, it isn't just the candidates who are engaging in this kind of behavior. Like a scene right out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," your friends are no longer your friends. Their profile pictures vanish into thin air, replaced by creative little ads telling you who to vote for on February 26 and 27. One friend endorses KaLeigh and Alicia, another promotes Tom and Blake, and then someone else supports David and Katie, and slowly you begin to realize that lines are being drawn -- and soon you'll have to pick a side.

But I have good news. If your profile picture is still you, you're okay. In fact, I'm proud of you for holding strong through this morning's social media blitz. Most of the people who upload all of this advertising to their Facebook the morning campaigning starts are either the candidates, students working on the campaign team or those friends who just want to support their friends, platforms and qualifications be damned.

Why does this happen? Because Facebook is the simplest and easiest way to reach other students and, above all, it is free advertising. And it is more effective than you might think. In the past, some candidates have spent the weeks prior to the start of campaigning sending out Friend Requests to anyone and everyone enrolled at UNI. The larger group of Facebook Friends they amassed, the wider their audience. But none of this year's candidates seem all that concerned with padding their list of friends, instead putting their focus on spreading their campaign ads across Facebook and promoting themselves through Facebook groups.

Thus far, the three Facebook groups for each ticket have all amassed over 100 Likes:

• Tom and Blake: 148 Likes
• David and Katie: 158 Likes
• KaLeigh and Alicia: 146 Likes

I'll be keeping an eye on these pages in the days leading up to the election. You'll also notice that each candidate has already Liked the Facebook pages of their opponents. A kind gesture of respect? Maybe. But the campaign teams will likely be keeping tabs on these pages and it'll be interesting to see if there are instances of one page reacting to the other.

Two of the tickets have also set up Twitter accounts, but I'm not sure how effective these are as a marketing tool, since the student has to be willing to Follow the account first in order to get their Tweets.

Posters have also appeared all over campus this morning, and I was fortunate enough to snap a couple photos of the posters for White-Jessip and Madsen-Findley. I haven't seen any posters from Pope-Grassi yet and, as I've mentioned before, they can't afford to fall behind the other tickets. I'll hopefully be able to spot one in the next day or two. I also noticed that White-Jessip had a table staffed by volunteers set up by Chats in Maucker Union during lunch hours this afternoon. I expect to see the other candidates take advantage of these tabling opportunities as well in the coming weeks.

Starting tomorrow, the candidates will begin meeting with student organizations across campus. KaLeigh and Alicia might be involved in CATS and SAA, two of the most prominent groups on campus, but they can't rely on those groups alone. Just like David and Katie can't rest on UNI Proud and Tom and Blake can't put all their faith in Campbell Hall, these candidates need to get out and be heard. Meeting with student orgs helps make the candidates seem more personable, allows for an open forum and the chance to speak in front of an audience before the debate and also makes those student organizations feel like a priority for the visiting candidates. It'll be interesting to see which candidates visit with which groups over the course of the next two weeks.

In the coming days, I'll be analyzing and critiquing the candidates' platforms once I've had a chance to read through them and assess their feasibility. Everyone's favorite Graphic Design major Morgan Johnson will also be joining us to take a closer look at their website designs! There is plenty more election coverage to come, so keep checking back!