Positive earned media is important to getting your campaign's message out to your voters. Most voters need to hear your message more than once, and media is another avenue to get your message to your voters. A communications director/team will be able to help your campaign with effectively gaining positive earned media. If you don't have communications staff, gathering people who you trust and know your community can help you put out authentic and effective statements.
<aside> 💡 What is earned media? Earned media is any media coverage that your campaign receives that is not directly created and paid for by your campaign. Examples of earned media include letters to the editor, traditional news coverage and social media hype.
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LTEs are a very common way to get earned media in newspapers. Campaign staff can help the letter writers draft the letter and stay on message. Some things to think about in regards to LTEs are:
To get traditional news coverage, the media must know that you are doing things worthy of coverage. Media advisories and press releases can help your campaign notify the press about events and other campaign activities. You can also ask around in your community and find people who work in local media to pitch stories to. In general, having an active campaign will garner you some traditional media coverage.
In 2021, it is clearly important to have a strong social media presence for your campaign. Most campaigns are at least on Twitter and Facebook. Not all social media posts are equal and it will be important for your campaign to familiarize itself with what types of posts do well on each platform to try to maximize the impact.
Videos used to be considered the golden post on Facebook and Twitter however, there is evidence to suggest that that is no longer true. In May 2021, CAP Action showed that the Facebook posts that got the most interactions in April 2021 were not videos but rather statuses and images.
What's Trending? 100 days by CAP Action and Alex Witt
As much as you want to have a clear story as to why you are the person for the job, you will also need to have a clear narrative as to why your opponent is NOT the person for the job.
A few questions to answer about your opponent: