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Exec Candidates: A Social Media Overview

The Epinal has been recording the use of social media by the majority of the Executive candidates. There has been some winners, and some losers.

While there has been strong use of social media by Josh Hurrell and Sarah Haar particularly, there are still three candidates who have failed to utilise the power of social media to reach out to students.

Chris McKenna, running against Zak Evans for VP Finance and Commercial Services, has decided not to create any profiles to promote his campaign.

The clear front runner in the race for VP Welfare and Diversity is Isobel Ford with approximately 80 tweets, 80 followers and 145 ‘likes’ more than Dave Tingle. Furthermore, Maz Haider failed to even create a facebook page until February 21, four days after the candidates were revealed.

Sarah Haar and her campaign team should be commended on their use of social media to provide an edge in the tight race for Action Chair, she has a 174 ‘like’ lead on her competitor, Michael Jordan.

As the door knocking period has now come to an end, we can expect an increase in the volume of social media output from the candidates.

Facebook Pages

Candidate Position Total Likes
Sarah Haar Action Chair 475
Josh Hurrell President 324
Hannah Chrisp VP Democracy 311
Michael Jordan Action Chair 285
Isobel Ford VP Welfare 258
Zak Evans VP Finance 241
Tim Jenkins AU President 196
Georgia Cheyne SocFed 176
Becky Lauder Fletcher VP Ed 142
Dave Tingle VP Welfare 103
Helen Crossley Media 89
Mike Lyness Rag Chair 74
David Haines VP Democracy 48
Maz Haider VP Welfare 25
Paul Nanson Rag Chair Does not have a like page. [1]
Jennie Cooper AU President Does not have a like page. [2]
Chris McKenna VP Finance Does not have a like page.

[1] Although Paul Nanson does not have a like page, he has 1325 members in his facebook group. Unlike a ‘like’ page, the members in this group are added automatically – no user permission is required.
[2] Although Jennie Cooper does not have a like page, she has a respectable 1808 members in her facebook group. Unlike a ‘like’ page, the members in this group are added automatically – no user permission is required. All this shows is a wide reach.

Twitter Followers

Candidate Position Total New Followers
Josh Hurrell President 152
Isobel Ford VP Welfare 103
Sarah Haar Action Chair 98
Tim Jenkins AU President 94
Georgia Cheyne Soc Fed 55
Jennie Cooper AU President 47 [3]
Mike Lyness Rag Chair 45
Becky Lauder Fletcher VP Education 36
Hannah Chrisp VP Democracy 34 [3]
Zak Evans VP Finance 31 [3]
Paul Nanson Rag Chair 30
Helen Crossley Media 26 [3]
Dave Tingle VP Welfare 23
Michael Jordan Action Chair 16
Maz Haider VP Welfare 7
David Haines VP Democracy 0 [4]
Chris McKenna VP Finance 0 [4]

[3] These accounts started with a high number of followers, 400+, previous to candidate reveal which makes it more difficult to gain relevant followers.
[4] No twitter handle was available for these candidates.

Total Tweets

Candidate Position Handle Total Tweets
Josh Hurrell President @VoteJoshDoIt 226
Hannah Chrisp VP Democracy @hannahchrisp 186
Zak Evans VP Finance @Sparrow4Finance 162
Sarah Haar Action Chair @VoteHeart 156
Paul Nanson Rag Chair @PaulRagnamStyle 137
Tim Jenkins AU President @VoteGingerJenks 127
Becky Lauder Fletcher VP Education @BeckyBunnyVPE 114
Helen Crossley Media @helencrossley 107
Jennie Cooper AU President @JCooooper 103
Isobel Ford VP Welfare @izzie4welfare 101
Georgia Cheyne SocFed @Georgia_Spice 74
Mike Lyness Rag Chair @mlyness1 33
Michael Jordan Action Chair @realmikejordan 24
Dave Tingle VP Welfare @Dave_Tingle 21
Maz Haider VP Welfare @murti1 4
David Haines VP Democracy Not Available 0
Chris McKenna VP Finance Not Available 0

 

* Results accurate as of 17.00 GMT, Sunday February 24 2013.

Jack Heskett

Jack Heskett

Jack was the Welfare Development Officer on the LSU Executive 2011-2012 and a candidate for VP Welfare and Diversity in the 2012 Executive Elections. He is currently a Union councillor and a student trustee for Loughborough Students' Union.
Jack Heskett

@jackheskett

Final year student at Loughborough studying Computing & Management and small time entrepreneur.
Jack Heskett
Jack Heskett

Latest posts by Jack Heskett (see all)

Posted by on February 24, 2013. Filed under Elections,Featured.
  • ex-exec member

    Have to say, think almost all of these numbers are very misleading. e.g. On facebook, it is easy to get all your friends from home to also ‘like’ a page – now this would boost your numbers but wouldn’t increase your vote count. With the number of tweets, past experience has shown overuse of posting can create a spamming effect and actually lose votes.

    The age of phrase ‘Quality not quantity’ is key here.

    It must also be said, social media sites allow you to check the actual number of people who are engaging (clicking/viewing) with your page, as appose to those who simply ignore it. Notifications from Groups often get ignored.

    I’m very surprised to see The Epinal posting a story about social media numbers, when almost everyone would agree votes are decided by the day-to-day interactions of campaign teams with students. I would be much more interested to see an article on which halls each candidate has managed to door knock or the amount of lecture shout-outs a candidate has completed last week.

  • Anon

    Chris does have a facebook group – vote crazy for vice president finance #fact

  • Reece Johnson

    Personally, I don’t think reuse of a group which was previously used to campaign for other elections across campus really counts… no one checks notifications from groups that they haven’t looked at in years.

    Also, Mr McKenna has barely posted on the group anyway… other than to complain about both of his campaigning bans

    If he gets more than 5% voting for him, I’ll have to be taken to hospital in shock!

    Disgrace!