Best Practices in Public Service: Pandemic Positives — Text Messaging

Practice Safe Text!

We ❤️ the advances in P2P (peer-to-peer) texting for campaign (and most effectively) for official purposes. What a great way to keep voters updated and engaged in an informal, easily-accessible way! Ahead are some tangible ideas for using text messaging effectively (and not annoyingly). Don’t get overwhelmed by these ideas, we can help (info at the end).

Heads up though - changes in the law impacting texting have been passed fast and furious in response to the immense growth in the industry. You can read the Federal Communications Commission’s laws regarding political texts here.

1. Campaign laws are following suit, though have been a year or two behind.

2. Check with your state’s ethics commission or other campaign rule agency to ensure you include any required attribution or identifying information.

   1. Many states now require a “paid for by” or some other information denoting which candidate, person, or organization is paying for the text to be sent.

      

      Photo by Pradamas Gifarry on Unsplash

Official

Texting for “official” purposes is our favorite. Texts are a great way to serve your constituents and be a resource. This is also a great tool for candidates running against incumbents – always run like you’re the incumbent, publicize community highlights and activities – be the resource they might not be getting from their current official:

1. Community Events: Announce festival dates, parking/shuttle locations, pro-tips for attending, and event schedule highlights.

2. Department Highlights:

   1. Public Works: Road closures and slowdowns (not daily traffic backups – they aren’t supposed to be reading texts while driving anyway!), utility updates, new signage, naming contests for equipment (popular for snowplows and street cleaners).

   2. Parks & Recreation: Announce camp brochure publication, registration openings, focus on a different park every quarter and link to the park’s page on your website – be sure to include any upcoming improvements or changes to the park

   3. Employee Spotlight: Highlight back office employees the public might never meet, but make a difference in their everyday lives; snowplow or street cleaner drivers, new police officers, etc. Photo, biographical info, etc.

3. Official Business:

   1. Board meeting time and location announcements, invite to participate, link to instructions for public comment period,

   2. Special hearings for budgets, infrastructure projects, new developments, etc.

Campaign

Voters got SO tired of fundraising and I’M THE BEST CANDIDATE IN THE WHOLE WORLD FOR ANYTHING YOU’LL ELECT ME TO texts in 2022, so think outside the text…

1. Pets:

   1. Text: Have you seen my person? He’s taking long walks every day, but leaves me here while he visits other dogs! Maybe the other dogs don’t steal his pillow or chew his shoes? I try to be good, I really do! He keeps telling me we’ll walk after the election on November 7. I wonder if he’ll have any of those dog treats left by then. Can you just vote for him so he can come home and walk me? Many woofs, Rover Smith,

   2. Photo: Your dog looking sad in a campaign shirt with campaign logo dog treats:

      1. https://sharp.vote/500dogtreats

2. Spouse: Here are a few funny ideas:

   1. S/he retired and is home all the time, driving me crazy and messing with my routine.

   2. Always talking about issues:

1. 1. Monday (example) night is my “book club” and I need him/her out of the house. Please. I love my “books” and friends…

2. Coworkers:

   1. Annoying: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=859189318404356

   2. Photo bomb of coworkers being silly: If Jack can herd these cats, imagine what he can do with our city!

3. Former Teacher: KS State Treasurer did a great job with his tongue-in-cheek ads about his numbers-focused, all-business personality with these videos.

4. Parent: Suzy has always been a teacher’s pet. She prepared her whole life to represent you – on student council, church advisory council, middle school PTA, and working hard in her small business. If only she would have been as diligent about her laundry. Jane Smith – great at leading, terrible at laundry. Vote Nov 7.

5. Neighbor: There are plenty of funny concepts about lawns needing mowed because candidate is always gone, lawn full of yard signs, neighborhood watch with volunteers coming and going all the time, etc.

6. Campaign events: Announce participation in parades/community events and seek volunteers, photos of your parade/event giveaways, fundraising events, neighborhood meet-and-greets, office hours at a local coffee shop, etc.

7. Fundraising: KEEP TO A MINIMUM! You can twist the concepts above to ask for money as well.

8. Town Hall meeting announcements: Here’s our “Best Practice” on tips/tools for effective town hall events.

Pro-Tip: Use photos from the campaign trail and at official activities, not just branded graphics.

PS: We can help you with all of this! Need cell phone numbers? No problem!

• We buy cell phone numbers and send text messages for pennies on the dollar. Contact us for a personalized quote!

• We don’t use numbers on the Do Not Call List, always require a “Stop 2 End” option, and provide deliverability reporting and a dashboard to correspond with constituent replies.