Candidate Bernie Riley Uses Social Media to Connect With Youth
Bernie Riley is running for alderman in Chicago’s 7th ward. She’s going door-to-door, passing out campaign flyers, putting campaign steaks in her driveway and in her supporters driveway. But she’s also taking an interesting approach. The 65 year old candidate is also adding a social media campaign to connect with the younger people in her area. One of Bernie Riley’s campaign slogan is: “Use the enthusiasm of the youth and the wisdom of experience.” I have to agree with her, use the best of both worlds. Will this be the wave of the future? From now on will campaigns be run more so on the internet? Even at a local level like city alderman?
In 2008 Barack Obama proved that social media can make a difference in political campaigns. Obama made the youth come out and vote and set records with the amount of young people that’s supported him. Statistically speaking, people over 50 are more likely to vote. That’s why most politicians do things for people over 50, for example health care. But if more young people voted, politicians would be more inclined to do things for young people like forgiving students debt, decriminalizing marijuana, or bring more jobs for the youth.
Bernie Riley also uses Facebook advertisement to target a certain demographic that she wants to reach. Most people on Facebook have friends around the world but since she’s running for alderman in Chicago’s seventh Ward she targets people in her community. Since a certain age group is statistically more likely to vote, most of the Facebook advertising would be targeted for that group in her Ward. In a week and a half she went from under a hundred followers to over a thousand. A lot of her videos and ideas about cleaning up her ward are going viral. And most of her success on the internet is from asking her followers to like, comment and share her content to show their support. Support Bernie Riley Here So I say, in the future I see campaigns happening totally on social media and no more attack ads late night on TV. If you do live in Chicago and are in the seventh Ward vote Bernie Reilly, punch 59.