Running for student council at school can prove to be quite fruitful for you in the long run. Whether you are looking to strengthen your resume or eyeing admission to that prestigious college, winning student council elections is a great way to prove yourself. It is also a great way to learn how to market yourself and show people why they should choose you as a leader.
In the past, student council campaigns would be all about the flyers, the meetings, and the network of friends and connections that you had. But as we move towards the digital age, social media and online marketing also play a crucial role in any successful school election campaign.
The good news is that even if you have little to no experience of online marketing, you can learn about it fairly quickly. In this blog post, we are going to break down some effective ways of campaigning online so you can maximize your chances of winning the student council elections.
Get Active on Social Media
First and foremost, the most important step to taking your campaign online is to start utilizing social media to its full potential. If you want to make sure that all your classmates are aware that you are running for school elections, then there is no better place to do it than social media. This is because more than 75% of teenagers have at least one active social media profile, so this is the best way of reaching out to them.
Here are some tips on how you can utilize social media for your student council campaigns:
- Create profiles on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat for your student council campaign – you can create a personal profile (if you don’t have one already) or a dedicated page for your campaign, as well.
- Create catchy and visually appealing social media posts that your target audience can relate to. For example, you can use meme templates to add a bit of humor to your campaign or use a graphic design tool such as PosterMyWall to quickly create professional-looking campaign posters that you can share.
- If you can spend a little money, spend it on running advertisements that target peers from your school. This can help increase the reach of your posts leading to higher engagement rates and more reactions and shares on your posts.
- Create (or join) a group for your school elections and invite all your classmates and fellow students. Use this as an opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader by creating polls, asking questions, and answering any questions that arise about the elections or your campaign.
Create a Calendar for Content Publishing
Handling and posting on multiple social platforms can be a lot of work. This is why it is very important that you properly plan and organize your online campaign. You don’t want to decide to wing your content since that can lead to low engagement rates, or negative sentiment (if you post the wrong thing at the wrong time).
This is where a content calendar can help you out. A content calendar is basically a simple schedule for what you will post, which social network you will post it on, and when you will post it. For example, you may decide to post the official poster for your student council campaign on Facebook next Thursday at 1 pm and then the same poster on Instagram at 2 pm.
Create a Calendar for Content Publishing
- First, prepare a list of all the content that you would like to post. For example, logo unveiling, campaign posters and flyers, videos, promotional posts, memes, etc.
- By testing out different types of content on different platforms (e.g. memes on Instagram, videos on Facebook), work out which social platform is the best for each type of content that you wish to post. Note that one platform might be suitable for multiple types of content and that is okay.
- Once you know what type of content is best for each of your social profiles, plan out when and what you will post on each of your social media profiles.
- Stay flexible so that you can change your content calendar on a day-to-day basis depending on how much engagement you are getting on each social network.
- Make use of a content schedule tool such as Buffer. Such tools allow you to automate social media posting so that you don’t have to worry about being available or online at all times to post the content yourself.
Remember, the Goal of a Content Calendar Should Be to:
- Avoid any unexpected issues that lead you to post the wrong thing or not post at all on an important day (such as election day)
- Make sure that you can track engagement across social media platforms by knowing exactly when and what social platform you should be focusing on.
- Design and share campaign flyers and posters
Campaign posters and flyers are super important for the success of any student election campaign. To put it simply, the more the students that hear and see your name, the better it is for your campaign.
The first step for this is to design some eye-catching campaign flyers and posters that you can post online or print and distribute in school. For this, you can choose and customize campaign flyers from the hundreds of templates that are available at PosterMyWall. This tool is super simple to use and you can create a professional, compelling campaign flyer or poster for your school election in a matter of minutes.
Be sure to include all the information that is relevant to your campaign on all materials. This includes your name, picture, contact information, and campaign logo. It is also a good idea to add your agenda and what makes you different so people know why they should vote for you.
Once you have the posters and flyers ready, the next step is to start sharing and distributing them. For this, you should start by knowing where your target audience spends most of their time. Is it on social media? Post the flyers online. Is it in specific clubs of the school? Print the flyers and hand them out to people at club meetings and other events.
When you share your campaign flyers or posters online, make sure to ask your friends and supporters to share them on their social profiles to maximize reach.
Go Big With Your Next Student Council Campaign
Running for school elections is always a unique experience. The entire process helps you develop and polish your skills, and helps you create new connections. But, to make sure that you make the most impact, it is important that you go big by marketing your campaign online, as well.
We hope that with the strategies that we have shared in this blog post, you will have a clear idea of how you can start promoting your student council campaign online. So, what are you waiting for? Get started and go big to win it!