How much time will online campaigning take?

As much time as you’re prepared to give it!

This is especially true of social media, which just consumes time. Be careful with that one.

Online campaigning will be a much bigger part of this Election than it was in previous Elections. In district-based Elections, you prioritised door-knocking and face-to-face events, and dealt with emails and social media in the corners of the day (or on the bus). I think that will be basically flipped for this Election.

I would recommend making time for any face-to-face events that will bring you into contact with multiple voters – hustings, ‘meet the candidate’ events, and so on. If you have time, I would still try to do some door-knocking, but that is a lot of time for quite little return, so it can’t be what you prioritise.

Apart from that, I think most of your contact with voters will be mediated by a computer. It won’t necessarily all be “online” – in the sense that, for example, you might be asked to complete questions for a Press supplement. You’ll probably receive those by email, and sit at your computer to answer them; but the supplement (if there is one) will be printed and arrive in voters’ home in hard copy.

But there will no doubt also be a range of online surveys, voters’ questions, and social media engagement which will be purely online. This will be your main way of reaching the majority of voters, so I would make sure that you prioritise your time so that you can do it justice; and then fit in other things depending on the time you still have available.

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