IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Michigan Governor's Race Fought on Facebook and Twitter

In addition to the candidates' use of "free" social media, paid posts and advertisements are also becoming an increasingly important part of the campaign mix.

A typical post on Gov. Rick Snyder's campaign Facebook page is one that went up just before Labor Day, linking to an article in Business Facilities magazine that noted Michigan's strong economic recovery from a decade-long recession.

Over on challenger Mark Schauer's Facebook page, a recent featured link was a Buzzfeed article that played off the popularity of the Netflix prison drama "Orange is the New Black" to recount the history of Michigan's Aramark prison food scandal.

The use of social media by Snyder and Schauer reflects the characters of their overall campaigns.

Snyder is ubpeat, gubernatorial, positive and slightly nerdy. Schauer is in attack mode, edgier, engaging, and often negative.

In addition to the messages, photos, videos and links they and their campaign staffs post for free, the campaigns are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on online advertising, including tens of thousands spent on social media sites such as Facebook, records show. That's a significant change from just four years ago.

"Both are very engaged, but they're using very different methods," said Nick De Leeuw, communications director for the public relations firm Resch Strategies and a Republican political operative. "They couldn't be more different."

"Schauer is far more aggressive than Snyder is in several ways right now, which kind of goes with his whole campaign," said Graham Davis, who is director of digital media at the public relations firm Truscott Rossman in Detroit and formerly handled social media for Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

De Leeuw, Davis and other social media experts say Snyder and Schauer are both doing a solid but unspectacular job of covering the basics on what is becoming an increasingly important element of election campaigns.

"Both are doing very well playing to their bases," said Kristin Sokul, a senior account manager at the Tanner Friedman public relations firm in Farmington Hills.

Both Snyder and Schauer are active on Facebook and Twitter and have YouTube channels where they post their campaign ads and some media interviews.

Beyond those sites, the activity drops off considerably. Clicking on a Google Plus icon on Snyder's campaign website Friday only took you to his YouTube page.

The Schauer campaign uses the photo posting site Instagram; the Snyder campaign doesn't. Each has a Google Plus account, but mainly to help people find their campaigns through Google searches. Neither uses Vine, used for posting short videos. The Snyder campaign has a phone app; the Schauer campaign doesn't.

On the campaign side, Schauer has the numerical edge on social media with close to 40,000 likes on Facebook and more than 5,000 followers on Twitter, compared with more than 18,000 Facebook likes and fewer than 4,000 Twitter followers for Snyder.

But those numbers don't tell the whole story. Snyder also has Facebook and Twitter accounts he uses as governor, which by law can't be used for campaign purposes but do feature posts about government accomplishments. On his official sites, Snyder is ahead of Schauer with close to 60,000 Facebook likes and close to 38,000 Twitter followers. As governor, he also is active on Instagram and Google Plus, where he's held "Google Plus hang-outs" — online group chat sessions that can include voice and video — and has more than 308,000 followers on his official governor site.

"The official (social media) efforts provide a big boost to the campaign," De Leeuw said. In many ways, "the message is the same."

But needing to have two separate online presences can also be a disadvantage, since many people interested in the governor are likely to land on one Facebook page, for example, but not both. If it's not the campaign site, they won't find out about campaign events and TV ads or how to donate money.

"That's a problem he didn't have to deal with in 2010," Davis said of Snyder.

That year, Snyder built his "one tough nerd" brand into a popular Twitter handle, which morphed into his official handle once he became governor. This year, Snyder had to start over on Twitter with the @RickForMI handle and build a new set of followers.

The candidates' use of "free" social media doesn't tell the whole story either. Paid posts and advertisements on social media are also becoming an increasingly important part of the campaign mix.

Schauer's campaign has spent about $150,000 on online advertising, including at least about $65,000 spent on Facebook and about $52,000 spent on Google, records show. Snyder's campaign has spent about $125,000, including at least $15,000 spent on Google and at least $7,000 spent on Facebook, records show.

That's a big increase from 2010, when at this point in the campaign Snyder and his Democratic opponent, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, had only reported a few thousand dollars specifically identified as spent on online advertising, with less than $2,000 of that identified as being paid to Google.

The ability to target ads to very specific demographics is making social media advertising more attractive, Davis said.

"Four years ago it was a fight to convince folks they needed to move resources into social media," he said. "Not anymore."

Kim Eberhardt, who like Sokul is a senior account manager at Tanner Friedman, said Schauer is doing a good job linking his posts to cultural memes such as "Orange is the New Black," but could do a better job of using social media to fill in his biography, since polls show a significant number of Michigan residents still don't know who he is.

Snyder's campaign could be a little more casual and off the cuff, Eberhardt said. It doesn't have an Instagram page, and the photos posted on the governor's official Instagram page are very professional and polished, she said. Sometimes posts that look more spontaneous do better on social media, she said.

Rabbi Jason Miller, a West Bloomfield technology writer and social media expert, said neither campaign "has really exploited social media to their benefit."

Fear of making mistakes could be one factor, since several campaign officials typically have the access to post on social media sites and posts are often made quickly with little or no editing, Miller said.

Candidates can also be inhibited in their use of social media because it is difficult to moderate what gets posted in response to messages the candidate puts up, sometimes by "trolls" who support the candidate's opponent, Miller said.

"You have very little control over what type of comments people are going to put."

All the experts said the public can expect the use of social media in political campaigns to continue to grow exponentially.

"It's to the benefit of voters,"because it will make more information available more easily, Miller said.

©2014 the Detroit Free Press