Amy Klobuchar- Facebook Page

Candidate: Amy Klobuchar

Platform: Facebook

There is clear indication that presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar wants her campaign to appear authentic and grassroots. In her “about” page on Facebook, they use the words “homegrown campaign.” The campaign wants Klobuchar to seem like a down-to-earth, authentic, Midwestern candidate. The problem is, that is all the Facebook page says about her. They have an intense, steady feed of clips from debates, links, and short posts that are likely also tweeted out.

            Their demographic seems to match what we know about Facebook. The engagement on the page is mainly from people who are middle age or older. There doesn’t seem to be much engagement from young people. That being said, this seems to be more of a platform for very professional posts from the campaign. There isn’t any engagement with supporters from the official Facebook page, as far as I can tell.

            There are a couple calls to action on the page. The main, and most obvious, call to action is to vote for Klobuchar in the upcoming primaries. The only other major call to action is to “join us” at the official website. There are invitations to events and rallies, but there isn’t a major call for social justice or change. The main message of the Klobuchar campaign, according to the Facebook page, is that if you don’t like Trump, you might like her. I’m not meaning to discredit her policy points or agenda, but that is how the Facebook comes across. One post reads, “Trump’s worst nightmare is that the people in the middle, the people who are tired of the mudslinging and the name-calling, will have a place to call home this November.”

            The platform is definitely just encouraging people to plainly follow instructions. There is no creative engagement on the platform. It is about as institutional as it could get. It does not seem like it is encouraged either. There is engagement, but most of it is just negative comments about Klobuchar. Even a professional Santa Claus came after her. 

It does not seem like the Klobuchar campaign is trying to engage with people in any meaningful way that would build up leaders in her community of supporters or rally people behind her in any particular way. If the most you can do is go to her website and try to figure out engagement there, the platform is surely lacking.

            They are not using Facebook in any new or innovative way. I would have liked to see them use the platform as a sort of forum for engagement, where Klobuchar could engage with people directly and have conversations with supporters. Instead, the way the Facebook is structured, you end up seeing more comments about how bad she is than actual posts by Klobuchar. The comments call her out for not being the midwestern grassroots leader that she is trying to portray. There are fears on the page that she is just another Washington insider doing whatever she can to get elected. While I take issue with those sentiments for any candidate, this Facebook page is not doing anything to quell those concerns.