For me, election season for my union starts a lot sooner than it really begins. Not only do I do social media work year-round, there are different phases to election season. There is time before the candidates are announced where we see who is interested in running and making sure that we have things in order. Between the time of candidates being finalized and ballots going out, there is a lot of preparation and announcing some candidates and what our platform is. And when ballots are mailed, everything ramps up and there is a lot more going on with making sure people know who is running and sharing who else is running with Unite For Strength.
And since ballots have been mailed and people should be getting them any day, we are fully into election season which means I’m doing a lot of work. And while I will admit that it can be overwhelming and I’m not sleeping enough, it’s also so rewarding. I have learned a lot of new skills in order to make our social media look the way it does. I am not a graphic designer (another volunteer does a lot of that), but I know how to do some basics and then send it to someone else to edit and correct. And I do get to be creative with what we make and how we present different information.
There have been 2 big projects I’ve been doing for our social media recently. First, we wanted to make images for our candidates to have that show their support for Unite For Strength. We did have a template to make these (which made my life a lot easier), but they did all have to be created one by one. But I’m so proud of how they look and I’m so happy to have this on my personal social media accounts.
And I loved seeing how others loved these too! Seeing so many of them come across my social media feed made me happy and I know people appreciated my work.
And then over the past few days, I worked on our social media voter guides. We do have flyers that announce everyone running with us, but I wanted to create something for social media too. It was easiest to make it on Instagram because of how the restrictions are on other services. But I love how it turned out with the different photo groups for different types of candidates.
I know there is a lot of work I can do on my personal Instagram to make it look beautiful, but I have been able to do so much with the Unite For Strength Instagram account that I really could use for my own. I probably wouldn’t use the same types of grids that I use since I personally would post more photos, but I would like to take a moment when things calm down to see what I can do to make my account look more professional and polished.
And now, it’s all about making sure all members who can vote do so. Just like with national politics, not everyone votes and getting the voter turnout up is something I personally am passionate about. I work on reaching out to all of my friends who I know are members and making sure they vote. And while I do hope they will vote for me and the rest of Unite For Strength, I understand that not everyone feels as passionately about the same issues as I do so they might not vote the same way I would. But getting people involved and voting is so important.
If you are a member of SAG-AFTRA, please vote. I know I ask this every time there is an election, but I will keep saying it every time. I know there are so many people who don’t vote because they forget or they don’t think it matters. But it really does matter. And if you have questions about why I’m running or why I’m a part of Unite For Strength, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to talk to anyone even if you don’t agree with me or decide you don’t want to vote for me.
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Election Season Time (or Being A Part Of Unite For Strength)
Unite For Strength (or SAG-AFTRA Election Time)
