Utah Ballot Initiative Pics

The Ballot Initiative would benefit from a solid social media strategy.   I have some thoughts as to how we can execute a social media strategy:

  • Create an art concept that can be implemented by photographers around the nation. This campaign will be propagated via the use of two hashtags:
  •  a national hashtag (such as #6630507 , the patent number the US government holds on CBD, demonstrating that cannabis is medicine and the Federal government knows it) Could also be a different hashtag. Point being, something that speaks to cannabis as medicine, something that is highly symbolic and can instigate further conversations by those who share it.
  • a local hashtag, #UtahPatients , for instance, designed to create a cohesive branding of social media posts in the state that are related to the ballot initiative.
  • Have stickers printed with the local and / or national hashtag on them (think of the “I Voted” stickers that polling places give out on election day). Individuals who sign the petition will then be given a sticker and invited to take a selfie with it, and then post the image on Instagram / Twitter / Facebook.
  • Any time photography is done that is relevant to the cause (such as the images I created on Monday, below), recipients of these portraits can be instructed to tag their image with the local and national hashtag when they share their new photo on social media.
  • I have contacted photographers around the nation who have agreed to host portrait parties at their studios. These photographers would create beautiful editorial portraits in their own style, the only guideline being that they find a creative way to work the national hashtag (and their local hashtag, if there is one).  This will result in a large nationally relevant body of work, comprised of both citizen selfies who have just signed a petition, and / or editorial portraits created by activist photographers such as myself.

Obviously these images were not created with any certain art concept parameters in mind, that being said, they would still be good to have hashtagged under a well planned out campaign.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea. I’m happy to help run such a social media campaign and coordinate with photographers around the nation as well.

A well executed social media strategy will create social proof and amplify the efforts that will be going into the signature gathering effort, and ultimately at the ballot. Please don’t share any of these images quite yet; I’ll send out an official set of high resolution images once we decide on our hashtagging strategy (hopefully tomorrow, Thurs 29 June).