If there is any doubt as to why some politicos look to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as the future of the Republican Party, her social media feed could provide a clue.
Noem has continually used her Facebook page during the pandemic to promote South Dakota as a destination for tourism or to relocate.
It’s an impressive strategy in the way that she threads the needle. She doesn’t minimize the seriousness of the pandemic but at the same time plays up individual responsibility instead of government mandates.
She has a cheery yet biting message.
Her latest Facebook post is just fun.
Carrying a shotgun and clad in an orange hunting vest in a South Dakota cornfield, Noem announces: “This is how we do social distancing in our state.”
“Bird” yells someone off camera.
Noem stops to take three shots as a pheasant drops from the sky.
“Less COVID, more hunting,” she laughs. “That’s the plan for the future.”
Is it working? Absolutely it does.
175-thousand views in just five hours for the governor of the 5th smallest state in the nation isn’t too bad. On Twitter, it’s been viewed 1.5 million times.
Video views, of course, aren’t everything. But it tells you people are paying attention to her.
Social media is the most powerful way to get your message across and she’s doing it better than anyone else. Gov. Noem is the one to watch.
Jimmy Orr is a Wyoming native who is a former spokesman for the White House, directed digital strategy for President George W. Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and was the Managing Editor, Digital, for the Los Angeles Times.
