By Charli Sorenson, PR Chair, LWV of Kittitas County 

Five years ago, the LWV of Kittitas Valley (as we were called then) had no website or much of any online presence. A little over four years ago, with the blessing of the LWV of Washington Board, Delores Irwin and I set out to change that. In addition to expanding our social media presence from just Facebook to include Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, we created our online home, KittitasLeague.org, on the WordPress platform. 

Was It Worth It? 

The fascinating data suggests: Totally worth the effort! 

As 2020 was a presidential election year, it was also the highest traffic year for both the website and social media. However, as #3 shows in the following website data graphic, every year shows traffic increases during the general election (October-November) with over a 1,000 views, peaking in 2020 at 5,000 views. The #2 in the graphic shows high website traffic during the preceding primaries as well, with 2,500-plus views in 2020 and nearly 2,000 views in 2021. And, lastly, #1 shows a 1,000-view spike in traffic during the 2020 presidential primary in March 2020. 

 

Traffic data for social media and the LWV of Kittitas website. 

In four years, the LWV of Kittitas County website has had over 30,000 views and 16,516 visitors. About 5% of these visitors were from outside Kittitas County. Respectable for a county with fewer than 50,000 residents. Consistently, our website’s highest-viewed pages are the online voter’s guide, and the highest-viewed posts are those listing candidates and candidate forums. 

 

Channel analytics for the LWV of Kittitas County website. 

Combined with our ramped-up social media presence, the LWV of Kittitas County continues to expand and share nonpartisan information on topics important to county residents. As shown in the YouTube data graphic, our YouTube channel (started late 2018) has around 40,000 lifetime impressions and over 7,000 views. YouTube audience age analytics indicate that 40% of our viewers are under age 45 and find our videos via cell phone. 

Illustrated in the following table, the LWV of Kittitas County continually expanded its online reach with 2020 traffic/reach peaking in Twitter, Facebook, and our website. Through 2021, the LWV of Kittitas County had 146 Twitter followers, 563 Facebook followers, 312 Instagram followers, and 95 YouTube channel subscribers. It is unclear how pandemic and voter exhaustion contributed to the traffic drop in 2021 for both the website and our social media accounts, but probably both were in play. 

Also of note in the table is the jump in voter registration. Between 2016 and 2017 registered voters increased by just 100. However, between 2017 and 2019 voter registrations increased by 1,000 each year. In 2020 voter registration increased by nearly 4,000. Likewise, voter turnout improved each successive year (odd-year vs. odd-year, presidential year vs. presidential year). I like to think this increase correlates with the LWV of Kittitas County online presence but correlation is not causation. 

I think we have amply demonstrated a positive impact on local voter registration as well as voter turnout. Ultimately, the League must have an online presence if we wish to remain relevant in today's society.