The US Presidential Elections 2016’s brouhaha, reach and spell have left only a handful outside of its ambit. If you’re living in this century with easy access to smartphones and the internet then there is little chance that you would not have an opinion on Trump, Cruz or Clinton.
In any election rally, the most important stakeholders are the voters. Every candidate draws out an elaborate strategy to woo them, making every voter a prize. Since the millennials are a huge voter base in this election race, the candidates have bitten the social media dust and launched their “products” gallantly to have a one-on-one with them on social media.
All candidates running for president have leveraged social media, albeit to varying degrees of effectiveness and intensity to reach their target group and undecided voters.
Democrat Bernie Sanders’ social media team had great success by pulling off several viral moments with its popular hashtag, #FeelTheBern. The hashtag was used over 400,000 times in a span of 30 days.
Democrat Clinton, on the other hand, engages with her audience via memes and emojis.
Social media was the game-changer for Obama in the 2012 Obama-Romney tussle as well. The Obama camp had thought through its digital strategy, learnt its lessons from the previous elections, and chalked out a plan to hone the medium as much as they could. Obama made sure that he used Twitter to his benefit; he utilised the micro-blogging platform to attend to millennials and minorities and engaged with them personally.
According to the Brooklings.edu, Obama leveraged the platform to the extent of reminding his voters to step out and vote. Back then, social media’s potential was only fractionally tapped, that too only by Obama; Romney remained aloof which eventually cost him the elections.
This year’s election will be Twitter’s third and Snapchat’s first. Recognising the immense potential in its firmament, the candidates have realised that the next revolution will be Snapchatted.
The Republicans started enthusiastically on Snapchat but fizzled out eventually as their candidates began dropping out. Trump (surprisingly) snapped sporadically and Cruz (now out of the race) was a far second:
Here’s a little throwback to “TrusTed” Snapchat entry.
Clinton’s epoch on Twitter, on the other hand, was gallantly announced by her team:
And ever since her foray into the new world, she has been snapping out 10-seconds of her life to keep the millennials updated. Here are some of her posts:
After Snapchat added the face swapping feature, Clinton didn’t fall short of taking pot shots at her opponents. She posted a story which used the face-swap function to superimpose onto the head of the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump the faces of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight D Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
Some may call it tasteless humour, but it was widely forwarded.
Sanders launched his Snapchat canvassing by mocking at the 10-second criterion for its videos.
Bernie Sanders is winning the Snapchat election – at least on the follower count.
“We do have the largest – and I’ve heard by far – the largest one,” Hector Sigala, a digital media director on the Sanders campaign told The Guardian.
Sanders’ team indulges in behind-the-scenes strategy on Snapchat that further gives his supporters a closer look at their candidate. The idea is to show what Sanders is like behind the trail, adds Sigala.
After Snapchat’s popularity among the Presidential candidates, the company released a set of guidelines to abide by while sharing so as to avoid humiliation and negative stories of the candidates.
With the candidates using the social media platforms at varying degrees, we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out in terms of vote share. However, it is better to be on the platform, than have no presence whatsoever.
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