Social Media Marketing Lessons From Presidential Campaigns
2020 - It’s a Presidential election year in the US. While the Coronavirus has undoubtably caused some changes in the way candidates have run, for a brand advertiser or marketer, I believe there’s a lot to learn from the way they conduct themselves on social media.
Why are a presidential candidate’s social media campaigns good to study?
Because they need to build massive awareness
They need to bring people through the funnel so they convert - aka vote for them
They have a limited time frame
They are directly battling a competitor
That’s pretty similar to most businesses.
It wasn’t really until Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign that a candidate actually tried to connect and communicate with younger voters. Until then, it was all about TV and other traditional forms of advertising. Maybe a website at best.
Fast forward to 2020 and the battleground is very different. Social media and modern communication channels have come to play a huge role. So…
How do politicians utilize social media to promote themselves, and what can we learn from them?
You’ll see there are two large, overarching themes: They’re fast and they’re detailed.
This post isn’t meant to be about the actual politics or a debate about the effects of a two-party system or Electoral College. In this case, I took a look at Joe Biden since he’s the competitor.
1. They dive into who they are and what they’re about.
These Joe Biden ads reveal different sides of him and appeal to different interests - faith, military families, auto industry jobs.
People like brands for different reasons, whether it’s a corporate one or personal one.
These Joe Biden ads showcase different sides of him, what he’s for and against, and what he’s done. They are then run against target audiences that have a high chance of having the same interests, beliefs and concerns.
There is no one message that fits all. These ads reflect that and take advantage of social media’s ability to craft multiple ads for multiple, detailed targets.
2. They’re contextualized to the audience
These Joe Biden ads are contextual to the target audience’s location - Florida, Georgia and Michigan.
These ads may look the same at first glance, but they’re actually speaking to people of different states.
Because we can target ads by location (even more specific than entire states), we can “speak” in more specific terms.
There’s a better chance that someone in Michigan will feel that the ad is for them if it’s addressing Michigan specifically, rather than the entire US.
Even though people live in the same location, however, they may be of different backgrounds and cultures, and may speak a different language altogether.
These Joe Biden ads are contextualized to the target audience’s culture and language.
The US may be thought of as an English-speaking country, but around 41 million Americans speak Spanish at home (~13% of the population) and 58 million are native speakers. This means that getting their vote is very important, so Joe Biden and other politicians will run Spanish-language ads that feature people that resonate with the target.
Things get even more diverse when looking at what the most spoken language is in each state after English and Spanish:
The most popular language spoken in each US state after English and Spanish.
Some candidates will even run ads to these targets as well. Bernie Sanders apparently did so in Korean.
3. They aggressively A/B test
These Joe Biden ads show an A/B test of copy
One benefit that social media ads allow for is the ability to A/B test. Aggressively.
Most of us are used to gathering our marketing teams and coming up with one or two creatives that we think are on-brand and have a high chance of being effective. This had to be done when running a print or TV ad.
The problem is it’s a completely subjective opinion of a handful of people at best.
Advertising on social media technically allows us to test as many creatives as we want, as much copy as we want, to as many people as we want, for as long as we want.
The Joe Biden ads above are testing various ad copy against the same creative. The ads below are testing both different ad copy and ad creatives along a similar message.
These Joe Biden ads show an A/B test of copy and creative
Another thing noticeable when looking through the ad campaigns is how fast they happen.
The ads aren’t just run for 30 days and then reviewed at a performance meeting. Multiple ad campaigns are launched every day, then adjusted or stopped after a couple of days. The speed is incredible.
Speaking of speed, this applies to organic social media as well.
4. They’re relevant to the current conversation
Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly. https://t.co/CqHAId0j8t pic.twitter.com/NbkPl0a8HV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 8, 2020
October 8th was the Vice Presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. A fly happened to land on Mike Pence’s head for a couple minutes, and it quickly became the trending conversation online.
Almost instantly, Joe Biden’s Twitter account tweeted a picture of him holding a fly swatter with a call to action using copy that creatively plays on the word “fly”.
That tweet earned him over 216k retweets, 57k quoted retweets, and more than 910k likes.
Then, within 41 minutes, the Joe Biden team tweeted this fly swatter centric graphic, leading users to an eCommerce shop page selling these branded fly swatters to raise money.
Swats away flies and lies. Get yours today: https://t.co/ehsECKfDPO pic.twitter.com/oVLHHmq85c
— Team Joe (Text JOE to 30330) (@TeamJoe) October 8, 2020
This attention to realtime online conversations and the speed to react, plan and put something out immediately is incredible. It goes to show we’re past the generation of careful planning and week-long designing.
5. They’re authentic
It’s good to remind the audience that you’re just a part of the community. It humanizes and it increases believability.
In this case, Joe Biden rides the #NationalDessertDay topic, and shares some of the desserts he’s enjoyed while campaigning.
The fact is, people don’t only want to hear about your company, what you’re selling and your promotions. With social media putting both people and businesses in similar-looking profiles that share content into the same feeds, businesses need to be a part of the conversation.
6. They build audiences in other channels
These Joe Biden ads aim to collect leads
One issue many marketing on social media have is that they don’t connect it to any other channel. Even within social media, they’ll rely on one main channel.
Being reliant on one channel is a big risk.
Here, Joe Biden’s ads are asking people to join other channels. In this case, probably SMS (text message) and email. This allows for communication to happen in other channels, as well as for them to keep a connection should that person change or delete an account, or the channel loses popularity altogether.
It’s worth noting that in the middle ad, they are asking users to complete a short survey.
Many companies like to present an image that they know what they’re doing, but directly asking the target audience helps gain insights and shows that you care about how they feel. Also, being that it’s only 2 questions, it immediately tells users it’s short, therefore lowering the participation barrier.
7. They utilize influencers
These Joe Biden ads use influencers to speak on his behalf, in this case, Star Trek actors.
Influencer marketing is, at its core, word of mouth. It’s getting someone recognizable that has a following to say something good about your business or product.
In this case, Joe Biden uses video speeches posted by Star Trek actors and turns them into ads. We can assume that these ads were run against Star Trek fans.
8. They go where the target wants to be
Back in President Obama’s first Presidential run in 2008, the idea of going where the target wants to be came into play. It was social media.
In 2020, if a candidate or consumer-facing business doesn’t purposefully do social media, they’re probably losing relevance and giving competitors a chance to steal their fans.
eSports and gaming continues to become a huge pillar in entertainment today. This means attention lives here, which means a chance to connect with people.
This isn’t what Joe Biden did, but US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, collaborated with streamers Pokimane, HasanAbi, and several others on October 20th to livestream her playing a game on Twitch.
Anyone want to play Among Us with me on Twitch to get out the vote? (I’ve never played but it looks like a lot of fun)
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 19, 2020
You can watch highlights here, but the stream peaked at 435k viewers and became one of the biggest streams ever.
AOC, a digital native, probably should be analyzed in a separate post due to her prolific usage of social media that earns her higher engagement rates than any other major US politician. Her testing of Twitch though, is a look at how businesses should go where the people pay attention and actually want to be.
In conclusion, whether it’s a business or a personal brand, connecting with and building a relationship with the end user is key. That often happens by going where they are and being relevant at all times.
Analyzing how political candidates do it is a good way to learn.