Social Media’s Impact on the Race to the White House

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It’s 7:00 in the morning. Your alarm is blaring as rays of sunshine peek through the window.

If you are like any person in their late teens to early 30’s… you grab your phone. (Let’s be real. Your day hasn’t truly started until you scroll through your favorite social media platforms).

There you go, scrolling through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Correct me if I am wrong, but I bet these platforms are filled with political views every swipe down on your phone.Social media impacting the race to the White House

One tweet is about how satanic Trump is, while another tweet is about crooked Hillary. Your Facebook friends think they are political gurus, writing novels about why one candidate is better than the other. And you cannot get through more than five Instagram posts without seeing @RealDonaldTrump or @HillaryClinton doting on themselves.

George Washington has to be laughing at how these candidates are tweeting their way into the office. Right George?

Creating a social media strategy for this political race has been an essential tactic for each opponent. Donald Trump has over 12 million Twitter followers while Hillary has over 9 million followers.

Both Trump and Clinton utilize their social media platforms to reach their voters, or non-voters, in a quick and consistent way.

Although most platforms are conversational, these two users are different. They do not as much converse with their followers, but simply hope their message hits home.

Of course, all social media users can’t help but share, comment, and post statuses about their political expertise.

Billy, Bob, Sally, Amy etc., who went to your High school cannot help but post their intellectual political opinion.

No matter how irrelevant or relevant these people are, somehow their posts are swaying votes. That is the beauty, or not beauty, of social media.

I am no politician, but I do know social media. The politician who creates sharable posts and identifies a consistent brand, will engage followers which will in turn create votes.

 

 

Kasey Ruth
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