I was working on a Master’s in political management at The George Washington University back in 2005 when a professor asked me, “You’re into technology, what is going to be the next big thing?”
My response: “Online social networks.” MySpace was enjoying its peak and Facebook was still just for people with a dot edu email address. But I saw numbers grow daily. I knew the potential was there.
Fast forward 16 years. Nobody refers to these platforms as “online social networks” anymore. It’s just “social media.” And while there’s still a lot of focus on Facebook, younger demographics spend their time on video platforms such as TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.
So how can candidates leverage these platforms? Here are seven suggestions:
1. Be natural.
You don’t want to force it. Yes, TikTok is primarily used by kids showing off their dance moves and Twitch is primarily for gamers. But if you are a 60-year-old candidate this might not be how you should use the platforms. So instead of attempting the floss, have cool graphics pop up to highlight your message and make up for your lack of dance moves.
2. Stay on message.
Let people know immediately what you are there for. Think of how you canvass or phone-bank. Stick to who you are, why you are making a video, and what you expect the voter to do. Something like “hi, my name is Mindy Serin and I am running for city council. I want to talk with you about X issue. It’s hurting our community because of Y. I will solve this by Z. But I can’t do it without your support. I need you to {CALL TO ACTION: donate/volunteer/vote/sign this petition/share this video}.”
3. Make use of relevant hashtags.
Who are your targets? If there’s a local environmental issue, hashtag the power plant or lake. If you’re running in a district near a major university with top-ranked teams, you might want to take advantage of #NIL and #StudentAthlete.
4. Include a call to action (CTA).
Ultimately, you want viewers to act. Should they call someone? Should they sign a petition? Mention the CTA multiple times and make it easy for them to act. Just like when sending an email, you want to ask for only one action. You don’t want to confuse supporters on what you need. Depending on your CTA, you can have a “thank you page” with an additional CTA.
5. Maximize videos/minimize confusion.
Stick to just one issue per video. This allows you to maximize the number of videos you have for distribution. This also means your message won’t get lost. And finally, you can also market on the specific message, and include specific hashtags for specific audiences.
6. Use captions.
Just in case people are distracted by how cool you are or your movement or they don’t have sound on, captions can pull people in. Seeing captions can make people question, “wait, what is this person saying? I want to hear it!”
7. Set realistic expectations.
Bernie Sanders has 659K TikTok followers, which is great, but the senator is a walking-talking meme. He puts on fuzzy gloves and everyone loses their mind. Even Ikea made a meme of Sanders at the inauguration. But this is an unrealistic expectation for most candidates. And if you try too hard (see above) you’ll look bad.
Once you have this down, you can expand your reach. You don’t have to go live on each platform repeating each video. You can record/edit/perfect your video, and upload it to each platform to increase your audience.
Mindy Serin is the CEO of RunWith.Digital, a Los Angeles-based digital strategy firm for Democrats. Additionally, Mindy is a Digital Analytics instructor at UCLA.
