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Branding is a concept that has been confusing people for hundreds of years, especially since there’s no official definition of the phenomenon. The easiest way to understand it is to think of the emotion we invoke in anybody who has a touch point with us, our business, our content or someone that reminds them of us. That emotion is essentially our positioning— the way people perceive us. Branding has two sides—identity and perception. It’s a mix of the way we see ourselves and the way external people see us. We can never fully control our brand, but we can do our best to manage perception and to strengthen our positioning.
When it comes to politics, the practice of shaping perception has become integral to presidential elections. If the past nine years have given us something undeniable, it is the transition of politics into the realm of the Internet. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Snapchat were key players in the latest US presidential elections and it’s no secret that serious funds are earmarked for digital campaigns. However, even though each platform plays an important part in a presidential campaign, one platform, in particular, stands out, and that’s YouTube.
Fifteen years ago the very idea that social media would ever matter when it comes to political issues was laughable. Today, those who were laughing at the start of the new century have been utterly silenced by the sheer power of the biggest video platform in the world.
How YouTube Became the Pioneer of Social Media Politics
It was the Obama-McCain Race in 2008 when YouTube first became the major battleground in the presidential elections. From that point on, there was no going back. This was the first election where YouTube played an essential role in helping the presidential candidate Barack Obama reach his target audience and convince people to go out and vote. The president-elect used social networking sites to create a large online community in the hopes of inspiring offline support as well.
The Obama strategists uploaded videos to help connect their candidate to millions of Americans. By doing so, Obama became the poster child for successful social media politics. His team didn’t just create profiles on major social media platforms and expect them to take off. They fostered a sense of engagement, participation, and purpose in the community. All of this could now be supported by the right social networking technologies.
Every single message Obama’s campaign put forward on social media held the goal of convincing people to vote. In doing this, he started a movement which helped people realize that politics is easily accessible from websites they use every single day. This changed the face of political campaigns forever and demonstrated the sheer power of social media and video in particular.
Today’s Political Campaigns on YouTube
Fast forward to 2016, and the last Trump-Clinton debate attracted an incredible 140 million viewers on YouTube, where it was live streamed. In comparison, TV viewers added up to 71.6 million across 13 networks. This clearly portrays the massive increase in election interest accomplished by YouTube videos. In 2016, election-related searches on the platform were up 547% compared to the 2012 presidential campaigns.
2016 went down in history for being the campaign of video content. What makes YouTube unique is that it can provide filter-free content that is not distorted by the media. As people’s trust in media outlets diminishes, their belief in the truthfulness of YouTube videos increases.
After Obama introduced the world to YouTube campaigns, a staggering 7 out of 16 presidential candidates announced their candidacy with a video uploaded onto YouTube. Today, they all do, because they’re left without a real choice. If you’re not playing the social-political media game, you quickly become an outcast and lose votes. One of the major advantages of social media for presidential candidates is that it allows them to be constantly present. If someone strays from YouTube or Twitter, they are essentially deemed invisible.
Key Factors Behind YouTube’s Impact on Political Branding
The biggest reason behind YouTube’s allure for politicians it that the platform can bring engagement to their message. According to Borrell Associates, political candidates will allocate 9% of their media budget to digital and social media marketing. At over $1 billion, such a large amount of money will definitely make a difference in perception.
Another factor behind the success of video campaigns is that YouTube enables people to be authentic—or at least seem like they are. It’s extremely hard to be genuine or persuasive in a direct advertisement or a photo. However, if you can record a live video where everyone can see your facial expressions, gestures, and mannerisms, this will add credibility to your campaign and position you as honest.
If people perceive you as transparent and honest, they are more than willing to talk about you with their friends—not to mention social media followers, which are often in the thousands. Since on YouTube you only pay per view of your ad, the platform also prevails when it comes to cost-effectiveness – and it definitely trumps television. More importantly, with TV usage in 2015 declining, 18-49-year-olds have been spending more time on YouTube – which has seen a 44% increase according to Nielsen.
The Game Changing Effects of YouTube on Target Audience
The most interesting aspect of the shift in the way political campaigns handle branding and positioning is the change in the target audience. With Millennials being the main audience on most social media platforms, most of the electoral candidates and their social media teams typically concentrate on winning Millennials’ affection—and votes.
Nevertheless, that’s not always an easy thing to do. Because video is becoming a central part of political campaigns, it’s now also extremely easy for a candidate to lose affection just as easily as he received it. One small misstep caught on video can lead to a massive scandal, and we know those tend to go viral. This is the reason why every candidate now has a dedicated digital team that spends a lot of time on controlling (or attempting to control) people’s online perception of their candidate.
It isn’t a question of whether a politician should use social media anymore. Today, it’s a question of who will use it more effectively.
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Previously published here and republished with the author’s permission.
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