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Rutu patel

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections? Social media analysis of Joe Biden’s campaign.

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections?
Social media analysis of Joe Biden’s campaign

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Rutu Patel

One thing which is certain about the 2020 election cycle, is that social media has been extremely crucial for electoral campaigns. The global pandemic has moved our activities into the online arena more and more and presidential election campaigns have not been an exception. The pandemic of coronavirus has driven candidates off the campaign road and transformed the presidential election in 2020 into a social media one. It was important to shift all the canvassing and rallying to social media, candidates’ blogs, and apps. 

Starting off by reviewing the strategies made by Biden, the analysis show that there have been over 2.2 million mentions on social media since 1st June 2020, by using hashtags such as, #voteforBiden #voteblue #biden2020 #teamJoe #BidenHarris #2020Victory #votebluenomatterwho #settleforbiden.

On Facebook, Trump had more than 30 million followers and 85 million on Twitter, while on Facebook, Biden had just under 3 million, and on Twitter, just over 9 million. As you can see, Biden’s task was to expand his community and at the same time meet as many people as he could without adopting an established social network. Hundreds of Biden volunteers participated in a training program focused on digital organizing and creating online content that bolsters Biden’s message.

Since Biden’s reach was much less, it was suggested that he make his online presence on all social media platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Cameo, online games, Reddit).

 

In addition to this, it was also suggested by his team, to include influencers help spread his message even further and gain popularity. Biden’s outreach goes beyond mainstream apps as well. In September, the campaign debuted Biden-Harris campaign signs in Animal Crossing, the video game that became wildly popular on social media at the start of the pandemic. Some celebrities, like Andy Cohen and Dulé Hill, are fundraising for the campaign on Cameo, the video app, which allows users to post fan-requested video messages in exchange for donations. 



 

Lastly, focussing on advertising strategies, it was analysed that The Democratic candidate’s team spent about $60 million on digital ads, including about $9 million on Facebook ads. The candidate approached older voters on Facebook, which was a smart move: older people are more likely to vote, but Facebook is still ignored by the younger demographic in favor of other channels. It can be inferred that Biden’s campaign used demographic and geographic data to make sure they reach voters with specific messages catered to their demographic group. 

 

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections? Examining Trump’s marketing strategies.

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections?Examining Trump’s marketing strategies

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Rutu Patel

After Barack Obama introduced the use of following marketing strategies digitally, his successor Donald Trump took extravagant steps in his campaigning. Read below for a full view about how digitisation has changed the role of politics in the modern world. 

In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hilary Clinton to be the 45th president of the United States of America. Trump’s victory sent shockwaves around the world as he lost the popular vote, but somehow received 77 more electoral votes than Clinton.Casting the ballots in for your president can be a similar experience to shopping. You see advertisements around and you try to collect as much information as possible before you make the final purchasing decision. Although choosing a candidate to vote for is more complicated, it also involves a great deal of marketing.

Trump claimed that the power of ‘Social media’ helped him win the elections. According to Google search engine giants, more search results appeared in Trump’s way than his opposition.

 

Many would think that for his campaign, Trump forked out millions. Yet he actually spent a small amount on conventional types of advertising. You can’t even equate his promotional budget to that of Clinton’s (which was a whopping $194 million). Trump only spent $4.4 million on ads in the last two months leading up to election day. In the 21st century, traditional forms of communication no longer have the effectiveness they once had. These days, a small investment could also help you to achieve success.

A few methods he used to gain popularity included:

  • Using his brand identity: Since entering the field of American politics, Trump was a well-known businessman and media host. He operates and maintains hotels, casinos, golf courses, resorts, and residential properties around the world, with his primary business as a real-estate developer. After hosting the show ‘The Apprentice’ for 14 seasons, he became popular around the globe and then declared that he would be running for president. With his fame and popularity, he used his famous name and established brand to attract attention.
 
 
  • Framing competitors as an ‘issue’: Focusing on his opponents’ shortcomings, he made them all look like they were the question and he was the answer. To top it off with nicknames that just stuck, he named them. In the eyes of people, the nicknames were devastatingly unflattering and reduced their prestige. For example, ‘Crazy Bernie’; ‘Crooked Hillary’.
  • Knowledge of Social media: Since 2016, Trump has gained close to 52 million followers of Twitter till September 2020. During his campaign, social media was his primary communication channel. His strategy wasn’t about posting pre-planned messages or directing people to his campaign website. Instead, he engaged with his supporters and started conversations with them. While some of his tweets were divisive, the press presented him with free publicity. In the new shows, whatever he tweeted ended up generating hype and being included.

 

He knows how to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to keep fans in the loop and reveal what’s going on in his life, much like most top influencers. He has the most popular Twitter account amongst the world’s politicians.

  • Numerous rallies to advantage: Public appearances are going to attract publicity. To create buzz and media interest, Trump engaged in as many as he could. A total of 323 rallies were staged during the campaign: 186 for the primary season and 137 for the general election. He put himself out there to relay to the electorate his message. He spoke about their interests, beliefs and habits at his rallies, with a reported attendance of close to 1.4 million people. In contrast, Clinton’s protests at the other end were pale.

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections?

How digital marketing contributed to political campaigns in US 2020 elections?

HOLY COW STUDIOS

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Rutu Patel

The elections held in the United States of America for electing its 46th president was a worldwide sensation. People from around the globe were exceptionally aware and updated of the campaigns held along with presidential speeches, solely with the help of social media and digitisation. 

Digital platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, radio and television have played a major role for the audience to keep up with all sorts of news in real time allowing incumbents and newcomers alike to speak directly to constituents on everything from policy to what they had for dinner. Barack Obama was the first presidential candidate to use the medium, which was still nascent during his 2008 bid, and Donald Trump takes to Twitter almost daily to express himself without the filter of traditional media.

 

Research suggests that, since March of 2020, the Center for Media Engagement has been studying the role of influencers in the lead-up to the 2020 U.S. elections. We have conducted 14 in-depth interviews with well-placed experts, ranging from political strategists who harness influencers for their own partisan means to executives of so-called ‘influencer platforms’ to governmental regulators and, finally, to the political influencers themselves. 

Some of the findings that were made include that, both the Biden and Trump campaigns are employing “digital-first” advertising strategies, with varying degrees of success. President Trump has a well-established online presence, with roughly 86 million followers on Twitter and 29 million on Facebook, compared to Biden’s 10 million and 2.8 million followers, respectively.

 

 Long-form web-based video interviews are popular, with Trump often relying on surrogates, as is the case with Team Trump Online!, and Biden often incorporating celebrity and influencer guests to increase viewership. Trump himself has conducted few interviews, capitalizing on his own influencer status instead by retweeting thousands of followers’ tweets and memes, bequeathing prized endorsements, and promoting follower-generated content to his massive audience. Biden, whose team is working with the influencer firm Village Marketing, has been interviewed by a handful of lifestyle and parenting influencers, YouTube vloggers, and celebrities (notably, Cardi B and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). 

While celebrity endorsement has long been a liberal tactic, the political mobilization of influencers, including those with small and large followings, is relatively new and is not without challenges, particularly regarding authenticity and quality control. 

Within the first month of using Twitter, politicians were able to raise between 1% and 3% of what they would have raised in a two-year traditional campaign, showcasing the power of social media reach across the globe in seconds of announcing news.

Top 5 Digital Marketing Tools I Use

Top 5 Digital Marketing Tools I use

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Rutu Patel

During lockdown, I have been exposed to a certain number of opportunities to expand my knowledge and skills in the field of marketing digitally. 

I had a chance to work with some amazing and innovative new digital tools to make my work easier and creative! Below listed are my favourite 5 tools:

Canva: Canva is an excellent platform for everyone who wants to create content. It is free of cost with thousands of templates, elements, images etc to work with and easy to sign up for. The content created can also be downloaded free of cost in high resolution. Personally, I feel it is a great tool invented with updates coming out frequently to make the user interface easier. The only disadvantage to the tool is that some features are only accessible to the Premium members who have paid for subscription which turns out to be costly.  

WordPress: WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes. It is a very user friendly tool which allows people to install easily and for free. 

The company is mainly for users who want to create their own website from scratch or from the templates provided, bloggers who want their own website, portfolio making, creating resumes and ecommerce stores.

Preview App: The Preview app is generally used for scheduling and previewing content on Instagram before actually posting it. The app also allows users to find great hashtags and captions for Instagram along with providing the feature to view the analytics of one’s account. 

Instagram Insights: Instagram Insights is a native analytics tool that provides data on follower demographics and actions, as well as your content. This information makes it easy to compare content, measure campaigns, and see how individual posts are performing. This tool is only accessible if one has a business account. 

Adobe Photoshop: This particular tool is used for creating graphics by hand and editing purposes. It requires a lot of skill and knowledge to master the art of Photoshop thoroughly. People use this when they want to customise a graphic according to their requirements. The negative aspect of this tool is that it is costly to install and takes a lot of practice and time to learn about all the features the tool has to offer.

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How COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the digitalisation of our life?

How Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating the digitalisation of our life?

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Rutu patel

The current ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has played a bitter role for the economies of the world, driving companies and governments to adopt digitisation. Underlying this shift is the need for greater organisational agility as well as closer ties with customers in a changing world order. The process of digital transformation, however, is complex and long-drawn-out for businesses as well as consumers. Enterprises leading in digital transformation are significantly less vulnerable to the epidemic, while enterprises leading in work resource transformation have a better ability of long-distance coordination and higher overall work efficiency (IDC).

Since the start of lockdown in March 2020, there has been a significant increase in the screen time of people using gadgets. The main causes for this to happen were mainly the sudden spike in online learning and teaching along with providing the population, especially students, with thousands of new online courses to learn from. All companies had to shift to working from home allowing the employees and managers to communicate virtually. Secondly, more than half of the world population was staying indoors when all the OTT platforms provided them with some sort of entertainment to binge watch. These factors along with an increase in social media proved how a pandemic can accelerate the digitalisation of our lives. 

 

With its emphasis on video and user-friendliness, Zoom soon became the most popular application for video conferencing, virtual meetings and online courses, but also for personal use. To become a more ‘user-friendly’ video conferencing option, the platform seemed to yield the fruits of years of effort. It also made its Zoom Phone cloud phone service accessible in more nations in March.

 

Financial services and transactions are among the main fields that have seen a substantial rise in digital offerings and adoption, which are crucial aspects of the economy. Although it is not new to the market to go digital, the outbreak has greatly intensified the usage of smart technology, with far-reaching consequences not just for the financial industry but also for the broader economic system for the future. The virus outbreak is spurring the adoption of contactless digital payments; and there has been a surge in digital payment volumes across online grocery stores, small retail outlets, online pharmacies, vegetable and fruit vendors, recharges, bill payments as well as OTT (telecom and media). Contactless payments, through QR Code, wallets, UPI or contactless cards, are gaining popularity as they offer convenience, safety and security while allowing the consumers to maintain physical distancing. 

 

 

 

According to UNESCO, that tracks the COVID-19 impact on education, on April 10th, there were 188 country-wide closures with almost 1.6 Billion affected learners. To ensure learning continuity, organizations, schools, governments, and teachers scrambled to provide distance education possibilities with online platforms. 

Early March, IDC conducted a CXO survey in China. It showed that enterprises leading in digital transformation are significantly less vulnerable to the epidemic. The outbreak boosted enterprises’ sense of response to force majeure, which will accelerate their all-round digital transformation. Collaborative office, online marketing, video conferencing, customer management, remote support and service and other systems have played a tremendous role in coping with the challenges posed by the epidemic (IDC). 



In conclusion , it is possible that the COVID-19 crisis will substantially speed up the transition to digital and radically redefine the general market environment. Consumer preferences and desired interactions are evolving rapidly, and the digital revolution we are seeing will accelerate inexorably as they are expected to continue to change. This transition also entails revisiting the whole value chain, which covers not just the consumer experience, but also other participants, especially merchants.