2016 Elections: He said, She said, Whose video content is the most engaging?
by Nathalie Nuta
In the weekend leading up to one of the most polarized elections of our modern history, President Obama joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign trail and mocked Donald Trump for having his Twitter feed confiscated by his campaign’s social team. So what’s really going on?
Let's Look at videos posted on Facebook:
Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton
On Facebook, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump’s video posts drove a significant volume of total social actions this weekend. Trump’s top three video posts were all Join Me Live videos from his rallies across important swing states, Nevada, Florida and Minnesota. Hillary’s top three video posts were a mix of both Live and produced videos.
Trump’s most popular post was from Reno, Nevada and drove 346,034 total actions. This post was is most shared video this weekend with over 30,000+ shares. Hillary Clinton’s Live video post , featuring Lebron James on stage of her Ohio campaign rally, James’s home state. That post drove 254,969 total actions and was shared over 20,000+ times. Clinton’s second most popular video post focused on the story of her campaign journey and drove 239,097 total actions. It was shared over 97,000+ times, that’s four times more than either of her other three top video posts this weekend. It could be interpreted that it was a different spin and content theme to other posts.
Interesting to note:
Trump’s video posts garnered over 140,000+ comments each, that’s more than double the comments that Clinton’s posts garnered. A sampling of the top comments on each posts shows the trending sentiment to be negative vitriol towards Clinton. On the other hand, Clinton’s top comments on each post tend to be positive endorsements of her and her platform.
In regards to content type, it’s also interesting that all Trump’s post start with “Join me LIVE in [Insert swing state city here]” as an immediate call to action; Hillary’s posts are all different with no one rally cry. Perhaps a clue that Trump’s social channels were indeed taken away from him? No one really knows, however an interesting change in content strategy by both in the last days prior to the election.
Stay tuned for an update of the Candidate’s Twitter feed. It’s sure to be doozy!
Updated 11-08-2016 10:00 am ET
What's going on with Twitter?
Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton
The most obvious difference between the Republican and Democrat Candidate’s Twitter feeds and their Facebook Pages is that Total Actions are significantly less than on Facebook. Secondly, Trump’s team posted no video to Twitter, while Hillary’s Twitter account included images and video.
Trump’s most popular post was his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” and drove a total of 172,188 actions. The majority of those actions were Likes. Like Facebook, Hillary’s most popular post was of an image of her endorsers and world-renowned musicians, Beyonce and her husband, Jay-Z, driving almost 100,000+ actions.
Interesting to note:
In regards to content type, just like on Facebook, all Trump’s tweets start with “Thank you [Insert Rally City Here].” Clinton’s tweets on the other hand, are varied in content. Her top three posts include one image and two videos. Clinton also relies on celebrity endorsers (influencers) across her social platforms and repeats top performing videos on Facebook and Twitter. Her second and third most popular video posts on Facebook are also her second and third most popular tweets (as referenced above) on Twitter. Finally, it appears that each candidate has a very specific content strategy. The Clinton team seem to be focused on a larger thematic campaign and a unified voice, and leveraging the “influencer” whenever possible. The Trump team is focused on the Candidate as ‘their influencer” and the content itself focused on his campaigning making sure to highlight where he is at all time. Followers on both sides seem to be responding and engaging with the content.
Stay tuned for more updates throughout the day and a social re-cap tomorrow! In the meantime #getoutthevote #Election2016