Digital Download: US Election 2024

As the sun begins to set on the US election, the numbers on digital performance, spend and effectiveness begin to trickle in.? It was a memorable campaign for many reasons- here’s a round-up of the digital impact and legacy that both candidates and parties leave.?

Main takeaways

???? Harris Walz

The Harris campaign had a limited time to prepare, and ran a tactically smart campaign that unfortunately didn’t quite get their candidate over the line.?

Team Harris outraised, outspent, out-advertised and out-posted Trump across the internet. Their senior staff understood the changing media environment and how social media platforms have evolved since 2020 - and they adapted their strategies accordingly.?

A team of 12 were responsible for her social media accounts and the output being shared. They created everything from TikTok videos, playlists and the Kamala brat brand.?

They also majored in on influencer content, focusing much of their cash on influencer marketing, paying Village Marketing $3.9 million for access to a database of around 15,000 social media influencers. The influencers featured on the “Creators for Kamala” feed included Jocelyn Danielle, who posts about TV and film to her 25,000 Instagram followers, and Deja Foxx, an online activist with 57,000 followers. Others knocked on doors or made canvassing calls from campaign hubs.

They received exclusive passes to events to make content to post on their feeds, attending the DNC and using old-school film cameras to share snaps on Instagram.

The campaign also contracted People First to engage influencers, who created videos to use with specific targeting for Latino, black, Asian and student voters.?

Harris also did the ‘right of passage’ for a presidential campaign, appearing on Saturday Night Live. By tapping into a mainstream entertainment platform with a strong comedic angle, she was able to showcase her personality and relatability in a light-hearted context. Similarly, Harris’ appearance on Call Her Daddy, the most listened to podcast by women and Spotify’s 5th most popular podcast, allowed her to connect with listeners on a more personal level.

The team also had to build a narrative for Governor Tim Walz, introducing him and his family to many voters who hadn’t heard of him before.?

Governor Walz took part in a Twitch session, met supporters who gave him custom Converse to share on Instagram and did behind the scenes on the road videos with his daughter, Hope. These were all chronicled as part of the multi-platform digital approach.?

Gwen Walz in particular took to social media to share her education credentials, her relentless tour across the US - and ‘homely’ content such as a cookie recipe. This was actually one of my highlights of the digital campaign and a good example of how to do light content in an engaging way.

Whilst the Harris Walz campaign had all the hallmarks of an effective multi-platform digital approach in theory, in practice, it was disappointing that it didn’t have the ‘IT’ factor to get the VP over the line. ?

???? Trump?Vance

Second time round, the Trump digital campaign was more focused and more creative. TikTok helped the campaign gain influential levels of traction with supporters, even if at the start, the trump team posted sporadically but still clocked up large numbers with every post.?

Rolling out @TeamTrump during the final months of the campaign was a strategic way to post often and flood the conversation with videos that easily generated tens of millions of views. As we reached Election Day, many of these posts were surpassing the Harris campaign with impressive metrics. His mid-October McDonald’s stunt was a major hit on the platform, and the campaign’s final get-out-the-vote post on TikTok, featuring a Trumpian version of “The Macarena,” received over 119 million views.??

The campaign embraced user generated content on TikTok, with particular growth from mid August to Election Day. Stats show that during this time frame there were around 1.2m posts that mentioned Donald Trump, compared to circa 400,000 for Harris. Friendly accounts like @americafirst617, @realmichaelsolakiewicz, and others would show behind-the-scenes footage of Trump interacting with his grandkids or joking with supporters on the golf course. That side of Trump had rarely been shown in the mainstream media or on other social media platforms.?

Another digital tactic change was the Trump campaign’s prioritisation of podcasts. Trump appeared on 20 in total, including the influential Joe Rogan Experience. This appearance- combined with ones on Logan Paul’s Impaulsive and Theo Von’s This Past Weekend amassed over 68.7m YouTube views alone.?

He effectively sidelined mainstream outlets in favour of alternative channels to reach voters in ways that would be engaging. The public personalities behind these podcasts are sympathetic to Trump’s message, and by appearing on their shows, Trump shored up personal endorsements and a direct line to loyal fan bases. He also efficiently utilised a direct appeal to young male audiences - one demographic group that listens to these podcasts and turned out for him on Election Day.?

This theme of embracing the new- and the popular helped Trump secure a second term, and shows how the digital landscape is shifting, particularly in politics.?

?? Spend

If the 2024 election came down to dollars spent, then Harris would be the winner. Ever since securing the Democratic Party's nomination, she easily outspent her Republican Party opponent by a factor of at least 10 (on Meta) and by a factor of just over two (on Google.)

Stats from Who Targets Me show that the Harris campaign spend on digital was $31.4 million compared to Trump’s $10.1 million. More specifically, Harris spent $12.2 million on Facebook and Instagram versus Trump’s $611,228. (Again, outside campaigns spent far more in both cases.)

??? Campaign Legacy

For me, campaign 2024 just didn’t have the sparkle that previous presidential campaigns seemed to have. I found myself engaging more with content posted on Instagram and TikTok, using X sporadically and Facebook not at all to keep up to date with the campaigns and analyse the types of content that were gaining traction.?

Bluesky is perhaps the second winner from this campaign, adding over 1 million new users in recent days - although many tweets declaring a user’s new account show that they are still staying on X.?

With a fifth of Americans digesting their news from social media influencers, this trend of politicians working with influential individuals will be a key theme moving forward. Expect to see President Trump working with more and more of them over the course of his second term.?

And what will become of the Democratic Party? Succession planning is top of the agenda, but so is the use of digital tools, targeting and content to share a message and a vision to voters. Get this right and the House, Senate and Presidency will be in play again. Get it wrong, and they could spend several more years in the wilderness.?