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(The Guardian) In sentences I never thought I'd write: Donald Trump is still riding high in the polls as part of his bid to be the next President of the United States. Late last month, the Republican nomination hopeful dropped a massive 12 percentage points in a single week following comments on creating a Muslim Database, but it speaks to his unfathomable popularity that even with such a vertiginous fall he was still hitting 31%, and since then, his ratings have climbed ever higher.
If there’s anything that goes some way to explaining Trump’s popularity in the midst of his quasi-fascistic views that reached a nadir with his call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, it is his social media prowess. Trump has more than 5.5 million Twitter followers and 4.5 million Facebook fans. He has a presence across YouTube, Vine, Instagram and Periscope. Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s highly-regarded former digital and social media guru, has said Trump is “way better at the internet than anyone else in the GOP which is partly why he is winning.”
Unusually for such a modest man, Trump has also, er, trumpeted his own social media savvy, saying that he “understands it maybe better than anybody, ever”. He has also called himself: “the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters”.
What’s behind Trump’s social media strategy? Is it carefully calibrated or is it authentic? Does he always get it right, and do mainstream media outlets need to be worried? How are those against Trump fighting back online – in particular after his most incendiary comments? And perhaps, most important of all: what does this mean for his candidacy?
Let’s take a look at the ins and outs of Internet Trump.
His Instagram videos are ‘the future of American politics’
Trump is fond of posting short clips to Instagram, as well as Vine, Twitter and Facebook. The brief videos evolved from his presence on YouTube (the Trump channel now has upwards of 1.3m views). Most of the clips consist of him yelling into a camera, flecks of spittle hitting the lens.
Trump’s 15-second Instagram shorts are the brainchild of his 29-year-old director of new media, Justin McConney. Costing nothing to produce, lo-fi, short and to the point, the spots are often picked up and run across mainstream TV networks. Essentially, Trump is gaining free TV advertising when it is estimated that 2016 presidential candidates will spend, together, $4.4bn (£2.9bn) on television campaigns. Trump has spent just 1% of the money Jeb Bush has on TV adverts. That’s an extraordinary figure, especially for a man of Trump’s wealth.
As well as the quick desk-based rants, Trump’s team also cut quick, slick videos, often featuring doom-laden music, out-of-context soundbites and black-and-white filters (a similar aesthetic to truthers). Again, the reach outweighs the shoddy production values. The video posted in Novermber of Hilary Clinton laughing over a wreckage in Bengazi is a good example.
Trump has now extended his video output, announcing that he will be holding weekly live-streams on Periscope. He’s not the first politician to use Periscope, but he is the first to announce a regular Q&A session.
Trump’s shorts aren’t always so slick, however, as the video of him being attacked by an American bald eagle attests.
The tradition of politicians adopting zeitgeist median
Goebbels had his Leni Riefenstahl films to (agit)prop up Hitler in the 1930s. Some of the most famous political speeches of all time came from Churchill, crackling over the radio during wartime, (or more specifically, from a voice actor), galvanising a nation. In the US, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “fireside chats” are the stuff of legend. John F. Kennedy, meanwhile, is known as the first TV president.
Donald Trump, in many ways, is carrying the baton from Barack Obama’s successful 2008 election campaign, which some called the Facebook election. That campaign saw Obama implement a digital team including 24-year-old Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes. Obama has since made many digital appointments, including Pfeiffer (who has since left), Matthew McGregor (who later worked for Labour in the UK) and former Twitter executive Jason Goldman as his chief digital officer.
For his part, Trump apparently sends the majority of his own tweets, especially in the evening, when his staff have gone home. “The two most important things for a celebrity on social media are to be authentic and to give your fans what they want”, says McConney, who does most of the video editing.
He’s a skilled live-tweeter
Trump’s Twitter coverage of major events has become a key part of his online presence. He first offered live reaction during the 2012 GOP debate (another idea of McConney’s). He has also live-tweeted the Oscars and Celebrity Apprentice, as well as the Democratic debate earlier this year – which prompted an excellent response from Hillary Clinton:
Most recently, he live-tweeted the latest Democratic debate which took place over the weekend, taunting Clinton for arriving late to the stage after she was caught in a queue for the bathroom during a commercial break. “It always helps to be talking about what’s trending at the moment,” says McConney. “I think it’s great for his fans to be able to watch these events and see his thoughts on them simultaneously.”
Live-tweeting an event is a fine art – especially when it’s a crowded field. Tweet an observation or joke that hundreds of others have already made and followers will be sure to let you know about it. But live-tweeting a popular event is an opportunity to engage with a wide audience in real time and Trump knows that.
#AskTrump
There were many online media round-ups of the most mocking, often scathing, responses to Trump’s #AskTrump question and answer session in September, with most outlets declaring that the exercise “backfired”. It may well have done, but the Q&A trended worldwide and the mogul answered many questions posed by challengers as well as supporters. He answered via his favoured method – the short video clip – rather than simple text.
Once again, he effortlessly dominated the conversation online which translated into mainstream media coverage. Some of the piss-taking tweets, were, however, hilarious.
He’s easily meme-able (and gullible)
Trump loves to talk about how high his IQ is – and how low everybody else’s is.
This despite the fact that nobody with any actual smarts believes an IQ score to be indicative of actual real world intelligence. In truth, Trump is often caught out by basic Twitter pranks. A particular trick he falls for, seemingly again and again, is retweeting photographs of well-known people when Twitter users dupe him into believing they are Trump supporters as opposed to, say, infamous murderers Fred and Rose West. He threatened to sue over that particular incident.
