As Meta introduced Threads and gave us yet another social media platform to consider (yeah!?), politics kept emerging as a topic of conversation.
Politicians were wondering if the media was taking it on as a priority, while the media was monitoring the adoption of Threads by the politicians.
That back-and-forth morphed into the topic of whether anyone even cares about what politicians say on any social platform.
The feedback?
Mainly, unless it is Mr. Donald J. Trump, it all reads like press release-ville. However, everyone’s gotta have some of it with the exception of some Republicans who don’t feel the need to have Threads at all.
Still, some like Chartwell Strategy’s Ozzie Palomo see benefit in at least viewing policy on the record.
“There are always new ways to utilize the medium, but by and large, campaigns will use it to release campaign ads, address specific issues via retweets, etc… and expand voter outreach,” he told me.
Translation: BORING.
As for Mr. Trump, who clouds out the sunshine from just about every other candidate, he hasn’t posted on Twitter in two and a half years — although technically, in the Musk-owned world, could whenever he wants.
But why would he want to? In many ways, he doesn’t need Twitter.
He’s not on Threads either — but neither is Ron DeSantis or Chris Christie — and basically, Trump uses his Truth Social platform and massive 34 million followers on Facebook, to go along with 23 million on Instagram. We’ve learned that even though Truth Social’s reach is a fraction of the other major social media outlets, places like Twitter end up with plenty of posts with his content from there anyway.
“Trump still uses social/digital the best,” admitted Palomo, a Republican strategist and early supporter of Nikki Haley for the Republican nomination. “Tim Scott has been good on socials. Haley does a good job. The Biden apparatus does well but mainly through the White House official channels which is an advantage for any incumbent.
“Trump, at times, overdoes it, and it becomes hard to cut through the clutter to find substance in his efforts.”
In terms of overall effort, former Vice President Mike Pence has the biggest following, mainly because of his huge head start, having spent four years in the White House. He has 5.7 million Twitter followers and 1.5 million on Instagram, more than any other candidate not named Trump.
As for Threads, it’s a mixed picture. As stated, DeSantis, Christie, and Trump aren’t even on it, while no one in the race has more than 35,000 followers – Mike Pence (32K) and Haley (26K) lead the way.
“Political campaigns tend to be early adopters of new mediums,” said Palomo, who corroborated last week’s column that there is real potential for people to associate Threads with the political left and Twitter with the right. “But beyond the initial splash of the Threads announcement, I personally haven’t heard much.”
Not much. The same can be said when answering why there isn’t much to talk about; politicians generally provide content that’s anywhere, everywhere … and it’s usually boring.
Over a three-decade career in politics and public policy, Heidi Tringe has worked at both the federal and state level. Currently, she focuses on communications and public affairs with representatives from both political parties.
She’s having none of it.
“Right now, I’m tuning them all out,” she told me. “They are all focused on the extreme most likely primary voters.”
To win a primary, conventional wisdom is that a candidate needs to win over the most extreme elements of a particular party. She knows it, and that’s why she’s ignoring it.
One of the more interesting elements of the discussion is that although most posts from politicians don’t generate much energy, their ads often do. In fact, ads can fuel the most engagement when re-posted on social channels.
“Twitter is still important and probably the most ‘current’”, Palomo said. “Still can’t discount TV ads and good ol’ fashion mail.”
Not email. But actual mail.
Why?
Even in 2023, campaigns still need to reach a broad range of demographics, and millions of people still only read the mail in the mailbox, and most social media posts are just digital pieces of junk mail cluttering up the digital mailbox.
And that’s no different than it was in 2020.
Brian Shactman is a weekly columnist for Barrett News Radio. In addition to writing for BNM, Brian can be heard weekday mornings in Hartford, CT on 1080 WTIC hosting the popular morning program ‘Brian & Company’. During his career, Brian has worked for ESPN, CNBC, MSNBC, and local TV channels in Connecticut and Massachusetts. You can find him on Twitter @bshactman.
