Lessons from Trump’s and Harris’s Social Media Campaigns

Watching the home stretch of the election online was a fascinating case study, on two different ideas of what the internet is and how to use it, playing out in real time. Obviously, the result ended in Trump winning not just the electoral college but the popular vote as well. 

Of course, how each candidate utilized the internet is not the only reason for this outcome. But examining the way each candidate used the internet in their campaign, especially in the final weeks (and even after the election), is quite revealing.

Let me be very clear: this has nothing to do with who I preferred to win the election. This isn’t about the quality of candidates at all. This is an exercise in examining the strengths and weaknesses of their online campaigns. Proceed accordingly.

Viral Moments: Planned vs. Responsive

We’ll get to the Joe Rogan podcast, but before the podcast even happened, Trump had his two most viral moments in response to things that Harris and Biden said on the campaign trail. Harris claimed she worked at McDonald’s during college, so Trump actually went and worked a shift at McDonald’s and brought his photographer around, giving us photos that—love him or hate him—can only be described as iconic.

Likewise, after President Biden called Trump supporters “garbage,” Trump did a press conference from the front seat of a garbage truck and then delivered a rally speech wearing the reflective vest that garbage workers wear.

Trump consistently found ways to take his opponents’ comments and turn them into viral moments. He didn’t have a perfectly-laid-out six-month strategy that he tried to execute perfectly. He reacted and was responsive to the moment.

By contrast, Kamala Harris attempted to create viral moments, like having Megan Thee Stallion perform at her rally, which, well, didn’t go exactly as planned. The viral moments she did have were gaffs of hers from before the campaign began, like the infamous coconut tree meme or canned one-liners like “unburdened by what has been.” When she began her campaign, she declared it was a “brat summer” and adopted the branding of Charli XCX. Hip, sure, but the message clearly didn’t land with voters in battleground states and minority voters. Harris failed to create authentic moments that make her look good while allowing her voters to actually get to know her or give them something to share with others and rally behind.

What Trump understands, probably better than anyone else (sans Taylor Swift), is the power of the image. The image of Trump at McDonald’s, Trump in the garbage truck, and Trump shouting “Fight!” mere seconds after being shot are all, in their own right, powerful, iconic, and historical images. Like him or not, they will be printed in future history books. Harris wasn’t able to produce anything close to those images.

And to highlight his responsiveness, Trump released a GaryVee style video of him dictating tweets while watching Harris’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. It’s a responsive video of him responding to something happening in real time. Trump’s online campaign was defined by responsiveness, while Harris’s was defined by executing a planned strategy.

Conversations: Cut vs. Uncut

It’s time to talk about Rogan. What we’re hearing right now is that one of Trump’s staffers came up with a list of podcasts for him to go on, and he cut them off and told them to run the list by his son, Barron. Trump seemingly doesn’t have a problem going off of qualitative data. He wants to know who his son listens to in order to determine which shows he should go on. So he went on Adin Ross, Theo Von, Joe Rogan, and others that I’ve never heard of because I am not, in fact, 18 years old anymore. Each of these reached tens of millions of viewers, with the Joe Rogan interview racking up 46 million views in less than a week.

But it wasn’t just the views. These were long-form uncut conversations. The only ones I personally watched were Joe Rogan’s interviews with Trump and Vance. That means by the end of just those two videos alone, I had spent six uncut hours with the Trump ticket. Sure, there were side conversations about the UFC and other things in there, but they had enough space to spend time on multiple different key issues. They didn’t get to everything I would have liked them to, but they talked about much more than I had heard before then.

Wanting to be fair, I listened to what podcasts I could find from Kamala Harris; there was only one—her appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast. The podcast was 45 minutes long and had multiple ad breaks. Maybe I didn’t look in the right spot, but I couldn’t find the full video, only a clip from it. The conversation was at its most substantive when talking about the issue of sexual assault. The only other issue that was discussed was abortion. Most of the rest of the conversation had little to nothing to do with how she would govern. 

Harris also went on 60 Minutes. However, the people that she needed to win with simply don’t watch 60 Minutes like they used to. The media environment has completely changed. And even if they were inclined to, finding out that 60 Minutes edited the interview to remove a gaff didn’t help the public’s trust in her or legacy media at all.

When I finished the Call Her Daddy podcast, I walked away feeling like I was slightly more informed about Harris than I was before. When I finished the Joe Rogan interviews, I couldn’t shake the feeling that political media had changed forever. They represented unprecedented access to the thoughts (and maybe more importantly, the thought process) of a former and future president in ways that simply had never happened before. Disagree with Trump all you want, but what is inarguable is that we have never before been able to hear, to this extent, a candidate talk about what they want to do and why they want to do it.

Takeaways

What should we take away from this? I think there are at least three important takeaways.

1. Authenticity Works. This word is overplayed, but we saw it play out in this election. Trump was able to create authentic moments that spoke both to his supporters and those who were undecided. Harris attempted to execute a plan and manufacture relevance. It’s clear which one succeeded in reaching voters. Authenticity didn’t look like “joy” and concerts at rallies; it looked like being able to sit down and have a conversation like a human being.
2. Long-Form vs. Short-Form. Short-form video has obviously exploded over the past several years, led by TikTok. And while it certainly has its own sort of power, what is clear is that having a media diet that consists almost entirely of short-form video is the worst epistemological diet someone could have. TikTok acknowledges that they filter people into “bubbles” after as little as 20 minutes of app usage. Seeing a whole bunch of TikTok videos from one perspective tells you virtually nothing about reality. Being able to spend three hours with one person gives you enough information to begin to form an actual opinion for or against them. I don’t think short-form is going anywhere in terms of quantity, but the long-form is time and again being proven as a viable form of media that is qualitatively better than short-form—and people will consume it.
3. Native Content Is Still King. Harris attempted to translate things she was doing on the campaign trail onto social media, whether that was speeches, concerts, or other snippets. Trump created moments for social media. Social media was his primary medium, not an add-on. Harris opted for a “Target During Pride Month” strategy, while Trump opted for a Rogan/GaryVee/Casey Neistat strategy. The native content Trump created worked in his favor.

I’m sure there are more lessons than just these three. And who knows, maybe I’m being too harsh on the Harris campaign. But it’s clear that they had entirely different approaches to social media and one of them moved the needle enough to reach a landslide victory’s worth of voters. Regardless of what you think of the outcome, there are lessons to be learned here in terms of online strategy.