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Tips & Tricks

Here's How the Clinton Campaign's Social Strategy Stands Out

Hillary Clinton is attempting to crack the toughest glass ceiling in America with the help of a solid social strategy and some thoughtfully targeted content.

She’s come a long way since 2008. From inauthentic to receptive, Hillary Clinton’s social media strategy sparked into something memorable. Not just because she might be the first female President of the United States, either. Hillary has drawn in young voters and other Bernie-backers with a twist of storytelling that makes her much more approachable. It’s a kinder, gentler Hillary.

Blending humor with the high road.

Part of the success surrounding Clinton’s social strategy is that she doesn’t engage in name calling, or take bait thrown out by the Trump campaign. Her social media content is typically infused with humor, but it always takes the high road. If there’s any negative speak coming from the Clinton camp, it pushes forth from followers who add their own perspectives to what’s been said or done. Clinton’s team simply won’t go there on its own.
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Quoting Michelle Obama’s now-famous line from the 2016 Democratic convention, “When they go low, we go high,” Secretary Clinton has incorporated that thinking into her speeches and online content. The social strategy for Clinton’s campaign has been to let Trump fall on his own sword when it comes to speaking out about important issues.

Turning Trump’s words into campaign strategy.

Trump makes it easy for the Clinton campaign to craft strategies around his outspoken discourse. Take, for example, “Trump Yourself,” which adds his inflammatory statements directly to Facebook and Twitter feeds. The tactic brought on a whopping 46,500 tweets for the hashtag #TrumpYourself, clearly a successful slice of that larger strategy.
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Being positive and letting Trump own the negativity in his campaign works for Clinton, especially amongst younger voters, whose support she needs. And along the way, Clinton’s marketing team figured out the two things that young voters want more than anything in their content: authenticity and a good story. Clinton is delivering big time on both fronts.

Reaching younger voters with relatable stories.

After Clinton lost to Obama in the 2008 primaries, she developed an image problem of inauthenticity. As a revamped strategy for 2016, Clinton’s team launched a young voter outreach, looking to grab those coveted votes after her defeat of Bernie Sanders in the primaries. She aimed for a relatable image to become more personable online and off by storytelling with nostalgia and relevancy.
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In a speech given to Temple University students in September, Clinton said, “Now, I know that with so much negativity out there, it is really easy to get cynical—especially about our politics. I remember wrestling with that challenge when I was a student during the Vietnam War. It can be tempting to think that no one will tell you the truth and nothing’s ever going to change. But you’re here today because you refuse to accept cynicism.”
Clinton became a millennial heroine that day—she revealed some of her own personal struggles with idealism and fighting the big fight for a better life. Only time will tell if it will be all that Hillary needs to win, but either way, her revamped online persona has been one masterfully memorable social strategy. And that’s the truth.

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