Reset week. It’s like shark week, but better, and if this email was forwarded to you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Jump in! The water’s warm!
One Question
Thank you to everyone who answered last week’s One Question about which social media metrics are worth measuring! Wow you guys had some thoughts…and they were a little surprising. Here’s what I learned after asking an audience of digital operatives in 2023 about social media metrics: we’re definitely not all on the same page. Or me. Maybe it’s just me. Out of everyone who responded, 80% of you said you measure reach and total engagements. About half of you also said followers and impressions. Only 20% of respondents, however, chose follower growth, which kinda makes me feel like I’m on a lonely island. Where’s the Growth Mindset, people!? If you’re not growing, you’re losing. At least that’s what I like to say. But seriously…if you’re not utilizing your platform to try and broaden your audience (win over hearts and minds and all that!) then really - what’s the point? Email me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com and tell me why I’m wrong!
Oh, and when asked about whether vanity metrics still matter, one of you hilarious people said “They do to smaller candidates because they need more yard signs…I mean followers. “
Harsh! But also: truth hurts - I get it!
This week’s one question is about everyone’s FAV social media platform these days: Twitter. Or should I say X? As digital operatives, how do we feel about the future of Twitter and Elon Musk’s rebrand?
Who’s Doing What
--X…Y?
The Twitter reset. Let’s just talk about it, shall we? For starters, who else spent literally the entire week staring at the 12 million open tabs on their browser window searching for the little blue bird? Just me? Cool.
The Twitter rebranding is old news by now, but it’s worth pausing to think about what it means for political campaigning. If I were a marketing/branding guru, I’d be cringing so hard right now. Why force a rebrand when the entire world is familiar with Twitter, the blue bird, and tweets? Seems like a lose-lose. But I’m not in the corporate marketing world; I view everything through a political lens and in that sense, I’m optimistic about Elon Musk’s move here. It’s simple: The more Elon Musk makes big, splashy news with Twitter, the more eyeballs will be on it. The more eyeballs there are, the more opportunities to capture a voter with a message. AND I don’t think I’m going out on too much of a limb here by saying a majority of those eyeballs will be Republican-minded voters who get excited about things like free speech, Tucker Carlson, and Turning Point USA conferences. Just saying. (I know, I know. The platform is supposedly heading for a long, painful death. I remain unconvinced).
The whole thing reminds me of when Apple killed the headphone jack from iPhones back in 2016. At the time I remember being highly annoyed by what I perceived as a company forcing me to change my behavior without my consent. And then it took me like .5 seconds to adapt and move on. I’m guessing that’s what Elon is banking on here. Will it work? Who knows. Meanwhile, Twitter (X?) remains in the news. What I want to know is who’s going to be the first candidate to refer to X and X’s.
--Y Tu, Microsoft?
Xander, owned by Microsoft, is banning political ads and it’s absurd. I find this highly irritating, and I’m glad I’m not alone. The AAPC also condemned the ban, saying in a statement that “by imposing sweeping bans on legitimate advertising, Xandr is curtailing the free exchange of ideas that allow individuals to make informed decisions on critical issues.” Yes, this is a “sloppy” approach to a problem that the vast majority of political advertisers didn’t create but are being punished for anyway. Private companies can do what they want, but it’s amazing to me how many of them routinely think suppressing free (political) speech is a good business strategy. Unfortunately, moves like this won’t make waves because it’s so niche and no one with a megaphone big enough cares enough to make an issue out of it.
--Spammy email chronicles
Sometimes even I fall for them. Don’t @ me - I’m only human! This NRCC email got me good on Friday, not gonna lie.
--I watched the Tucker Carlson-Ice Cube Interview so you don’t have to
Ok I watched like half of it. But still. Some questions.
Will Tucker have to rebrand “Tucker on Twitter” and if so, does “Tucker on X” really have the same ring to it??
Apparently Oprah censors free speech, too. Ok that’s not a question, just a fact.
This is Tucker’s first guest on “Tucker on Twitter,” right? Interesting choice.
Ice Cube got canceled because he was willing to talk to the Trump Administration. I buy that, but it begs the question: Why wasn’t Kim Kardashian canceled? Can someone please explain this to me.
2024 Roundup
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez also decided to use Biden economic relief cards as a fundraising tactic. Politico picked it up here.
DeSantis-supporting Never Back Down PAC released a new ad attacking Donald Trump for his criticism of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds. Watch it on Twitter here. And do what you will with this hot take.
Mike Pence’s campaign knocked Ron DeSantis for saying he’d be open to having RFK JR lead the FDA or CDC. See the statement here.
Team Nikki Haley also took a swipe at DeSantis this week for spending money on private jets. See Haley’s Press Secretary Ken Farnasso’s tweet here. They even sent out a fundraising email on it…See the WinRed page for it here.
The Donald Trump campaign is using those Notes-style, text-heavy fundraising ads we’ve come to see a lot from the Democrats. See an example here.
Larry Elder, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum were all guests on the Ruthless Podcast. Listen to each here, here, and here.
The Republican Accountability PAC is out with a new 30-second anti-Trump ad. Watch it here.
Who’s Spending Where
From July 21 - 27, the largest conservative spender on Facebook ads was Sound of Freedom Movie at $1.2 million. Can’t stop won’t stop! PragerU came in a distant second with $160,500, while Perry Johnson for President spent about $122,000. Americans for Prosperity spent $105,000 on some new ads about the meaning of prosperity. SOS America PAC rounds out the top 5 with about $95,000 in ad spend - mainly to get Francis Suarez on the debate stage.
The top conservative spender on Google between July 21 -27 was Vivek 2024, with about $80,000 in spend. SOS America PAC spent around $52,000 on fundraising ads, while Kentucky Values came in third place with $38,000 in ads attacking Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear (though they might want to fix their website?) Doug Burgum for America spent $37,000 on ads, while Tim Scott for America rounds out the top 5 with about $33,000 in ads
P2
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Industry Watch
Buckle up, people. File this under “Actions Have Consequences”. According to a release from the Department of Justice:
TIMOTHY SHEA was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres to 63 months in prison for his role in carrying out a scheme to defraud hundreds of thousands of donors in connection with an online crowdfunding campaign known as “We Build The Wall” by soliciting donations using false statements and then stealing the resulting donations, as well as laundering the proceeds of the fraud scheme and attempting to obstruct the federal criminal investigation of the scheme.
Do not. Defraud. Donors. I repeat: Do not. Defraud. Donors. Also, their scheme raised $25,000,000. !!!
The Grapevine
First off, some DeSantis reset stuff:
IMGE’s Ethan Eilon has been named Deputy Campaign Director for Ron DeSantis. Congrats, Ethan! Always cool to see digital people get elevated.
Nate Hochman was let go from the DeSantis campaign. I won’t pile on the anti-Nate hate…but woof.
Now…for a pivot. Many of you probably know Sondra Clark, Digital Strategist and former WH Director of Digital Marketing. If you do, you probably also saw her LinkedIn post a couple weeks ago about Threads. If not, go read it here. Sondra made a ton of good points in the post while urging elected officials to get on the app. But now that we’re a few weeks into Thread-mania and some are starting to waffle on the platform, I thought it worth checking in. Lucky for you (and me!) she agreed to answer a few questions for Doomscrollers about where she stands on Threads now. Thank you, Sondra!
A couple of weeks ago, you wrote a post on LinkedIn and told elected officials to get on Threads TODAY. Do you still stand by that advice?
New platforms create a gold rush, where many people initially join, but then engagement drops off. If you aren’t an early adopter, you might miss out on staking your claim to get a bunch of easy “follows”... if the platform develops staying power.
I still hold that elected officials, candidates, and organizations should create an account and post enough content to avoid looking inactive. But the current outlook doesn’t look great for politics. Officials I work with are seeing anemic engagement and even slower growth. The Meta team has indicated there are changes coming in discovery, search, and hashtags, but those aren’t out yet, putting hopes of discovery back on the same abusive algorithm as Instagram. It’s not time to give up, but investment in new content won’t be rewarded right now.
We’re barely a month out and still learning best practices–but it doesn’t hurt to have a junior staffer repurpose the most shared images from Instagram, the most replied-to-tweets (or X’s now?) from Twitter/X and the most commented articles on Facebook.
How do you think elected officials or candidates running for office should think about using Threads? Like, what kind of content should they post there? What makes it different - if anything - than Twitter from a content perspective?
The major social networks with staying power have their own “digital language.” Instagram capitalized on images, TikTok on short-form videos, and now we have Twitter and Threads duking it out for short-form text content.
Threads is still sorting out its digital language. Right now, it seems to be more water-cooler than press conference.
Best practices on Twitter/X hold true for Threads. Relatable content does well. Unsurprisingly, a Ted Cruz post about propaganda in the Barbie movie or Marsha Blackburn talking about guitars with Mr. Wonderful do better than policy-related posts. Content that makes you say “hell yes” is driving likes, and content that makes people say “hell no” are driving engagement and replies. Those replies are typically coming from the Left, but engagement is engagement.
Have you seen anyone in the political sphere use Threads really well so far?
Those who naturally do well on Twitter and who had a large Instagram audience are doing better, but no one on the right is truly thriving. Rep. Matt Gatez , Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Senator Ted Cruz are all doing a good job at maining a presence.
Individual influencers and thought leaders seem to be fairing slightly better than accounts of elected officials or candidates. Huge Instagram accounts like Rogan O’Handley, Graham Allen or Brandon Tatum are doing better than most on Threads but only seeing a fraction of their audience transfer. Ironically, their posts complaining about threads censorship have been driving the most engagement.
Campaigns and offices should look for ways to leverage the individual voices of trusted staff and supporters for key messages and then share that 3rd party validation on their feed. (On threads and all social)
Got a tip for The Grapevine? Job announcement? Job opening? Fav summer cocktail? Email ‘em to me at itsthedoomscroll@gmail.com
Last But Not Least
From the other side of the aisle:
A loyal reader sent me this Washington Post article earlier this week and told me to read it. I’ll be honest, my first thought was “Y” (lol). But then it made sense. There’s some interesting stuff here, when taken in context. Context like the fact that The Biden campaign combined its 2nd Quarter fundraising numbers with the DNC - which many people pointed out was in order to make it look like the re-election campaign raised more than it actually did. On top of that, there’s been a few recent stories about how Biden 2024 is relying heavily - very heavily - on the DNC. See Exhibit A:
Biden is running a lean campaign, but look at him! He hired two Democrat Party data bigwigs which is super cool, but they’re joining a “skeleton staff” that’s relying on the DNC. Biden’s running a “hidden” campaign built on a “unique” and “historic” relationship with the national committee. The Biden Campaign doesn’t even have an office! Woah. Biden is running a campaign that relies on the DNC - an apparatus that Obama shunned! Wow!
Ok so the DNC is doing some cool stuff on the data and digital front….But notice how all the process coverage of the Biden re-elect has a total “wow, look at him go!” vibe, but it’s actually ignoring the real story here? ::dons tin foil hat:: It’s a lot easier to slide someone not named Joe Biden into the top of the ticket if the Democratic Party’s bid for the presidency in 2024 is being run by the DNC and not by a Biden re-election campaign.
The cookie crumbs always lead somewhere, my friends!
From the other side of the tracks:
Thinking about how to drum up more engagement on social media? Tommy Clark had some good tips in his newsletter a couple weeks ago. I have to say though, as someone who works in politics, tweeting something like that first example (see image below) makes me way too nervous. Too many ways to get burned! Ha. Anyway, read up!
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading! Did you like it? Consider forwarding to your friends!