Will Chillary Clinton #FeelTheBern?

It’s no question that social media is the new frontier for political advocacy and advertising.

It has been since Obama’s initial campaign in 2008. This time around, candidates are already slated to spend more money on social media campaigns than ever before. To put it in proper perspective, a projection by Borrell Associates predicts that spending on now-traditional TV ads will rise 7% from 2012, compared to a staggering 600% rise in digital media spending. Social media presence can, and likely will, determine who wins the next election.

According to that same article, the candidates most readily embracing this reality are the Democrats. Yet based on my newsfeed, it’s here that accepted party frontrunner Hillary Clinton runs into a bit of a problem. The Millenial voters so desperately sought by each side of the aisle and so deeply entrenched in social media are decidedly ho-hum at the prospect of a Clinton presidency. This has resulted in an unfortunate foray into Snapchat that’s now the butt of jokes and proves this SNL cold open from April oddly prophetic.

Enter unlikely Millennial favorite: Bernie Sanders.

Sanders is unlikely in nearly all respects. He’s a 77-year-old white male career politician for one–not exactly the first person Millennials believe at first glance will be in their best interests. Yet on the other hand, he’s a self-described and unapologetic socialist, a title that inspires ulcers in Millennials’ conservative parents. Despite these odds, Sanders’ followers are only growing in passion and numbers, as anyone on social media will plainly see.

But is his digital media presence to thank for the rising support, or is it the other way around?

Bernie Sanders’ team, assuming he has one, doesn’t adhere to unspoken rules of social media. Where brevity, wit, and flashiness may be encouraged, he gives the opposite. His YouTube channel is made up mainly of speeches at least twelve minutes long, and his Facebook houses extra long status updates and quotes superimposed over images. His campaign account on Instagram seems sparsely used, and his Twitter spouts basic one-liner positions every hour or so with little to no context or explanation.

Yet where Clinton’s social media outreach seems gimmicky, Sanders’ posts seem sincere. That may well be because Sanders himself writes the majority of his updates. Clinton’s social media presence is very obviously the result of digital strategists desperate to bottle Obama’s 2008 success, and this renders a phoniness Millennials are quick to notice. Bernie Sanders, however, is merely being Bernie Sanders, and this apparent honesty coupled with socially progressive stances have spoken to the politically-active liberals on social media in a way that has inspired them to spread the word.

At the time of this writing, the hashtag paired with Clinton's Snapchat and merchandise (#ChillaryClinton) has been tweeted fewer than 200 times in the last 30 days, and most of those uses have been sarcastic. Meanwhile, Sanders’ equally lighthearted #FeelTheBern was tweeted 221 thousand times within the same time period, and it’s largely been used in tandem with sound bites, rally feeds, and political articles.

By this evidence alone, it appears Sanders’ social media presence is successful, though it would appear to be so more by perceived merit of content than snappy strategy. Sanders is most popular on the blogging site Tumblr, where the candidate doesn’t even have an official campaign account. Instead, supporters have taken it upon themselves to evangelize the virtues of Bernie over Hillary and to encourage voter turnout. This art piece (left) by Rachel Martin addressing his outlier status has been shared on the site more than 96 thousand times.

So if I had to summarize my thoughts on Bernie Sanders' social media presence into one point, it would be this:

Sanders is the only current presidential candidate I have seen any of my Millennial peers post about on social media with any semblance of positivity.

However, I think this is less because his social media campaign is run well and more because Millennials (or at least the ones I know) buy his anti-establishment rhetoric more readily than they believe Hillary’s attempt to relate through mobile video, and certainly more readily than they trust more socially conservative Republicans.

Maybe that means Sanders’ strategy should be to continue to appear that he doesn’t have a strategy–merely a message. It might work, but it probably isn't enough to overcome the weight of his outlier status. But one thing is for sure: when it comes to social media fervor, Chillary Clinton is feeling The Bern.

#mcom241 #politics #socialmedia #BernieSanders #HillaryClinton