Democrats reexamine their social media game after losing to Trump: Not 'direct' or 'authentic'
Some Democrats are warning their party's leadership that Republicans won the election by using new media, like podcasts and social media, more effectively to reach independent voters, according to a new report.
President-elect Donald Trump used social media strategically during his campaign, leveraging podcast interviews to impact the election more than celebrity endorsements or liberal legacy media, according to a new report from The Washington Post.
Popular progressive YouTuber and political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen said that Democrats need to reach voters in the social media ecosystem or risk losing ground to conservatives.
"Democrats are, in general, way more careful, way more deliberate about the places that we choose to go," Cohen said. "But the reality is that in this media environment, you can reach the political people if you want, but that's not going to be enough to swing the election," he added.
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"If you're looking to persuade voters, you have to get out there in culture, in sports, and we've ceded that ground to the right," Cohen continued. "We do have to, like, reclaim a lot of this space otherwise, otherwise we're not going to be able to win."
Senior director at influencer agency People First, Magda Muszynska Chafitz, said that Republican influencers played a key role in convincing voters that Trump beat Vice President Harris in the presidential debate in September.
"Even though the [Harris] campaign invited influencers to her event, the content posts felt more polished, more produced, more edited," Chafitz said.
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"Harris's team ultimately failed to embrace direct/authentic engagement by treating creators as 'media outlets' instead of partners," political analyst Rachel Janfaza said. "The content that the Trump campaign put out on TikTok felt more cultural than it did political. And I think that's where one of their strengths was," she added.
"There seems to be a large degree of gatekeeping among people at the people on the left, and that has some detrimental effects," Cohen said. "We have the better message. We just have to make sure that people hear it at this point, and there has to be more of an openness on the left to go into places that aren't necessarily safe, that aren't necessarily comfortable."
Harris avoided more challenging podcasts like Joe Rogan's, instead preferring more softball venues like ABC's "The View," CBS's "Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and "The Howard Stern Show."