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Social Media and Authenticity:
An Observation of Democratic
Presidential Campaigns
Laura Lueninghoener
IDIS 399 Senior Capstone

Abstract
This dissertation is an observance of authenticity in the online sphere and how users respond to
positive content. It uses different theoretical social media models to explain why and how people
react to stimuli through the paradigm of American politics. This dissertation compares and
contrasts the Presidential social media campaigns of President Barack Obama in 2008 and
current Democratic candidate Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. Both of these campaigns
have cultivated parallel ideals, values, and strategies for engaging the young voters (ages
18-29) on social networking sites.
In all of the research materials I found on authenticity, every source stated that authenticity is
socially constructed and is difficult to pinpoint a specific definition or example. Depending on the
situation or type of research, the definition or parameters of authenticity changes. It is often
most easily described as “I know it when I see it” or “I know what it is not”. For the purposes of
this dissertation, authenticity is outlined as the engagement of voters on social media whether
that is reposting, retweeting, liking, creating user-generated content, or organizing virtual or
physical events. The reason behind this specific definition is because users of social media tend
to only engage with content they find believable or like, especially in politics.
Barack Obama’s 2008 Campaign
Election Breakdown
At the end of 2006, hardly anyone in the United States had heard of Senator Barack Obama
from Illinois. Just two years later, not only had Barack secured the Democratic nomination, but
also the presidency. Obama’s campaign was unique not because he was the first non-white

citizen to be elected, but because his campaign was the first to engage the youth vote on the
social media platforms they used daily.
There were three main reasons why Obama won the Presidential election: more Republicans
voted for Obama than Democrats voted for McCain, Sarah Palin was not the strongest
Vice-Presidential running mate, and Obama was able to energize and mobilize the youth vote
by successfully running an interactive social media campaign. In the end, 23 million youths
voted for Obama and this is most attributed to fifteen different social media platforms that the
Obama campaign actively managed with five million supporters on the social networks
collectively (Parikh 16).
The 2008 presidential election was the first time that social media was a crucial deciding factor
in managing a successful campaign. The Internet experienced a social boom with the volume of
users and content growing exponentially. Between December 2004 to July 2008, Facebook
increased the number of users from 1 million to 90 million, which tripled the number of engaged
persons (Alexandrova 20). Statistics shows that one out of every three voters who used the
Internet had at least one profile on a social media networking site during the election period.
This base of actively engaged voters not only consumed campaign-generated media, but
created it. User-generated media was able to create and support communities where
like-minded individuals share thoughts, read new opinions, and discuss the new hot issues of
the week. The most prevalent of these communities were found on YouTube and blogs. Users
were directed to these sites via Facebook or Twitter.

The ability of the campaign to connect voters together was integral for the success of the
Obama team. During the Internet boom between 2004 and 2008, voters had grown accustomed
to connecting with each other on social media sites daily, so personability and individuality was
a normal occurrence. The necessity of engaging voters in this way was transferred into voting
tactics. Since this was now a normal part of everyday life, voters expected the same type of
connection from political campaigns.
As the election progressed, voters expressed the desire for more personal information about
candidates instead of more information about voting record or policy platform. Customers,
Padar maintains, buy feelings and often do not care about qualifications. People instead focus
on how voters are treated, whether the campaign listens, and what services are being offered to
engage people in the process (Padar 1). Enabling person-to-person connections using social
media drives content and relatability among users.
Qualitative interviews conducted with American youth who voted for Obama in the 2008 election
revealed some very important qualifications for those considering to run for office (Parikh 3).
Most respondents revealed that a candidate’s persona -- classified as charisma, character, or
ability to communicate -- and values were important factors in their voting decision. Youth
consistently used social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to
form an overall understanding of candidates, express personal opinions, display allegiance and
actively support a campaign (Parikh 3). This created a greater transparency between voters and
politicians which resulted in a sense of authenticity (Parikh 4).

Projecting authenticity requires three things: a visible identity claim, a credible purported
identity, and an identity that is perceived as reflecting the meaning of authenticity in question
(Glenn, et al). Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg says people want online interactions
supported by an “authentic” identity (Krotoski). The value in creating a platform that confidently
provides media consumers assurance and evidence about a person is critical to a social
network’s success. Creating a platform where a candidate is disconnected from the projected
persona to voters is detrimental to the campaign. Since the Obama campaign was able to
embody an authentic platform that resonated with younger voters and engaged them in the
voting process, Barack was able to win with an excess of over 200 electoral votes. This is a feat
that had not been accomplished in the previous few elections, especially between President
Bush and candidate Al Gore.
Walk For Change
This part of the Obama campaign was a national grassroots canvassing program. In 2007, other
presidential campaigns had not attempted to do anything similar to the Obama team. Every
state ran this grassroots campaign before each caucus was held, including the early states of
Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. The goal of this campaign was to build a
broader movement of voters and to get more people involved in the voting process. Frequent
emails were used to motivate people as the main driving force behind this part of the campaign.
One of the most successful aspects of Walk for Change paired people who had donated to the
Obama campaign already with those who had not yet donated. Statistically, most of the people
who donated to the Obama campaign contributed more than once. So, in order to increase the

amount of money donated, this program asked those who had already donated if they would be
willing to match a donation if a new donor contributed money. Additionally, they reached out to
new potential donors telling them a donor would match what they gave if they donated during a
specific timeframe. The campaign did their best to match these two groups of people and drive
dollar amounts. In the end, it worked extremely well because it not only involved getting new
people involved, but it also made people feel like an individual could make a difference in who
was elected as the forty-fourth President of the United States (Parikh 10).
The reframing of the original experience for the donors helped shape another’s persona in the
fundraising subculture. By connecting new and old donors through storytelling, the Obama
campaign was able to help people define their self-identities and gain recognition from others
(Leigh, et al 484). This type of marketing, especially on social media, motivates media
consumers to act and become personally invested in the process.
Email campaign
Obama’s email strategy was carefully constructed to make each individual feel important. When
the campaign started in a new area, an email with salutation as “Friend -” and signed by
Michelle Obama was sent out to a base of people. This email encouraged voters to learn more
about her husband’s campaign and to consider giving a donation of any amount. It also
encouraged people to volunteer if they had the time to donate. A few days later, an email with
the same “Friend -” greeting and donation information was sent out and signed by Barack.

All emails were personalized with short videos and careful usage of I, we, and you pronouns
(Digital Training Academy 3-6). The writing was conversational and easy to read since it was
formatted into short, distinctive paragraphs. Over the course of the entire campaign, over one
billion emails were sent to Obama supporters. This included 10,000 unique messages targeted
at specific segments of the thirteen million member mailing list (Digital Training Academy 7).
On caucus and election days, several emails were sent out encouraging people exercise their
constitutional right to vote. It also listed the correct location and open hours of voting booths for
each person. This was done through the creation of email listings that were put together based
upon content or similar voter attributes. In battleground states, volunteers knocked on doors and
offered transportation in vans to voting booths.
Facebook and Twitter
These two platforms will be considered together since they accomplished similar feats, even
though they reached people in different ways. Twitter is a platform where people tweet up to
140 characters several times a day to share thoughts, feelings, accomplishments, or opinions.
Users of Facebook post short and lengthy statuses once or twice a day to share things going on
in their life or vent about a particular topic.
Half of Obama’s social media supporters, 2.5 million, were on Facebook. This was four times
more than McCain’s following. On Twitter, Obama had 115,000 followers, which was
twenty-three times more than McCain. Having this presence on Twitter proved to be integral in
getting people out to the polls on election night. The Obama campaign partnered with Twitter

which enabled voters to use a toll free number and a locator to find the appropriate voting booth
(Chang, et al 16).
Both of these platforms were used to display allegiance or vent frustrations about candidates or
opponents and served as a launch pad to connect users to other social media sites (Parikh 4).
Surprisingly, Facebook and Twitter were not used as an avenue for voters to learn about
candidates or their policies, even though these two platforms were the most frequency used
social media sites on a day-to-day basis. Instead, they were a way for people to learn about
what blogs, articles, and videos friends and family were reading or watching. These resources
covered anything from personal to political issues for each candidate (Parikh 5). Most
importantly, these platforms caused a domino effect by sharing information via millions of
reposts and retweets. This caused tens of millions of messages to appear on other people’s
Facebook and Twitter feeds (Digital Training Academy 9).
As a collective group, people that use Facebook and Twitter are skeptical of mainstream media
and other institutions which they perceive to be solely bent on making. The 2013 Millennial
Impact Research study found that users expected to learn about and follow the causes they
cared about most through the same channels they used to connect with their friends and make
decisions about products and services (Holtzclaw 21). Millennials on the Internet trust each
other for information over corporate sites. This is indicative of Facebook and Twitter; however,
they do not get the information from these sites directly. They use Facebook and Twitter to find
user-generated blogs, reviews, and other social media platforms they believe are authentic.
These external sources of information are an important driver in their overall decision about

political and personal issues. Since young voters tend to find exclusive sources for information,
this is a humongous influencer of this generation (Holtzclaw 20).
YouTube
This particular platform was valued to be worth over $47 million to the 2008 Obama campaign.
Over the course of the election period, 50 million viewers spend 14 million hours watching
campaign-related videos on the platform. Obama’s channel had four times more hours watched
than McCain’s channel. Over 1,800 videos were uploaded to the Obama channel that were
viewed over 110 million times. “YouTube gave us the chance to talk directly to the American
people,” said the Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe in his interview with Digitak (Digital
Training Academy 11). “We could say what we wanted to say without it being edited down to a
tiny soundbite. This changed the quality of the debate and allowed us to talk about real issues,
issues that mattered to Americans.” (Digital Training Academy 11)
This social media platform automatically archived content and allowed it to be constantly used
and reviewed, which enabled the campaign team to make it a primary source of information for
voters (Digital Training Academy 10). This platform also had a dual purpose; user-generated
content was extremely valuable on this platform. Content in the form of rants, reviews, and
opinions on YouTuber channels allowed voters to follow a community and stay engaged in the
long-winded election process.
In order for presidential campaigns to be successful, it has to start with an understanding of
consumer conversation and characteristics. This first starts with first listening to what existing

online communities are saying before developing a plan. Doing so will allow pertinent content to
be generated and connect users of media together. The Obama campaign executed this
extremely well. Additionally, consumers of media are more likely to respond if they can interact
and help others. This is done on the YouTube platform in the form of commenting on videos.
The self-fulfillingness of helping others or feeling like someone has a voice is a powerful tool to
leverage social media in the conversation and effectively manage voter-politician relationships
(Casronovo & Huang 121).
BarackObama.com
This platform was a central digital asset for the Obama campaign (Digital Training Academy 7).
The website was a hub for connecting users to all fifteen social media platforms the campaign
managed. It also sent out emails linked with content from House Parties, local commentary, and
attached speeches and videos that were broadcast. The overall management of this website
was groundbreaking at the heart of the entire social media campaign since users only had to go
to one space to find everything they could want to read, watch, or follow.
MyBarackObama.com allowed individuals to connect to one another and to pledge themselves
on behalf of the campaign. During the time of the 2008 election period, two million profiles were
created and registered users and volunteers planned over 200,000 offline events, wrote
400,000 blog posts, and created 35,000 volunteer groups. The site generated $30 million on
70,000 personal fundraising pages and 6.5 million donations totaling more than $500 million
were made. Out of the 6.5 million donations, 6 million of them were in increments of $100 or

less. The average donation was $80 and average donor contributed more than once (Chang, et
al 16).
This particular campaign utilized these tools effectively and was able to tie communications into
the grassroots strategy. Traditional campaigns typically focused on getting votes and money,
but the Obama team’s grassroots effort additionally asked for time. This fostered an
environment where involvement and engagement were in play, unlike the other campaigns. In
addition, Obama supporters were publicly acknowledged for participating in the campaign. For
example, the content and video teams showcased the 750,000 donor on the Obama blog, email
list, and campaign website (Chang, et al 18).
The overall concept of MyBarackObama.com is interesting because the public uses social
media sites more frequently than corporate websites when searching for information on a
company, brand, or product; however, this site was heavily used. The suspecting reason behind
this is the organization’s perceived transparency and authenticity, which are crucial for
cultivating quality relationships with its stakeholders and boosting public trust (Men, et al 423).
Regardless, the paradigm shift from public relations to public engagement has inspired a new
way of effectively engaging those who have been previously absent from the voting process.
The authentic enterprise has created a new public relations model.
Blogs

These were starting to really trend during the 2004 to 2008 period. While the Internet was trying
to figure out how to utilize these effectively, the Obama campaign jumped ahead of the game
and used bloggers to their advantage. During press releases, caucuses, or other PR events, the
Obama team was the only political campaign to give media passes to bloggers. Many
campaigns did not see the importance of bloggers and denied them passes when they asked for
them. Thus, the bloggers had to sit in the back of the stadium with the other attendees. The
Obama campaign always immediately gave bloggers the media passes because they saw the
influences of user-generated content on voters. Putting the bloggers at the front of the room with
the other journalists allowed them to obtain any information they needed to write their pieces in
order to connect to their personal followers. Blogs were mainly used to paint fuller pictures of
candidates such as information about politician families, past speeches given, gossip news, and
entertainment shows on which candidates had appeared (Parikh 25). This was the type of
information young voters were looking for, so giving the media passes to the bloggers was an
extremely intelligent move for the Obama campaign.
So many people follow bloggers because they are seen as authentic and human. They use tight
themes to create personable voices and generate the best blog. Overall, the goal of blogs are to
provide value to the reader by reporting on personally interesting topics. This is most
successfully done by remaining in the active voice and addressing the audience directly
(Landry).
After the Election

The relationship with voters continued after the Obama campaign was over. “The campaign
needed to continue moving message, involving Americans in the way our government works,
getting them to support ongoing rapid change once The President was in office,“ said David
Plouffe. “We knew this meant the campaign couldn’t stop - the job wasn’t done” (Digital Training
Academy 13). Immediately after the official announcement of Barack Obama being elected
president, three million mobile and social networking site subscribers received the message, “All
this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack”.
Additionally, the Obama campaign sold commemorative tee shirts to keep the newly-created
voter base engaged (Digital Training Academy 14). When running for the 2012 election, the
Obama campaign was able to return to the previously established base and successfully
contact them to help secure the presidency for a second consecutive term. An enormous
attribute to the success of the campaign was the authenticity and personability created and
nurtured all eight years.
Summary
Polls, petitions, emails, and calls to opponents were part of channeling the energy of millions of
people motivated by the campaign into a focus that could be used as evidence to support the
demand for change (Digital Training Academy 16). An overwhelming support of new voters
came from the category of under the age of thirty; Obama was able to win two-thirds of these
voters. This is a substantially higher number than those that supported the Democratic nominee
John Kerry in the previous election.

This was in part due to issues with the McCain campaign. There were widespread negative
feelings toward President Bush that were not contained within the Republican party. Half of the
voters strongly disapproved of the way Bush handled his time in office and a similar number
believed McCain would continue Bush’s policies. This disabled countless voters to even have a
chance to resonante on the brand messaging of the McCain campaign. McCain’s inability to
separate himself from Bush made “his quest for the White House an uphill Battle that he failed
to win” (Fieldman). Barack Obama received 95 percent of the black vote and 66 percent of the
Hispanic vote. Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico were states where the Hispanic votes were
extremely critical (Fieldman).
“Fan” attributes were important to the campaign and were expressed as: social interaction with
other fans and making and sharing meaning, creating strong parallels between their lives and
events, initiating consumer activism and expressing opinions, ossessing forms of cultural
production in a collective environment, and functioning as a social community. (Parikh 6). “Fans”
had a desire to learn more about Barack’s personal story, his family, his personal likes and
dislikes, and his well-being. Social media sites provided an outlet for people to learn about these
things and actually created a community that was leveraged to give Obama a celebrity politician
status (Parikh 6).
The social media business model is called “bottom-up” marketing. Consumers of media and
marketing messages are intelligent, organizing, and more trusting of their own opinions and the
opinions of their peers before websites that tell them what they should think. So, it is extremely
important to keep Metcalfe’s Law in mind when approaching a social media implementation
strategy. This law suggests that the value of a social network increases in proportion to the

square of its connections. However, connections are no longer about solely capturing attention,
but also continuing authentic engagement (Hanna, et al 266-268).
Authenticity is a difficult concept to define, but all researched sources allude to three major
characteristics of authenticity: it is different for every person, it is a social construct defined by
parameters or attributes that change based upon different types of research, and it looks
different on each social media or internet platform.
Leigh, et al. summarize it best when they explain authenticity is a quality perceived by
individuals that emerges from their own personal experiences. It can even move outside reality
and be the projection of one’s dreams, fantasies, stereotypes, and expectations onto an object
or experience. The authentic view adopts a social constructionist perspective that individuals
building up their own paradigm and network will become the most engaged users (487).

Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Campaign
The Beginning
The Sanders campaign did not run a single advertisement or smear on television for months;
instead, they favored the use of emails, social media posts and paid advertisements on desktop
computers and mobile devices. As a whole, the campaign has spent over $10 million thus far on
building a presence on the Internet; this is more than any other candidate this year (Wallstin).
The goal for the campaign has been to create different segments across the United States to
identify likely supporters and motivate them to turn out on election day.
Sanders has chosen to run his campaign without a fundraising team and has instead favored to
bring in a tech company. This tech company called Revolution Marketing specializes in how to
reach people who are not always the most engaged. Revolution Marketing was founded by
some of the data analysts who ran the 2008 Obama campaign. Sanders has used the company
to reach out to those who likely have never donated to a political campaign during their life. As
of right now, they have been able to raise $500 million from 3 million individual donors
(Wallstin).
Revolution Marketing started by building a landing page for the campaign website that asked
first-time visitors to enter their email addresses and zip codes. BernieSanders.com draws an
average of five million visitiors per month, which is twice as many people as Hillary and more
than all of the Republications candidates’ webistes combined. Email campaigning caused more
than 10 percent of visits to the site, which is a conversation rate double that of Hillary Clinton
(Wallstin).

Reddit
A quarter of the traffic to BernieSanders.com comes from social media sites with almost 40
percent of the share coming from Reddit alone. On the site, there is an 180,000 member
subreddit called Sanders for President where the community organizes rallies and phone banks,
registers voters, and keeps supporters informed through moderated forums (Wallstin). In
addition, there is another subreddit called Coders for Sanders that has created more than a
dozen web and mobile apps for the campaign. This third group has built a site called
feelthebern.org, which has been dubbed the “Wikipedia of Bernie Sanders, only better”
(Wallstin).
The Sanders for President subreddit has a need for constant monitoring with over 850 new
submissions and 3,000 comments each day according to co-creator Fredrick. Within the first
three months of the subbreddit being created, it had one million new visitors and raised more
than $300,000 from 12,000 individual donors in time periods called “moneybombs”. These
“moneybombs” blast messages to voters to donate money within a short window of time (The
Atlantic).
Coders for Sanders has created the successful VoteForBernie.org, which poses an interactive
map giving viewers information about how to vote for Bernie in the primaries. It also updates
voters on how to register to vote and where to find open and closed polls. Every day, there are
10,000 new visitors gaining access to this information. According to Jon Hughes, a member of
Coders for Sanders and Grassroots for Sanders, Coders for Sanders has even created
websites of resources and iPhone and Android applications to create awareness and visibility of

the Sanders campaign and to provide information on voter issues (The Atlantic). The success of
the social networking site has caused the Clinton campaign to launch a counterattacked called
“Barrier Breakers”. It is designed to “push back against” Bernie users on Twitter, Facebook,
Reddit, and Instagram (Collins).
The Numbers
On the Democratic side of social media, Bernie Sanders is dominating over the Hillary Clinton
campaign both in volume and number of engaged voters in the past few months. On average,
Sanders has more than 2,000 retweets per hour with the hashtag #feelthebern. Clinton’s Twitter
pales in comparison with only 425 retweet per hour with the hashtag #imwithher. Although
Donald Trump usually dominates the conversation topics online, even Trump has fewer
retweets than Bernie with hashtag #Trump2016 and an average of 729 retweets an hour
(Holmes).
Sanders’ success seems to have little to do with having a discernible social media campaign,
but instead a social outpouring that appears to be spontaneous. It is definitely resonating with
the younger generation because Sanders won 82 percent of the vote for people under 30 years
of age in the Wisconsin primary (Holmes). This is largely in part due to the user-generated
material found online and Sanders’ overall likeability. Bernie’s pop culture appeal and his ability
to inspire people was found within the core values of the Obama campaign (Holmes). The
explosive hashtag #feelthebern was not even created by the campaign, although public memory
is not able to recall this information.

A nine-month study conducted by Captiv8’s ran from mid-May 2015 to mid-February 2016 and
measured the number of followers each of the presidential candidates had on Instagram,
Facebook, and Twitter. This also included the total likes and retweets on candidates’ posts.
Trump had the largest following with 14.1 million. Next was Hillary Clinton with 9.3 million, then
Sanders with 5.7 million, and trailing was the now ex-candidate Senator Ted Cruz with 2.9
million (Chaykowski). Regardless of the number of followers, Sanders consistently has the most
engaged audience of any candidate. This study measured engagement as the average number
of likes per follower. “It’s the authentic nature of Sanders’s posts and conversations,”
commented Captive8 co-founder Krishna Subramanian when asked about the ability of Sanders
to inspire a reaction from supporters. “The way to make these platforms really successful is by
having conversations with your audience, posting content that makes them want to engage”
(Chaykowski).
The way these elections are proceeding, Forbes suggests that a candidate who appeals to
millennials by creating the most online buzz will win the biggest digital response. This is a big
task to undertake with young voters being spread across different social networking sites.
Today, a majority of Instagram’s United States users are millennials, about half of people in the
United States have a Twitter account, and 43 percent of people in the United States use
Facebook according to eMarketer. The candidate that can best integrates all of these platforms
may be the forty-fifth President of the United States of America.

Canvas
This particular social media tool has only been integrated into Facebook recently, but has been
dubbed the “Instant Articles for Brands” (Pathak). “Canvas ad units load faster than anything
else and maintain the feel of being in the app” (Corasaniti). It has been heavily used by the
Sanders campaign to display as much information as possible into a single advertisement. The
Sanders campaign was the first to utilize the Canvas technology and their first advertisement
showed viewers how to vote in contested states, find the correct voting location, check
requirements on photo IDs, and break down on how caucuses function. For Iowa, Canvas
reached 750,000 for $350,000 and in New Hampshire it reached 330,000 people for $175,000.
The main draw to this type of advertising is the immersive storytelling opportunities and mobile
user-friendliness. It relies upon videos, photo stills, and calls to action to engage voters. Chase
Mohney, the Facebook client partner, believes this is an important campaign tool because it
reaches voters where they spend their free time (Pathak). This has been proven to be true.
During the Iowa primary, 42.2 percent of conversations about the caucus revolved around
Bernie. This more than a 20 percent margin over Donald Trump who only had 21.7 percent
(Wellman).
Voter Election Involvement
According to Gottfried, 91 percent of United States adults learned information about the election
in eleven types of sources. The overall five best sources for Americans and percentage of
contribution go as follows: Local TV, 14 percent; Social Networking Sites, 14 percent; new
websites and apps, 13 percent; news radio, 11 percent; and national nightly network TV news,

10 percent. Below this paragraph is a breakdown of the different age demographics and the
reliance on different sources for information about the campaign.
Social media remains in the top three most important channels of communication for 18-49 year
olds when talking about the presidential elections. This is only going to grow as times passes
because the next generation of voters will already be engaged on social media, therefore
increasing the overall size of the pie. It is important to note that a social media campaign should
be run in conjunction with traditional forms of media, however this dissertation is focusing solely
on the effect of social media marketing strategy.
Overall, about 51 percent of social networking users learned about the presidential election from
these the social networking sites (Gottfried). However, only about one-in-five social networking
users (18 percent) actually share election-related information on social media, whether by

posting about it or by replying to or commenting on a post. That amounts to 15 percent of United
States adults (Gottfried).
This is where the social media marketing communication model become relevant. It works to
effectively achieve a one-to-one relationship in order to sell products and develop brand loyalty.
The word of mouth component of the model is tailored to achieve the goal of creating and
sustaining positive buzz for a cause. A successful integrated marketing communications
program incorporates both traditional and alternative tactical executions to maximize the impact
of the overall marketing strategy (Casronovo & Huang 118).
Important lessons learned and implications for practice are: visualize the ecosystem, identify
and track key performance indicators, begin with the story, social media does not require
elaborate budgets, and be unique. A rise in interactive digital media has catapulted company
and consumer contact through the roof. It is important to visualize the ecosystem and figure out
what message is being pitched to a group of people. The ecosystem needs to be visualized in
terms of three types of media: owned, paid, and earned. This allows marketers to develop a
clear idea as to what extent each media platform interacts with others and leverage them
against each other to find the best success rate. Tracking key performance indicators to focus
on conversion tracking of downstream metrics helps define the key outcomes associated with a
specific ecosystem and quantify the related metric wherever possible.
In order to engage the most amount of people, begin with a story. Countless different causes
are out in the world today, so saying “we’re the best” or “we do great things” will no longer be
enough. Consumers of media want to know every single minute detail, especially about the

political candidates. A great example of this with Malia Obama, the eldest Obama daughter. She
was accepted into Harvard for the 2016-2017 school year, but has chosen to defer for a year.
The online world was outraged until she announced the intent to volunteer and travel in her gap
year. This is no way directly correlates to the Obama administration, but people wanted to know
and needed a story to justify her actions.
Social media does not require an elaborate budget. The best social networking sites are free
and the tracking analytics are not too costly. Websites are an important component of a
campaign, but they can be expensive to build. Instead of hiring a professional software
engineer, campaign teams hire an intern to build the site. It is important to remember not all of
the best content marketing comes from the actual campaign team. In fact, over the past two
presidential campaigns, some of the best campaign slogan, rallies, and statements have come
from the online communities. This ties into the idea of be unique. It can be in terms of content,
ways to reach users and voters, or individualize interactions (Hanna, et al 267).
A Warning
“In 2008, [social media] was just a faint microphone where you took a part of the press release
and put in on Facebook,” said Goodstein, the CEO of Revolution Media. “Today platforms are
so much more powerful. There’s an advertising component to these platforms, and you can
actually engage with hundreds of thousands of people. You have more robust tools on places
like Facebook that allow you to create quick events and, inside just Facebook alone, appoint
different persons in an organizing channel” (Grothuaus).

Micro-targeting has become uncannily more accurate in correctly identifying and placing people
into different target groups since the 2008 presidential election. A process called filter bubbling
has become extremely popular. A website uses an algorithm to guess what a user would like or
dislike based upon geodemographics and computer cookies to display content that exclusively
agrees with the user. Psycho-profiling is used conjunction with filter bubbling (Grothuaus). This
technique goes beyond one-dimensional characteristics of people and tries to determine a
person’s current mental and emotional states along with personality characteristics. Coupling
filter bubbling and psycho-profiling can be dangerous because so much power is given to a
data-mining organization. To add to frightening nature of this practice, filter bubbling and
psycho-profiling is not limited to a specific medium. Not only can it be done on computers, but
now it can be done on mobile devices including a phone, tablet, or music-listening device.
These techniques are practiced by all presidential candidates, which can be perilous because
then voters are only hearing from one political campaign. Which, ironically, is what the data,
psychological, and marketing analysts of every team want. They want voters that resonate on
their candidate’s platform so much that they become walking billboards for the campaign.
“[Candidates] have the opportunity to curate content in a way that was impossible when it was
reliant on the filter of journalism to tell that story for you. So more and more, in many way it’s a
much more powerful tool because there’s more control.” (Wellman). This is why campaigns are
trying to reach voters on a personal level.
Personal Experience

I experienced first hand the recruiting efforts of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Over the past
summer (2015), I had the opportunity to attend a Sanders rally outside of Davenport which was
entirely organized by a local Sanders supporters group. At that point in time, I had not made a
decision about who to vote for in the primaries, so I went as a political neutral voter. This event
was not geared towards people like me. From the moment upon entering onto the
campgrounds, the group of Knox students and I were berated with Bernie paraphernalia,
petition signings, and postering.
I had to sign into the conference for safety purposes and I ended up getting phone calls and
emails from the Bernie supporters group in Davenport and Omaha throughout the year. I was
placed onto the Davenport list since I attended that specific rally and I was placed onto the
Omaha list because the form I filled out asked for a phone number. My area code signaled a
northern Nebraska number, so I was additionally placed on that state’s list. The call volunteers
would ask me if I had questions about Bernie’s campaign, try to relate voting information to me,
and ask if I would be willing to donate time or money towards Bernie’s cause. Additionally, I was
placed on an email list that asked me the same things.
The Davenport supporters group went as far to start a Galesburg supporters group. One of the
weeks back in fall term, there was a Iowaian from the Sanders rally in Davenport tabling in
Seymour Union trying to get Knox students involved in the campaign. Fast forward one week
and those volunteers had been replaced by recruited Knox students and Galesburg residents.
This group of volunteers even attempted to have a fundraising event for Bernie on campus until
both the Alumni Relations and Advancement offices told them they could not hold the event

because the college cannot take a political stance in the presidential election. The Sanders
supporters in this area is representative of how the campaign ran in other states.
Comparing and Contrasting the Obama and Sanders Campaigns
Both the Obama and Sanders campaigns gather large crowds of supporters, which are mostly
younger voters, and obtain mostly small donations from a large number of contributors.
Obama's campaign was the first pull in large numbers from small, online donations and Sanders
has been following in his footsteps and doing even better than Barack. Obama raised $96.8
million in 2007 via donations of $200 or less, which was 22 percent of his overall fundraising.
Sanders has raised $73 million from 2.3 million donations from 1 million people. For the Clinton
campaign, about 13 percent of the $73.7 million came from donations of $200 or less (Pelzer).
While the Sanders and Clinton numbers look very similar, it is important to note that the Clinton
campaign has significantly more funding. However, Sanders has obtained a larger slice of
individual donations than Hillary.
Obama and Sanders have different issues to face during the election period. Voter
demographics-wise, President Obama had most of the black vote in 2008, Sanders is currently
struggling to attract minority voters. In the polls, Clinton is leading Sanders among both African
Americans (63 percent to 20 percent) and Hispanics (54 percent to 33 percent). Also, the hot
issue topics are different. In 2008, the Democratic base was angry about the Iraq War and now
people are angry about economic inequality. Obama was able to exploit foreign issues on his

campaign trail while Sanders has campaigned mostly on domestic issues by railing against Wall
Street and calling for healthcare and college costs to be more affordable (Pelzer).
Conclusion
Sanders is not being innovative or creative on social media because, for the most part, he has
been following what the rest of the candidates have been doing. However, he has mastered
content marketing with an authentic voice that inspires American citizens to fight for his cause.
He is the only presidential candidate according to a study by George Washington University and
Zignal Labs, whose “echo” across the Internet has actually increased since the initial
announcement of his presidential bid (Patel). HIs long-form content addresses his education
stance and values as a person. Everything released is well-researched, well-written, and
informative to voters. Sanders’ campaign team has created the “Democracy Daily”, which writes
new stories that reflects Sanders’ policies and issues that he cares most about (Patel). The
brand visibility and messaging for the Sanders’ campaign is average, but the content has
launched Bernie into the midst of social media buzz.
The Bernie campaign has successfully created an authentic space by creating content that
embodies and exemplifies a cultural meaning through public events, online programs, and
public programs (Carroll & Wheaton 22). Voter testimonials and third party agents create
objective content and exude the same authenticity as Bernie. The user-generated content
begins with an understanding of consumer conversation and characteristics online. The
campaign is leveraging social media to participate in the conversation and effectively manage
their customer relationships, which is why the Sanders’ campaign has been so successful.
(Casronovo & Huang 121).

Coupling the social media campaign with stellar complimentary engagement via phone and
email has helped keep the Sanders campaign in contention with the Clinton campaign. The
Sanders campaign is not only reaching the young voters on the social networking sites they
inhabit, but also reaching out to them through other mediums. This comprehensive recruiting
and retention effort of voters has gained momentum and thus the number of people willing to
reciprocate with donating time to recruit others.
User-generated content has been integral for the Sanders campaign team. They have been
able to save an astronomical amount of money since engaged voters are willing to donate their
time and skills to increasing the range and effectiveness of the campaign. Other candidates
have to pour their resources into obtaining the same media, whereas the Sanders campaign
gets it for free. This give his team an advantage because their attention can be diverted to deal
with pressing matters since these people also maintain the content. Not only does this benefit
the team, but it also ties into the theme of Bernie’s anti-”big money” campaign.
An important lesson drilled into the minds of marketing students is to control content and brand
image. Now, this is no longer necessarily true. This does not mean to leave social media alone
completely, but instead suggests that less monitoring is needed. Those that are extremely
engaged take over a large portion of the monitoring and will alert the campaign team if
something is seriously wrong. Also, some of the best content marketing for the Sanders
campaign comes from Reddit and bloggers and all the Sanders campaign had to do was reach
out for it. The credit for the great resources still goes to the Sanders campaign because as long

as the original messaging is authentic and geared towards the correct demographic,
user-generated media will appear that endorses it.
Overall, running a social media campaign is simple in theory, but difficult in actuality. If a
campaign has an authentic resonating message, dedicated followers, and a hard-working team,
it will create a base of where growth and possibility can be found. However, the number of
necessary social networking sites and amount of content can be extremely taxing. Regardless,
if Bernie Sanders manages the social media part of his campaign the best, he has the greatest
shot at winning over the young voters for this election season.

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