On January 20th of 2017, Donald John Trump, became the 45th president of the United States of America. A once unimaginable scenario became reality and it had the United States in a clear divide, with many people shocked and many protests (Healy & Peters, 2016). Especially since president Trump’s campaign strategy was somewhat unconventional, particularly his digital and social media strategy. According to Brad Parscale, president Trump’s digital director, Trump’s success is attributed to his digital strategy. Specifically, the way data and digital marketing were used (Beckett, 2017; Tyson, 2016).
Parscale stated that Trump’s administration never tried to win over the whole nation, instead the Trump campaign took advantage of data and digital marketing and focused on a specific audience. The campaign also made sure that Trump’s personal message reached the targeted audience through various social media platforms. In a NPR interview Parscale made the following statement (NPR, 2016):
‘We never fought for the popular vote. There was no economic reason, and there was no reason based off the system of our constitution to do so. We needed to win 270 [electoral votes], and to do so we needed to win in certain states, and we needed to target registered voters that had a low propensity to vote and a propensity to vote for Donald Trump if they come.’
So, let’s break down Trumps campaign. As mentioned earlier, Trump’s campaign was never meant to target all Americans, just the ones who agree with him and would vote for him. During the elections Parscale started to collect and store data, that contained information on over 220 million Americans that support Trump. This database was later referred to as project Alamo (Winston, 2016). After this Alamo was established, the Trump campaign monitored the success/ failures of their messages, whether they were through various online platforms or from offline appearances. This enabled them to optimize their strategy by, for example, allowing them to rearrange their budgets if necessary (Tyson, 2016). More importantly, they were able to shift their attention from regions that were less interested and focus more on the regions where most of his supporters were.
Lastly, Trump’s social media strategy also contributed to the success of his campaign. During the elections Trump often made headlines with his controversial tweets and his ‘clapbacks’. From Hollywood actors and actresses, fellow politicians and even ex-president Barack Obama, no one was safe from a tweet, and more importantly Trump would not shy away from controversy (Scripted, 2017).
In conclusion, Trump’s digital and social media strategy were what set him apart from the competition. The disruptive way Donald J. Trump lead his campaign is unprecedented, and has changed the way future presidential elects run their campaign forever.
- Healy, P. & Peters, J.W. (2016, November 9th). ‘Donald Trump’s Victory Is Met With Shock Across a Wide Political Divide.’ Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/donald-trump-election-reaction.html
- Beckett, L. (2017, October 9th). ‘Trump digital director says Facebook helped win the White House.’ Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/08/trump-digital-director-brad-parscale-facebook-advertising
- Tyson, M. (2016, December 19th). ‘How digital marketing helped Donald Trump win.’ Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-tyson/how-digital-marketing-hel_b_13721224.html
- Scripted (2017). ‘Donald Trump’s Marketing Strategy’ Retrieved from: https://www.scripted.com/content-marketing/donald-trump-marketing-strategy
- Winston, J. (2016, November 18th). ‘How the Trump Campaign Built an Identity Database and Used Facebook Ads to Win the Election.’ Retrieved from: https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac
- NPR (2016, December 6th). ‘How Trump Waged An Under-The-Radar Ground Game.’ Retrieved from: http://www.npr.org/2016/12/06/504520364/how-trump-waged-an-under-the-radar-ground-game
