Compare & Repair:
Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump
An analysis and evaluation of the two politicians’ social media.
Group 1: CoffeePhilters
Sarah Alexander
Sandra Graybill
*Karli Peterson
Taylor Thomson
Ashley Vickney
DECEMBER 2015
Hillary Clinton “Twitter Word Cloud” (Top); Donald Trump “Twitter Word Cloud” (Bottom)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….4
Purpose
The Candidates
Social Media & Politics
Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………………5
State Goal & Hypothesis
Data Points
Methodology
Hillary Clinton……………………………………………………………………………………………………8
Introduction
5Cs:
Clinton’s Social Media & Goals
Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation
Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis
Ratings
Evaluation of Effectiveness
Best/Worst Posts
Suggestions for Repair
Donald Trump…………………………………………………………………………………………………..14
Introduction
5Cs:
Clinton’s Social Media & Goals
Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation
Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis
Ratings
Evaluation of Effectiveness
Best/Worst Posts
Suggestions for Repair
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………………19
Rankings/Results
6th C – Capacity
To the Polls…
Final Suggestions for Both Candidates………………………………………………………….22
Rejected Solutions/Insights……………………………………………………………………………23
So What?..........................................................................................................................24
Continuous Improvements……………………………………………………………………………..26
Appendixes……………………………………………………………………………………………………….27
A: List of Illustrations & Examples
B: 100 Facts
C: Green Feedback Sheets
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The American people have always been fascinated by politicians. However, with
the dawn of social media, citizens have access to so much more information than is
portrayed by the media or in the debates. The leveraging of social media for political
candidates is the new deciding factor in the success of a modern-day political campaign.
Two notable Presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two
social media “regulars.” With profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and on a few
other smaller sites, they have hired expert teams to manage and live-stream their
personal brand, reputation, and campaign through social media.
In order to effectively evaluate these candidates’’ social media usage, a thorough,
per-post evaluation was conducted to identify good and bad types of posts on each
platform, and then zoom out to create a comprehensive outline of the types of content
most often posted (Content Donuts). There were also 5 criteria to evaluate each
candidate: coordinates (How well does their communication strategy of a social media
presence align with the business-focused goal of winning the election?); connections
(How well does the candidates’ profile link with other communication efforts such as
other platforms, websites, or traditional media efforts?); channels (Identifying which
channels or platforms contain the “biggest bang for the buck” in terms of reaching the
target demographic of voters that 1) align with their political stances 2) hold the swing
vote); content (Does the content match their personality? Is it relevant? timely?
informative? appropriately presented?); and capacity (How long will this campaign’s
success last? What is the longevity of the existing strategy?)
Through these sectors, it was determined that Clinton was the overall “Social
Media President.” Clinton was a clear winner when it came to coordinating her business
and communication goals; it was clear that her presence had a focus on her campaign,
not filled with personal ramblings. She also had very appropriate channel choices.
Another aspect of the channels that pushed Clinton to the top was the strategic choice of
who she follows—those who align with her stances. Trump, on the other hand, ranked
higher in terms of quality content. Trump had greater variety and portrayed a very real
and genuine personality online, whereas Clinton’s content came across as repetitive and
robotic. Both campaigns were ranked highly in terms of their capacity to maintain
interest, but because of Trump’s candid personality and celebrity-like draw, his
campaign is projected to increase in capacity and popularity over time.
However, Clinton and Trump both struggled with connecting their social media
back to their content-controlled websites. In addition, both need to engage further with
their followers, within reason (avoid debates online, but engage occasionally with
passionate supporters) and remain conscious of the perception that their followers have
of them (Clinton can be seen as robotic, Trump as crass or rude). While not perfect, both
candidates are strategic in their social media efforts; the report shows just that.
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INTRODUCTION
Purpose
Social media is not only an important aspect of modern-day relationship building
for individuals, but it has become a growing platform for businesses, entrepreneurs,
celebrities, and brands. Additionally, this coming election is showing just how important
social media can be for political use. According to a PEW Research Center report, 16% of
registered voters were following political candidates in 2014 following the midterm
elections. However, it is extremely likely that those numbers have increased
dramatically in the last year, especially considering the candidates that have decided to
run in the 2016 election.
It is important to evaluate politicians in this particular election because it is
relying very heavily on social media advertisements and promotions. For example,
Donald Trump is completely relying on social media and is refusing to use any
traditional media.
While evaluating politicians, it would be easy to get caught up in their stances
and cause the audit to derail. However, as a disclaimer, although this report focuses on
political candidates, it does not evaluate their stances, views, or opinions, and does not
have a bias; rather, the focus remains on their effective use of various social media
platforms, their general content arenas, and success or failure of posts made from
November 6, 2015 through November 14, 2015.
The Candidates
The candidates evaluated here are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They both
had comparable social media sites (in terms of which platforms they most heavily used),
usage (the frequency and types of posts), and number of followers. Ben Carson, Jeb
Bush, or Bernie Sanders were also considered, but Clinton and Trump were the most
comparable and relevant.
Social Media & Politics
According to an article from CNN in October of this year, “a triumphant politician
is the one who masters his era’s media tools.” The article made a few comparisons with
past presidents: Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first “radio” president; John F. Kennedy
the “television” president; and Barack Obama was the first “Internet” president… So
who will be the “social media” president? It is imperative that social media be an
essential part of any modern day campaign. In order to reach the younger demographics
and the next generation of voters, the candidates had to adjust to their audiences and go
where they are. No more are the days of long-winded attack ads filling up the
commercial spots on every television channel: this election is going viral.
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METHODOLOGY
Stated Goal & Hypothesis
The goal is to create and complete a thorough content audit and social media
presence analysis of two social media superstars: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Hypothesis
After tracking each candidate’s presence for eight days and evaluating the useeffectiveness of each platform, the winner, or “Social Media President,” will be declared.
Data Points
Timeframe
The selected timeframe for this audit was Friday, November 6, 2015 through
Saturday, November 14, 2015. Part of the reason these dates were selected was because
of the Paris terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday, November 13. As unfortunate as
these attacks were, it is imperative that a political candidate had some sort of response
to this sort of tragedy, and monitoring their response, or lack thereof, would have been
very telling.
Platforms
Trump and Clinton both had a similar presence on various platforms in terms of
number of followers and frequency of posts; greater focus was placed on the more
prominent platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Methodology
Explain Equations & Weights
Each platform has similar ways that users can interact, react, and engage with
profiles, and each of those interactions carries a different weight that affects the overall
tone (positive or negative) of the post.
Key Terms:
 React: Users or followers will have some sort of immediate, or “gut”, reaction to
the post. This is usually a positive response.
 Interact: Users or followers are compelled to do more than simply click once or
twice (to like/favorite); they want their opinion to be heard. Interactions can
occur between the User/Follower and the Profile, or between Users/Followers.
Reaction
Interaction
Like
Share
Facebook
*1
Positive
Comment
Negative
Comment
Troll /
Unrelated
Comment
*2
*3
*(-4)
*(-1)
SUM*1000
/ # of
Followers
= SCORE
Twitter
Like
Retweet
*1
*1
SUM =
SCORE
Rationale for the
lacking Twitter
analysis:
It is nearly
impossible from a
front-end approach
to find the number
of retweets and
quoted retweets and
if they had positive
or negative
reactions since that
number would be
exponentially
higher than the data
that shows up under
the original tweet.
In a real company,
all of this
information would
be available.
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Instagram
Heart
*1
Tag
*2
Friend
Positive
*3
Comment
Negative
*(-4)
Comment
Troll /
Unrelated
*(-1)
Comment
SUM*1000
/ # of
Followers
= SCORE
Tools
Before delving into each post, tools such as twitaholic.com and
twittercounter.com were used to analyze popularity and post frequency of each
candidate over a month’s timeframe. These sites showed the number of new followers
added per day, number of tweets per day, and worldwide rank. See Appendix A for
screenshots of the candidates’ profiles according to these web tools.
In order to analyze each post, the most recent 50 comments were counted on
both Facebook and Instagram and were categorized into categories of positive
comments, negative comments, and unrelated or trolling comments. From there, the 50
comment sample size became the representation for all of the remaining comments. For
example, if there were 10 positive comments out of the 50, then there were likely 1000
positive comments out of the 5000 total comments. From there, the weight of the
positive comment (*3) was multiplied by the extrapolated positive comments, and that
gave the score of 3000 for the positive comments out of the sample comments. The
same process was done for each different type of comment or interaction. See Appendix
A for a sample of these calculations.
Barriers & Bottlenecks
One barrier encountered when tracking social media posts included not being
able to get accurate and complete data, especially on Twitter. It was very difficult to
track the positivity or negativity of retweets, and other than the number of retweets from
the original post, there was no way to follow the string of retweets beyond that, nor
whether or not the re-retweets were positive or negative. Another issue was the sheer
quantity of comments on each post, sometimes in the thousands. So in order to try to
gage a comprehensive interaction with the post and the followers’ general sentiment, the
most recent 50 posts were placed into categories and counted, as mentioned above.
If this was a real-life analysis of a profile, all comments would be counted
individually and back-end data would likely be available.
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HILLARY CLINTON
Introduction
Hillary Clinton grew up in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Clinton
completed her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College, May of 1969. Shortly after,
Clinton graduated from Yale Law School in 1973. Clinton was one out of 27 women in
her Yale Law School graduating class. While acting as First Lady of the United States,
Clinton worked with the Children’s Health Insurance Program to provide health
coverage to more than 8 million children. In 2000, Clinton was elected to the U.S.
Senate from New York, and reelected November 7, 2006.
Clinton launched her first Presidential campaign in January of 2007 and it
spanned until June of 2008. It ended after Clinton lost to Barack Obama for the
Democratic nomination. Then, President Barack Obama assigned Clinton to be the 67th
U.S. Secretary of State.
Clinton announced her 2016 presidential candidacy in a video she tweeted on
April 12, 2015. The video contained Americans talking about preparing for different life
events and stages, then it cuts to Clinton and she states that she is preparing to be the
next president of the United States.
Throughout Clinton’s social media and website, her political stances are clearly
stated. Clinton has always worked to ensure children get a quality education, and quality
healthcare coverage. Clinton is a pioneer for feminism and a strong advocate for equal
treatment and rights of all genders, sexes, races, and religions. There was controversy
early in her political campaign because she once believed in marriage solely between a
man and woman, but she later changed her view to be in support of LGBT rights.
Clinton believes that America needs to have a comprehensive immigration reform that
allows immigrants to become citizens in a timely manner. Clinton supports Obamacare
but wants the program to be edited and made stronger. Her political “game changer” lies
with her stance on marijuana, and it is believed that her “wait-and-see” position will
change to a “yes” to attract more and newer audiences.
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5Cs
Clinton’s Social Media & Goals
Clinton can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat,
Google+, and Pinterest. Clinton’s Pinterest is full of merchandise, quotes, and edited
logos to match holidays and events. The Pinterest board is titled “…an ‘H’ for every
occasion.” She has 6,500 Pinterest followers with no interaction, and it only connects to
her website. Women are a primary audience of Clinton’s campaign, so Pinterest offers a
large reach. Clinton is least active on Google+: changing her profile picture on August
20th, 2015 was the only activity to her 959 followers. As for Snapchat, Clinton
occasionally posts on her “story,” but does not snap back. Clinton has 34,000 followers
and posts about one YouTube video per week.
This report will focus on Clinton’s Facebook Twitter, and Instagram because this
is where Clinton and Trump match and consistently post.
On Facebook, Clinton posts 2-4 times per day to her 1.8 million followers in both
English and Spanish. She posts variations of videos, pictures, links, and quotes to
connect with her audiences. On Twitter, Clinton has 4.84 million followers and tweets 511 times per day and likes to retweet what influencers or opinion leaders are saying
about her. Also, she voices her opinion with the famous “-H” signature. On Instagram,
Clinton has over 554,000 followers and averages between 1-2 posts per day.
Clinton’s communication coordinates/goals reflect her drive to educate, inspire,
influence and relate to the American people. She does an effective job of coordinating
her business goal of wanting to win the election with her communication goal of aligning
her target audiences that have the same or similar viewpoints.
Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation
As a group, we determined the placement of Clinton’s Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram on the “connections grid” (See appendix A). We believed that each platform
deserved its own placement on the grid because each platform delivers different results
alongside its own strategic goal.
We placed Clinton’s Facebook in the upper-middle section of the “Abundance”
quadrant because she does post often and her messages are rich. Her strategy is to
utilize Facebook's ability to handle large amounts of text and pictures to engage and
create conversations with her audiences. We placed her Twitter in the lower, right-hand
corner of “Reach/Breadth” because Clinton’s tweets do not have original quality, but
there is a large quantity of tweets mixed with many retweets. The strategy for Twitter is
that she posts every hour to reach the different audiences by constantly being on her
their radar. She also uses retweets of “influencers or opinion leaders” to persuade her
audience to believe in her and to continue to grow the conversation. Lastly, we placed
her Instagram in the lower middle of “Reach/Breadth” because the average post is 1.5
times per day, and she averages between 1-2 times per day. This placement is so low on
the “Intensity” axis because the content is weak and does not link back to the website.
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Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis
Clinton does a good job of analyzing the proper channels to be on and who to
follow on those channels. After looking at her channels and content, they offer a new
and different way to interact and reach her target audiences of young, female, and those
that are culturally diverse. She is very strategic about the amount of effort put into each
social media platform.
Clinton uses a mixture of images, videos, and texts to supposedly reach her
intended audiences with the demographics of the social media platforms. Clinton is still
working on her content coming off as genuine and not robotic. Clinton does a decent job
of sticking to a campaign and consistently hash-tagging and linking to her other social
media accounts. She does not, however, link back to her political website very often.
We tracked the social media posts of Clinton from November 6th through
November 14th. Those dates were chosen to include the Paris Attacks and to include
every day of the week. As we tracked the three different social media platforms, we also
categorized the content and created content donuts (Appendix A).
The consistent content categories were as follows:
- environment/climate,
- gender/women/activists,
- personal,
- race/culture/religion,
- stance (i.e. education/immigration/social/global),
- violence/war/justice, and
- other (quotes/debates/thanks)
We also created special categories like posts about veterans/the army, Paris attacks, and
calls to action/hashtags.
On Facebook, for the 22 categorized posts within the timeframe, “Personal” and
“Stance” were the most popular categories of posts on the platform. On Twitter for the
49 categorized posts, “Personal” and “Other” (specifically Clinton’s quotes or opinions
about the Democratic Debate) were the most popular categories. Lastly, for her 16 posts
on Instagram, “Other” (again, quotes and debate topics) and posts about
“Race/Culture/Religion” and Clinton’s “Stances” were most prominent on the platform.
Ratings
From Clinton’s social media analysis above and the 5Cs, the following numbers
provide our group’s average ranking in relation to how each “C” was used with a rating
from 1-10 – 1 being the worst and 10 being the best:
-
Coordinates: 8.5
Connections: 6.8
Channels: 8.4
Content: 7.1
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Evaluation of Effectiveness
According to twittercounter.com, Clinton is ranked 514th in the worldwide most
popular Twitter users and 16th by followers in New York, NY. Taking a closer look at her
tweets, the chart in Appendix A represents the last 30 days, where Clinton tweeted 506
times, making her average 16.9 tweets per day.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of Clinton’s social media presence, our
group analyzed all posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram from November 6th
through November 14th. By looking at the amount of likes, shares, and comments, we
were able to create an evaluation tool (see “Methodology” section) to find her best and
worst post on each platform during that timeframe.
Best/Worst Posts
Our group chose to evaluate Clinton’s effectiveness on Facebook by analyzing the
number of likes, shares, positive comments, negative comments, and the
trolls/unrelated posts by giving each category a multiplier based on the level of effort it
takes to create the given interaction. For every like a post received, we multiplied the
total of likes by 1 because it does not take a lot of extra effort to “like” a post, however,
we weighted shares higher, multiplying the total number of shares by 2, because it does
take more effort to share a post. The same goes for producing a positive comment,
multiplying the total number of positive comments by 3, and the total number of
negative comments by -4. Finally “trolls” or unrelated comments were multiplied by -1.
From this tool, we were able to determine Clinton’s best and worst posts for Facebook
while giving it a score and providing our rationale.
Clinton’s best Facebook post was on November 14 (see Appendix A), relating to
the Paris attacks. This post received 26,940 likes, 1,671 shares, 1,222 comments total.
Out of the 50 comments recorded, 35 were positive, 10 were negative, and 5 were trolls
or unrelated comments. After applying the calculations listed above, the scores were
added together for a sum of 30,342 which was then divided by Clinton’s total number of
Facebook followers. After all calculations were completed, the rank for Clinton’s best
post on Facebook totaled 16.73. This post was successful because of its timeliness and
global relevance. It is likely that many other businesses or people who posted about this
event received many interactions as well.
Clinton’s worst Facebook post was from November 11 (see Appendix A), a post
about “The Arkansas Travelers.” This post received 831 likes, 106 shares, and 247
comments total. Out of the first 50 comments, there were 8 positive, 27 negative, and 27
trolls or unrelated posts. After applying calculations, the total equaled 980, which we
then divided by the total number of Clinton’s Facebook followers and got a rank of 0.54.
Her worst post did not do nearly as well as the other posts she had since it focused on
one group of people from one state. This content did not resonate with the majority of
her followers, most of which are not very concerned with her past work, friends, or the
state of Arkansas.
Next, we looked at the effectiveness of Clinton’s Twitter. However, because we
did not have access to the exact count of replies and the effects of the retweets, we were
unable to fully analyze her Twitter to the extent we would have gotten with back-end
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metrics. Instead, we added the retweets and favorites of each post to determine the
Twitter post rankings.
Clinton’s best post on Twitter was from November 13 (see Appendix A), a
personal (signed with “-H”) post about the Paris attacks. This post got 16,300 favorites
and 9029 re-tweets, receiving a sum of 25,329. This was a successful post for the same
reason this type of content did well on Facebook: it was timely and contained content
that was not only globally relevant but could also resonate with multiple users.
On November 6, Clinton’s tweet regarding ice cream and criminal records (see
Appendix A) received 353 favorites and 173 retweets, receiving a sum of 526 – making it
her worst Twitter post during those eight days. This again has a small target of
interested followers. It does not align with her major stances, and it only touches on the
small criminal demographic. The Wall Street Journal came out with an article about
creating an appealing frame for a picture. This is overall a very bad image and does not
make an effective use of the frame. The image and the actual content of the tweet do not
have a direct link. By looking at the picture, one would not be able to determine the
purpose of the tweet.
Finally, we evaluated the effectiveness of Clinton’s Instagram by using the same
measurements we used for Facebook; again, evaluating the number of likes multiplying
the number by 1, multiplying the number of shares by 2, the positive comments by 3,
negative comments by -4, and trolls or unrelated comments by -1. From this tool, we
were able to evaluate the effectiveness of Clinton’s Instagram posts finding the best and
worst post.
Clinton’s best Instagram post was from November 13 (see Appendix A), a post
regarding a Clinton-inspired cross-stitch pattern. This post received 23,025 likes, 1,281
comments, 819 shares, 691 positive comments, 1842 negative comments, and 179 trolls
or unrelated comments, receiving a sum of 22488.4 – which was then divided by the
number of Clinton’s Instagram followers, receiving a rank of 40.59. This post was
successful because it made good use of her hashtag (#Hillary2016) and provides a link
to her bio, for anyone who would want to “put the fun in fundamental rights” to get the
cross-stitch pattern. It is also important to note that out of all Clinton’s Instagram posts,
this post received the highest amount of positive comments. From this, we can assume
that her audiences utilize Instagram for its intended purpose of being a visuallyengaging platform. We can also assume that she is directly targeting her fellow feminists
with this post.
On the other hand, Clinton’s worst Instagram post was on November 10 (see
Appendix A), a post relating to her quantifiable career achievements. This post received
7,526 likes, 154 shares, 154 positive comments, 1025 negative comments, and 192 trolls
or unrelated comments – which was then added together to receive a sum of 6,616; it
was then divided by the total number of Clinton’s Instagram followers, receiving a rank
of 11.94. This was a poorly executed post creating the least amount of likes and
comments during the eight analyzed days. The visual component is near impossible to
fully comprehend. This post consists of 11 numbers flashing in six seconds with no
explanation of what any of those numbers represent (except for the three in the
heading). If the intention of this post was to solidify Clinton’s career promoting her as a
good choice for the 2016 presidential election, it failed.
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Suggestions for Repair
After reviewing Clinton’s posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we were able to
come up with a few Continuous Improvement ideas we suggest Clinton take into
consideration.
1. Centering her Gravity, or linking her post back to her website: by driving users to
her website through social media, she can create a greater awareness of herself
and her campaign.
2. Produce less repetitive content: Clinton’s posts all have somewhat of a
consistency to them and, at times, appear boring with content that is repetitive or
irrelevant. This benchmark error for Clinton could quickly affect her image on
social media.
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DONALD TRUMP
Introduction
Donald Trump was born in Queens, New York in 1946. He attended New York
Military School and later obtained a degree in Economics from the University Of Penn
Wharton School Of Business in 1968. While transitioning from real estate to the
construction of Trump Towers, he married twice and had five children.
In 1999, Trump, through the use of an exploratory committee, wanted to see if
he should run for President Reform Candidate in 2000; with a poor showing in the
California primary, he withdrew his position.
Trump held Democratic views through 2005, a little ways into his participation
of his show “The Apprentice” with NBC. Now, running as a Republican candidate, his
catchphrase is “Make our country (or America) great again.” Trump’s top competitors in
the presidential run are Ben Carson and Marco Rubio (on the Republican side) and
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (Democratic).
Trump takes pride in his self-funding for his personal campaign purposes,
stating: “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I
don’t care. I’m really rich.” As he has made well-aware, Trump runs on honesty.
With focus on immigration, trade, tax, and veterans administration reforms as
well as policies regarding the right to bear arms, Trump makes his stances well-known
across social media platforms, too.
5Cs
Trump’s Social Media & Goals
All of Trump’s messages through each platform always reflect his stances and
his honesty – whether brutal or not. He puts the “me” in social media (there are no
rules!). Trump’s social media accounts and strategy are run by Justin McConney, a 29
year-old “social media whiz” – but Trump is still the author of his posts. While his
unfiltered views and opinions are expressed daily, Trump is in the race to match his
organizational and communication goals.
As an “organization,” like seen similarly with Hillary Clinton, Trump’s goal is to
win the election, plain and simple. As mentioned across his stances and on social media,
he wants to “make America great again,” and he does this with coordination between his
stances and his posts, discussed further later.
Trump is primarily visible across his social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. (He does have a Vine account, but he has not posted since 2013.)
He posts on Facebook 2-5 times per day, and has over 4.3 million “likes” on his
page. For Twitter, he posts, on average, at least 20 times per day to an audience of 5.1
million followers. As for Instagram, with 3-5 posts per week, he reaches his 640,000
followers.
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Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation
Like with Clinton, Trump’s social media placements are analyzed and seen on the
connections grid (see Appendix A). For Facebook, we placed him in the
“Reach/Breadth” quadrant but slightly closer to “Abundance” because he aims for many,
many followers but is still remaining his true self in relation to what his followers want.
For Twitter, we placed his actions in the “Abundance” quadrant because he frequently
retweets and acknowledges other people’s posts (about him). And for Instagram, again
in the “Reach/Breadth” quadrant because he has many followers but almost no
interaction – it is just a platform to get his actions out there.
Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis
While Trump’s coordination of posts to his stances and to his social media goals
have briefly been discussed, channel usage and analysis comes into play. Trump’s
messages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram supposedly reach his intended
audiences. What can be assumed is that the majority of followers of Trump’s social
media are there to support his campaign, and those against him are there to either troll
his efforts or see what he is up to next. He does utilize each platform effectively as far as
posting short messages, videos, and/or pictures. With Connections, Trump does share
articles, quotes, and videos of himself in interviews, shows, and other day-to-day
activities from other sites, but he does not usually link back to his political website.
We tracked the social media posts of Clinton from November 6th through
November 14th. Those dates were chosen to include the Paris Attacks and to include
every day of the week. As we tracked the three different social media platforms, we also
categorized the content and created content donuts (see Appendix A).
The consistent content categories were as follows:
- bashing (other Republican or Democrat candidates),
- hashtags used (i.e. #Trump2016),
- personal/opinion,
- poll results,
- stances (immigration, administration reforms, gun laws), and
- other (quotes/debates/thanks)
We also created special categories for his posts about Veterans Day recognition, the
Paris attacks, and any specific calls to action.
Trump makes his opinions heard on Facebook more than his other platforms.
From November 6 through November 14, 23% of his posts centered on his “personal”
statements and opinions – again, he is an honest, unfiltered guy. Coming in second to
his personal side is “other” posts at 18%. These revolve around quoted posts, debate
comments, and “thank you” messages to his supporters.
For Twitter, focusing on many retweets and his own tweets for the time period,
one third of his messages are “bashing” other candidates – Republicans AND
Democrats. Again, unfiltered. Falling behind those posts are more “other” posts on the
various debates and quoted articles.
Finally for Instagram, with only 4 posts for the timespan of eight days, his images
portray mainly themes centered on his “stances” for his campaign and “other”
comments about polls.
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Ratings
From Trump’s social media analysis above and the 5Cs, the following numbers
provide our group’s average ranking in relation to how each “C” was used with a rating
from 1-10 – 1 being the worst and 10 being the best:
-
Coordinates: 6.4
Connections: 6.4
Channels: 8.0
Content: 8.2
Evaluation of Effectiveness:
In the same time period that was used for Clinton, we evaluated Trump’s social
media channels from November 6th through November 14th. We also used the same
evaluation tools for Trump that were used for Clinton.
On Facebook, Trump has 4.7 million fans with whom he interacts with less than
on Twitter. This channel is managed by his campaign team, and he influences what is
posted there. No one from the campaign interacts with fans, however, there is a lot of
interaction with the post itself with people commenting, sharing, and liking. This
channel gives connections and the ability to share Trump’s messaging and turns them
into lions in their own circles reaching people that may not be following Trump.
Trump’s campaign does make good use of the platform in the sense that they have a
video or photo on every post throughout the eight days. On this channel, Trump could
be more useful by highlighting his famous lions, responding to comments, or sharing
testimonials from his supporters.
Trump makes the best use of Twitter by tweeting his thoughts honestly. His
campaign social media strategist gives him topics to tweet about, but everything tweeted
is tweeted by Trump himself. On this channel, he has 5.15 million followers and he
interacts with his connections by quoting their tweets and liking them. Trump normally
quotes 5-10 tweets from regular supporters daily. The idea that they could be quoted by
someone they admire and support encourages his supporters to tweet directly at him.
These supporters then become lions for Trump within their own circles. According to
twitaholic.com, Trump is ranked 459th in terms of followers in the world, and 13th in the
geographical area of New York, NY. Trump gets the most bang for his buck on Twitter,
and uses it a lot better than Clinton does to interact with his connections.
Instagram is the least used channel for Trump, and he has 691,000 followers. He
does not post every day, and he does not comment or interact with any of his followers.
Trump could highlight his lions here and “regram” pictures that his supporters post of
him when they meet. An example of highlighting his lions would be to post a photo of
him and a popular celebrity or well-known person together. Instagram is a very visual
platform, and posting daily will keep him fresh in his followers’ minds.
16
Best/Worst Posts
Trump’s best Facebook post was about the Paris terror attacks and his opinion
that President Obama was not doing enough to stop ISIL (see Appendix A). The score
for this post was 82.87 and was posted on November 14th at 11:24 a.m. with 268,181
likes and 30,318 shares. This message was so popular because it is right on target with
his audience. Many conservatives and even some liberals do not believe that President
Obama is doing enough, and so whether or not you are a Trump supporter, this message
resonated with a large number of people. It was also very timely and relevant. People
were also on Facebook quite a bit in order to get more information about the attacks and
were more likely to see his post.
Trump’s worst Facebook post was very odd. It was a video of Ben Carson with the
caption of “Happy Friday the 13th” (see Appendix A). This post was ranked 1.83 on
November 13th at 10:07 a.m. with 21,212 likes and 4,114 shares. The video was a
compilation of news clips and interviews of Ben Carson. The video was long, and with
very little description, it was not enticing. Posts bashing other GOP candidates on
Facebook do not generally do as well as other posts, and this was definitely hard to
understand what Trump was trying to say.
Trump’s best Twitter post was about his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live
(see Appendix A). This post had a score of 8773 and was posted on November 6th at 6:08
p.m. with 3,030 likes and 4,208 retweets. He posted a photo of him, singer SIA, and an
actress from SNL, and in this post he is wearing the same wig as SIA. This episode was
the highest rated show for SNL since 2012, and a lot of viewers tuned in for the
entertainment value of having Trump on a show that mocks him.
Trump’s worst Twitter post was a quoted tweet at 11:52 a.m. on November 6th
with confusing content. This post had a score of 1610, a difference of 7163 from the best
post of the week. It had just 1,164 likes and 444 retweets. The quoted tweet’s content
was confusing because it used jargon from the campaign trail, meaning that if you do
not follow the campaign trail closely you were not sure what that meant (see Appendix
A). Trump ostracized some of his followers since they were unsure of what the meaning
was, also stopping people from interacting with the post as much.
Instagram is not one of Trump’s most used platforms, but when he did post a
photo of him in a SIA wig in a Saturday Night Live dressing room, it was very popular
(see Appendix A). This post received a score of 34.86. Very similar to the best tweet, this
was a highly anticipated episode of Saturday Night Live, and this was a fun teaser.
The worst Instagram photo is still relative, and since there were only four posts
on Instagram that week, it is hard to quantify so little posts in a ranking system. This
post received a score of 22.56, and was within 12 points of the best post that week. This
post had boring content, simply Trump signing his book “Crippled America” for Bill
O’Reilly on O’Reilly’s show (see Appendix A). It was not interesting and did not reveal
anything like the best post that week did.
17
So What?
Trump does very well on Twitter, he creates his tweets himself, interacts with his
followers, and creates lions for himself. This seems to be the key to his social media
strategy, and, since he is recognized on Twitter, the traditional media is forced to cover
his thoughts in order to stay relevant. His best practices are his honesty, consistency of
his messaging across all three channels, and his ability to make lions for himself on
Twitter.
Suggestions for Repair
Trump does really well on Twitter, but there is always room for continuous
improvement. His campaign misses opportunities to interact with followers on both
Facebook and Instagram. As mentioned earlier, highlighting well-known followers as
well as highlighting regular people he met along the campaign trail is a great way to
encourage his lions to support him on Facebook and Instagram. If he did this, he would
move his Facebook and Instagram accounts from the “Reach/Breadth” section of the
connections grid to the “Abundance” quadrant like his Twitter account. While there is a
bottleneck of having too many comments to reply to, his team should pick some for him
to respond to. Interaction with every comment or reply is not practical, but some is
possible.
Since he is only active on three platforms, it is feasible for him to be on at least
two others. Tumblr is a great visual content channel and he could use this to post
promotional images as well as quotes. Many people use images from Tumblr on
Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, and this would be a great way to also
answer questions from followers in a controlled manner. He would also be able to reach
a younger demographic of voters. Another suggestion for the Trump campaign would be
to start using Pinterest. Having members of the Trump family curate their own boards,
as well as use it to pin messaging would be examples of content. Trump has a large
support group called “Women for Trump” and, as Pinterest’s demographics are
overwhelmingly female, this would be another channel to reach them on. It would give
the public a peek into his family life as well, maybe making him more likeable to others.
Finally, competitive pressures often deter candidates from doing certain things or
make them do other things – but Trump does not care. His campaign should capitalize
on this even further and use it to be even more innovative than they have been already,
especially on Twitter.
18
CONCLUSIONS
Rankings/Results
Donut Chart
As a result of analyzing each post, content donut charts were created to show the
percentage of posts that fell into each category. Some categories include “bashing,”
“stances,” or “military support.”
Rankings
Each group member evaluated the candidates’ use of social media through the 5
Cs on a scale of 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent). The expectation was that both candidates
would have high rankings because they have the funds and ability to find and hire
superb social media managers.
Coordinates:
 Clinton: 8.5 // Trump: 6.4
Clinton does a bit better of a job with coordinating her business and
communication goals of winning the election and the way she reaches her audiences via
social media. Trump has a different set of communication goals because he does not
care what people think and tends to be less filtered on social media.
Connections:
 Clinton: 6.8 // Trump: 6.4
Both Clinton and Trump were pretty average with their “connections” ranking. A
correction here for both candidates would be to link back to their websites more often
than just in their Facebook or Twitter bios.
Channels:
 Clinton: 8.4 // Trump: 8.0
Clinton and Trump were both rather highly ranked in terms of their channel
choices. They know where their key audiences are and know how to target them.
Content:
 Clinton: 7.1 // Trump: 8.2
Trump beating out Clinton in the “content” area was not surprising because of
the “real” factor. One of the biggest complaints Clinton received during her previous
political efforts was that she did not seem “real” to the people. Although she has
improved on that, Trump still has her beat out. Readers or listeners know that when
Trump talks, he means what he says.
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6TH “C” – Capacity
In addition to the 5 “Cs”, there is a critical 6th “C” when analyzing a social media
campaign: “Capacity.” Capacity measures the projected longevity of a particular
campaign, strategy, or profile. This tool basically allows evaluators a way to predict the
life of a trend – whether it be in the form a hashtag or a personality such as Donald
Trump.
Key Components
There are two key strategies that affect capacity component: intrinsic strategy
and extrinsic strategy:
Intrinsic strategies have a self-centered purpose when posting. This means that
the profile is posting strictly for itself (i.e. focusing solely on selling the product, posting
about “me, me, me,” and little-to-no follower engagement). An example would be the
candidate Donald Trump. He posts whenever he feels like it and his content contains his
genuine thoughts, regardless of what the predicted follower reaction will be. This sort of
profile is most commonly found with celebrities or for personal use of social media
platforms.
Extrinsic strategies have deliberate and targeted efforts to be audience-focused
when posting. The focus of the profile is strategic and each post is carefully mapped out.
For example, a profile may know that statuses with colorful pictures, a quick anecdote,
and a link to another site tend to get the best reaction and the most engagement.
Therefore, the profile will likely post more of those types of posts. Another example is if
a profile is trying to expand (i.e. a small business), they may realize that their new
products resonate better with a new audience that has not yet been targeted on their
existing social media. Therefore, the profile (small business) must refocus their posts
and add a new strategy to target that new audience’s interests.
Potential Outcomes
There are three different ways to label the predictions of capacity: decrease,
increase, and plateau:
A decreasing capacity means that over a certain period of time predetermined at
the outset of the campaign, the popularity of the trend or campaign decreases. An
important aspect to consider with further research and development of this idea is to
determine the rate at which the capacity decreases and how to better measure this. This
measurement falls in with analyses such as the diffusion of innovation or the rate of
adoption for different groups.
An increasing capacity is the exact opposite of a decreasing capacity: the
popularity of a trend or campaign increases and the lifetime extends beyond that which
was originally set in goals of the campaign.
The third potential outcome of capacity is a plateau: the goals from the beginning
of the campaign were met, but the lifespan of the trend has come to an end right when it
was projected to end.
20
The Candidates’ Capacities
Capacity:
 Clinton: 7.5 // Trump: 7.82
Clinton has an extrinsic presence. She tailors her content to specific audiences to
drive home her points. She must craft her messages carefully to connect with her
audiences in order to extend the life of her campaign. Our group predicts that Clinton’s
campaign will have a plateau effect. She may have some high or low points, but she does
consistently come back to a middle ground.
However, Trump’s presence is intrinsic. He posts for himself, not caring about
what anyone else has to say. This style matches his personality, giving him a “real”
presence and voice, increasing the capacity of his campaign. Our group predicts that
Trump’s campaign will have an increasing effect, meaning it will grow in popularity
over time, until his stated goal (the election) is accomplished.
To The Polls…
In order to determine the overall winner, the group ranked each candidate on
each of the 6 Cs as shown above. Those rankings were averaged to get the score:
Trump: 7.364 // Clinton: 7.66
Therefore, Hillary Clinton is the next “Social Media President!”
21
FINAL SUGGESTIONS FO R BOTH CANDIDATES
Aside from the suggestions mentioned before, there are some areas of
improvement for both of the candidates. However, because of their personalities and
campaign styles, they will have to take different routes to successfully implement and
maintain these changes.
More Engagement with Followers
Both Clinton and Trump have massive numbers of followers, so it would be
completely unreasonable to ask them to engage with every follower. However, there
should be more engagement with their supporters. We would not recommend engaging
much with opponents, as to avoid an online debate.
Personability
Regarding personability, Clinton has already improved from her last campaign by
signing the tweets she actually writes with “-H”, but she needs to show her personality
more and be less robotic. As much as Trump may not want to change, his personality is
affecting his campaign. Becoming less offensive could be an option to boost support,
even though that is unlikely.
Link to Websites
The third arena is linking back to their websites. Neither candidate really links
back to their respective websites from any platform. However, since that is the one space
that they can truly control the content and fully explain their stances and rationale, they
should be linked consistently.
22
REJECTED SOLUTIONS/I NSIGHTS
The largest rejected insight that we had was the original companies that we chose
for this project. We first chose Netflix and Amazon Video because of the popularity of
streaming, and we decided that it was the most comparable. We also took into account
comparable social media channels as well. However, as we dug deeper into each
company’s social media channels, it became clear that it was incredibly difficult to
separate all of the different products of Amazon, especially Amazon Video. Since
Amazon Video does not have separate social media accounts, it became increasingly
difficult to compare Netflix and Amazon Video’s social media strategies when they do
not each have unique accounts. After a heated discussion, we decided that we would
drop Amazon Video. After another heated discussion, we could not quite come to a
consensus on which was the best competitor. We then agreed to pick two new
organizations to compare. Since we all agreed Donald Trump would be interesting, we
decided to pick Hillary Clinton because she had the most comparable social media. This
made it much easier to compare their strategies, and we were able to gain better insights
this way.
Another rejected insight had to do with our equations for evaluating
effectiveness. At the beginning, we wanted to take into account every single negative and
positive comment. However after thinking about it and hearing in the class the next day
that it was too hard, we decided that extrapolating was completely warranted in this
case. Extrapolating made it easier to evaluate everything, and spend time evaluating the
actual strategies.
Along the same topic, we had to use a different equation for Twitter because the
information that we needed is only available to the person who holds the account. We
were unable to get the exact number of quoted tweets, retweets, and replies. Quoted
retweets would weigh more because the person felt the need to add something to it,
positive or negative. With the added data, there is a more accurate rating for tweets. But
since we do not have access to that data, we were unable to include it in the ratings we
used for this report.
Our final rejected insight was how we decided to do the corrections portion of our
project. It was very difficult to separate our personal views from our strategist views.
Due to that, we had to remind ourselves often that it was not actually a political
correction, but rather a social media one. That being said, we had to take a different
approach to Trump’s corrections. Since Trump does not believe he has ever done
anything wrong, he would not feel like he needed to correct anything so we went with
things that he could add to his social media strategies and tactics instead. Clinton has
changed her stance, but never actually corrected anything. Since politics is rarely the
arena in which people admit they are wrong, corrections were based on what they were
not doing rather than content.
23
SO WHAT?
Sarah Alexander
For this project: The social media match-up is very important to address your
competitors and see where you excel and where you need to work on. Although, having a
clear understanding of the business and communication goals are also very useful on
which platforms you should be on and to keep your audiences and messages consistent
and clear.
For Communication presentations: I have learned to put all-in on research, and
creating a large “tool box” to guarantee all perspectives and angles. Also, that “sexy” is a
good word; it has its denotative definition, meaning attractive and exciting, but the
connotative communication meaning of completeness, strategic, and creative.
Sandra Graybill
Comparing who Clinton and Trump follow and how they align with their political
views as well as their core messages, and by analyzing Clinton’s and Trump’s audiences
on social media has helped me become a better strategic thinker.
Karli Peterson
As a Communication major, the amount of strategic and critical thinking skills
put into one project is immeasurable – and I could not be more thankful for the
experiences I’ve had within group projects, presentations, and classroom settings.
Through this case study alone, I have learned how to back out from “consumer view” to
analyze social media while wearing an executive’s hat – a big take on audience analysis
in which I had not experience prior. Also, looking specifically at the social media course,
there are not any rules (as to go off of Renegades Write the Rules). With a developing
and ever-changing environment online, this study was a great way to apply all wisdom
from various communication courses to a more modern social media challenge.
24
Taylor Thomson
Throughout my years as a Communication major, I have learned several things
about presenting, working with a group (something that I had always dreaded in high
school), and professionalism. However, after going through this program, I feel welleducated and prepared for the real world. The projects and crises prepared me
strategically for whatever job I end up taking. I have learned that crucial strategic plans
are applicable no matter the case—audience analysis, research, and strategy are key. I
cannot wait to get out into the “real world” and apply the countless lessons learned from
these case studies to my career.
Ashley Vickney
The Communication program at UWGB has been the best decision I made senior
year of high school. Two big takeaways have come from this program for me. One,
continuous improvement is a lifelong commitment, and even if you are good you can
always get better. Being self-aware is actually a good feeling, and it allows you to be the
most authentic version of yourself. Two, you are only as good as the people you
surround yourself with. No matter how good you are, it is going to be lost when you do
not challenge yourself consistently. It is important to remember that being challenged is
a good thing, and that in the end that is how you become a better version of yourself.
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CONTINUOUS IMPROVEME NTS
Nailed It:


Introduction slide and background information
Connections Grid - the brilliant aspect is showing the different connections per
platform. See Appendix A for both charts and a combined chart for both
candidates.
o Follow up question to think about: Do different social media platforms
have an optimal location on the grid?
 Depends on the social media strategists’ goals for the voice and
presence of the organization’s social media….
Areas to Improve:




Time management
o We could have cut a bit of the information that we presented. We also had
a very short amount of time to get a lot of information in!
Clarify ratings of the 6 Cs.
o These were further explained throughout the report earlier.
Section dedicated to “Methodology”
o Please see the section addressed in this report. We went into thorough
detail of our processes and results.
Explain “other” category in pie charts.
o This was explained in further detail in the paper. The “other” category
varied by platform and candidate and included anything and everything
that did not fit into existing content categories.
26
APPENDIXES
Appendix A: List of Illustrations & Examples
- Screenshots (Web Tools)
Hillary Clinton
27
Donald Trump
28
- Example of Rank Calculations
(Image of spreadsheet: “Social Media Tracker: Hillary Clinton’s Instagram Posts)
29
- Connections Grid
(Hillary Clinton’s Social Media Platforms Connections Grid)
(Donald Trump’s Social Media Platforms Connections Grid)
30
- Content Donuts
31
- Content Donuts (cont’d)
32
- Rankings Graph
33
- Best/Worst Posts
Hillary Clinton
Facebook:
Twitter:
Instagram:
34
- Best/Worst Posts (cont’d)
Donald Trump
Facebook:
Twitter:
Instagram:
35
Appendix B: 100 Facts
Hillary Rodham Clinton
1. political leader
2. human rights activist
3. women’s rights activist
4. first lady
5. Profiles - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Google+
6. Born - Oct. 26,1947 // Age 68
7. Married to : Bill Clinton
8. Party: Democratic
9. Children: Chelsea Clinton
10. #Hillary2016
11. Twitter: 4.71 Million Followers
12. Facebook: 1.775 Million Followers
13. YouTube: 33,747k followers
14. Instagram 500k followers
15. Google+: 938 followers, last post Aug 20th, 2015
16. “Wife, mom, grandma, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US
Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass
ceiling cracker, 2016 presidential candidate.” (FB Bio)
17. Methodist
18. Children’s Defense Fund, 1973 - 1974
19. University of Arkansas School of Law, 1974 – 1977
20. Rose Law Firm, 1977 - 1992
21. First Lady of Arkansas, 1979 - 1981
22. First Lady of Arkansas, 1983 - 1992
23. First Lady of the United States, 1993 - 2001
24. U.S. Senator for New York, 2001 - 2009
25. U.S. Secretary of State, 2009 - 2013
26. Wellesley College, 1969
27. Yale Law School, 1973
28. Hillary temporarily worked on Republican Barry Goldwater’s campaign in 1964
29. HC wanted to be an astronaut and wrote to NASA, but they weren’t accepting
women at the time.
30. HC is also the First Lady to have a post graduate degree and be elected to
national office, also she is the first to be subpoenaed and fingerprinted by the FBI
31. HC has a Grammy Award for her 1997 best spoken word album for her recording
of her book “It Takes a Village.”
32. Most traveled Secretary of state, 112 countries and spent a quarter of her time in
the air.
33. HC out-earned her husband Bill Clinton (as Governor) several times, when she
was First Lady of Arkansas.
34. 1964 - Works on the presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry
Goldwater.
35. 1968 - Switches to the Democratic Party and campaigns for Eugene McCarthy.
36. 1970 - Works as a summer intern for civil rights lawyer Marian Wright Edelman.
37. 1973-1974 - Works as an attorney for the Children's Defense Fund.
36
38. January 1974 - Begins working for John Doar, the special counsel to the House
Judiciary Committee, who is in charge of the inquiry into the possible
impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
39. August 1974 - Moves to Arkansas to teach at the University Of Arkansas School
Of Law.
40. 1974-1977 - Director of Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of
Law.
41. 1974-1977 and 1979-1980 - Assistant Professor of Law at the University of
Arkansas School of Law.
42. 1976-1992 - Attorney at Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, Arkansas. Is named partner
in 1979.
43. 1978 - President Jimmy Carter appoints Clinton to the board of directors of the
Legal Services Corp., an organization that provides federal funds to legal-aid
bureaus throughout the United States.
44. 1978 - Bill Clinton is elected governor of Arkansas. Hillary Clinton continues to
work at Rose Law Firm, making her the first First Lady of Arkansas to continue
working while her husband is governor.
45. 1979 - Governor Clinton appoints her chairperson of the Rural Health Advisory
Committee, whose members deal with the issue of providing health care in
isolated areas.
46. 1979 - The Whitewater Development Corp. is formed by the Clintons and James
and Susan McDougal.
47. 1980 - Governor Clinton loses the 1980 gubernatorial election. He returns to
office in 1982, and is re-elected in 1984, 1986, and 1990.
48. 1983 - Governor Clinton appoints his wife to head the Arkansas Education
Standards Committee.
49. 1988 and 1991 - Hillary Clinton is named one of the 100 most influential U.S.
lawyers by the National Law Journal.
50. 1992 - Bill Clinton is elected president.
51. January 1993 - The president names Clinton to lead the Task Force on National
Health Care Reform.
52. September 28, 1993 - Testifies before the House Ways and Means Committee in
support of President Clinton's health care package. The health care reform bill is
later defeated by Congress.
53. February 6, 2000 - Announces her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
54. May 16, 2000 - Accepts the nomination of the New York State Democratic Party
for the U.S. Senate.
55. September 20, 2000 - Independent counsel Robert Ray announces that the
evidence found in the Whitewater case is insufficient to prove that the Clintons
knowingly participated in any criminal conduct.
56. November 7, 2000 - Is elected to the U.S. Senate with 56% of the vote.
57. February 13, 2001 - Makes her first address on the floor of the Senate.
58. June 9, 2003 - Releases her memoir, "Living History." The book sells over
200,000 copies on its first day of release.
59. November 7, 2006 - Clinton is re-elected for a second term as Senator.
60. January 20, 2007 - Announces she is creating an exploratory committee for the
2008 presidential race.
37
61. January 8, 2008 - Wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary with 39% of the
vote.
62. June 7, 2008 - Suspends her presidential campaign and endorses Barack Obama.
63. August 27, 2008 - Clinton is formally nominated as a candidate for president at
the Democratic National Convention in Denver. She receives 341 votes before
interrupting the roll call to ask that Obama be nominated by acclamation.
64. September 2008 - Campaigns across the country for the Barack Obama/Joe
Biden ticket.
65. January 21, 2009 - Is confirmed as secretary of state.
66. October 15, 2012 - During an interview with CNN, Clinton takes responsibility for
the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She claims as head of the
State Department the security of more than 60,000 people in 275 posts is her
responsibility.
67. December 15, 2012 - Sustains a concussion after becoming dehydrated and
fainting.
68. December 30, 2012 - Is hospitalized after doctors discover a blood clot during a
follow-up exam related to the concussion. Doctors announce on December 31st
that the clot is located in between Clinton's brain and skull, but they are confident
she will make a full recovery.
69. January 2, 2013 - Is released from the hospital.
70. January 23, 2013 - Secretary Clinton testifies for more than five hours before the
House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
71. February 1, 2013 - Resigns as secretary of state.
72. March 18, 2013 - Clinton announces that she supports marriage rights for samesex couples. In the 2008 presidential primaries she supported civil unions and
partner benefits, but not same-sex marriage.
73. March 2, 2015 - The New York Times reports that Clinton exclusively used a
personal email account during her time as secretary of state. The account, fed
through its own server, raises security and preservation concerns. The House
committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya discovered the
personal account when the Department of State -- through Clinton -- provided
those emails to the committee.
74. March 10, 2015 - During a press conference, Clinton says she used a private
domain for her official work during her time at the State Department out of
"convenience," but admits in retrospect "it would have been better" to use
multiple emails.
75. April 12, 2015 - Clinton officially announces a second bid for the White House.
The initial word comes in an email to supporters from John Podesta, a longtime
Clinton ally, then a video launched on YouTube and a newly minted Facebook
page. Shortly after declaring her candidacy for president, she resigns from the
Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation's board of directors, according to
foundation officials.
76. August 10, 2015 - During a town hall event in Exeter, New Hampshire, Clinton
introduces a plan to make college more affordable. The $350 billion program
would lower student loan interest rates so tuition costs will no longer "be a
barrier" for young people aspiring to earn a degree.
38
77. August 11, 2015 - Clinton's spokesman announces that she will turn over her
private email server and a flash drive to Justice Department officials, as an
ongoing probe into the handling of classified information continues. Inspector
general, I. Charles McCullough, III notifies Congress that two of Clinton's emails
contained top secret materials.
78. October 22, 2015 - Clinton testifies for 11 hours before the congressional panel
investigating the attacks on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya that lead to the
deaths of four Americans.
79. Eighty-five percent of U.S. adults use the Internet, according to Pew Research. Of
those Internet users, 72 percent are on Facebook, while Twitter lags far behind
with 23 percent penetration. About 64 percent of all U.S. desktop searches come
from Google, while its search app is installed on a majority of U.S. smartphones. The Hill
80.Reason for posting old photos: “The pictures of her early years are important to
telling her story, where she came from, the moments that shaped her life,” said
Jim Margolis, one of Clinton’s media advisers. Strategists think it’s a wise
strategy that’s made even more effective by her celebrity. People love looking at
photos of celebrities. And when their pics of celebs before they were celebs, even
better. “Baby pictures are warm and emotional,” said one Democratic strategist.
“That’s what Hillary needs to show.” -NYTimesLive
81. Here are the Secretary's stances on five key issues that appeal to young voters:
1. education,
2. marijuana,
3. immigration,
4. climate change and
5. LGBT rights.
82. Education: Clinton released what Inside Higher Ed called "by far the most
detailed plan released by a candidate yet." The plan included ensuring that the
maximum award given by Pell Grant increased with accordance to rising college
costs, simplifying the application for financial aid, giving a $10,000 education
award for those who participate in AmeriCorps, and providing millions in grants
to four-year colleges and community colleges to improve completion rates,
among other proposals.
83. Former Secretary Clinton also endorsed President Obama's plan to make
community college free for two years.
84. Marijuana: During the 2008 election Hillary Clinton was not in favor of
decriminalization, which is a step below legalization. Since then, however, her
views have become watered down and vague. "I'm a big believer in acquiring
evidence," Clinton told NPR affiliate KPCC in July of 2014. "And I think we
should see what kind of results we get, both from medical marijuana and from
recreational marijuana, before we make any far-reaching conclusions. We need
more studies. We need more evidence. And then we can proceed."
85. Immigration: Hillary Clinton strongly backed President Obama's immigration
executive order, calling the plan to protect nearly 5 million undocumented
immigrants a "historic step."
39
86. The Environment: Hillary Clinton believes in climate change, and called for
greater tax incentives and greater research for green energy. Clinton also
supports a carbon tax.
87. LGBT Rights: Hillary Clinton has evolved on LGBT rights. She also made a
historic speech in Geneva on International Human Rights Day, where she
declared that gay rights were human rights.
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https://www.facebook.com/hillaryclinton/info/?tab=page_info
http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/hillary-diane-rodham-clinton-1632.php
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/us/hillary-clinton---fast-facts/
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/hillary-clinton-believe-candidate-stands10-issues/
http://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#pinterest
(Pinterest demos)
Donald John Trump
88.Born June 14th, 1946 in Queens, New York
89. Fourth of five children
90. Attended the New York Military School
91. Went to Fordham University
92. Went to University of Penn Wharton School of Business, graduated in 1968 with
a degree in Economics
93. Went to work with his father at Elizabeth Trump & Sons (real estate)
94. Was too ambitious and the profit margins were too small
95. He started to expand into Manhattan
96. Married his first wife Ivanka in 1977
97. Trump and Ivanka had 3 children
98. 1982 the first Trump tower is built
99. Expanded into Atlantic City with Harrah’s Casino
100. Expanded rapidly into Atlantic City and West Palm Beach
101. Bought an airline called it Trump Shuttle in 1990
102. Bankrupt in 1990 as well because of the real estate market
103. 1991 divorce from 1st wife
104. 1993 married 2nd wife
105. 1997 divorce from 2nd wife
106. 1999 he announced an exploratory committee to see if he should run for
president as the Reform Candidate in 2000
107. Because of a poor showing in CA primary, he withdrew
108. 2004 started the Apprentice with NBC
109. Announced June 16, 2015 -- announced in front of Trump Towers
110. “Make our country great again”
111. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans and NBC dropped him
112. Filed a $500 million lawsuit against NBC
113. July 18th, 2015 said that John McCain wasn’t a military hero
114. Top 10 Republican Candidates
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115. 5 Children: Ivanka is the only one in the spotlight
116. Ben Carson as biggest (Republican) competitor
117. Marco Rubio also large competitor
118. Jeb Bush has been one before recent dip in the polls
119. Hillary Clinton as main Democratic competitor
120.Bernie Sanders also a main Democratic competitor
121. It is important to note that he was a Democrat until about 2005
122. Trump is famously self-funded, but does accept donations
123. As of Oct 2015 he has 74,000 donors with about $50 average donation
124. $3.7 million of “unsolicited” contributions
125. Donated 1.9 million to his own campaign
126. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I
don’t care. I’m really rich.”
127. Facebook
a. 2-5 posts per day
b. 4.26M likes on page
128.Twitter
a. 20+ posts per day
b. 4.89M followers
129. Instagram
a. 3-5 posts per week
b. 551K followers
130.Vine
a. No posts since 2013
131. In the US alone, there were 6.4million interactions regarding the launch of his
campaign generated within 24 hours
132. In fact, including all the contenders, only democrat Hillary Clinton can beat that
with a huge 10.1 million interactions after her speech the week before.
133. Trump made his formal presidential announcement on Periscope, the new live
streaming app
134. “Social media has power and Trump knows its value.”
135. Justin McConney (29YO social media whiz for Trump)
136. Instagram attack ads
137. “As Dan Pfeiffer, a former top communications adviser to President Obama,
tweeted last week, Trump “is way better at the Internet than anyone else in the
GOP which is partly why he is winning.”
138. Trump is his own social media strategist today.
139. Frequent re-tweeter (STRATEGY: focus on voter interaction and direct no-messaround style)
140.
Advised to tweet several times a day and share unfiltered videos of his
thoughts and opinions on anything and everything
141. STRATEGY: Live Tweet Events (ex: 2012 Republican Debate)
142. Trump was an established figure on social media before running - gave him the
opportunity to transform personal pages to political pages
143. #AskTrump campaign: voters and interested parties can ask Trump a question
and he would post a video response on FB.
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144. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain campaign: began with a youtube video April 2015
Trump has thus far REFUSED to buy TV ads
145. “…it’s (social media) great,” he [Trump] said in South Carolina in July. “It’s like
owning a newspaper without the losses.”
146. Trump is (possibly) the first “social media” or “reality tv” president
a. FDR = radio; JFK = tv; Obama = Internet
b. “The reality-show president could soon become reality.”
147. In the old system, Trump’s style would have killed a campaign.
148.HOWEVER - Trump is an innovative social media user - the ultimate “real”
person that people can look at and know he isn’t a lying politician like the rest of
them… that is what resonates with the people; “authenticity”
149. “No wonder almost every time we predict Trump will collapse, he only grows
stronger. Trump is not breaking the rules. He is playing by a new set of rules.”
150. “But every political era is shaped by the media environment of its time.”
151. Trump understands the environment and has the skills, resources, and
knowledge to act on it.
152. September 21, 2015 around 10am “#AskTrump Send me your questions to
answer live from @TwitterNYC later this afternoon.”
153. Received an array of questions, negative comments, and trolls.
154. Responded via video clips on topics such as “student debt, to helping the
homeless, to the Dallas Cowboys’ NFL future without injured quarterback Tony
Romo.”
155. This campaign was trending #1 worldwide
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http://www.biography.com/people/donald-trump-9511238#synopsis
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/15/donations-to-donaldtrumps-campaign-outpace-self-funding/?_r=0
https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/?fref=ts
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump
https://www.instagram.com/realdonaldtrump/
https://vine.co/u/971820855623622656
http://www.digitalbinx.com/donald-trump-pushes-campaign-social-media/
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/trumps-social-media-guy-214309
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKqCEuv5c6M
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/26/opinions/jones-trump-social-media/
http://www.ibtimes.com/asktrump-hashtag-backfires-donald-trump-twitterheadquarters-visit-prompts-social-2106932
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11c68f9e-5a1d-11e5-a28b50226830d644.html#axzz3rhnptDmM
http://theweek.com/articles/580110/trump-still-king-social-media
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Appendix C: Green Feedback Sheets
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