by By Conall Anderson
Michael Bloomberg came into the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary as the former mayor of New York City. While he didn’t lead in the polls, he was the frontrunner for the most likely to win the election, according to the public and betting markets. His real sell was his status as a multibillionaire, which allowed him to spend massive amounts on not only advertisements, but social media. Current candidates can take lessons from a wide range of his mistakes, but his social media strategy is a good place to start.
Paid content from influencers was a big part of Bloomberg’s strategy. Hugely popular Instagram meme accounts like grapejuiceboys and kalesalad posted on his behalf. This did get Bloomberg some additional media coverage on his campaign from outlets like the New York Times and BBC. It also got backlash from some social media users. But at the end of the day, Bloomberg only received 4% of the votes cast by 18-29 year olds on Super Tuesday, compared to 18% of votes cast by voters over 65.
Bloomberg’s approach added nothing of value to the conversation around the primaries while damaging the credibility of the accounts he paid off. It’s important for political candidates to realize that not every account they can afford will be the right fit. In addition, it’s bad strategy for Bloomberg. The media coverage of this social media campaign was focused around him being rich, something that was reinforced in the first debate he participated in.
Bloomberg could’ve used social media to simply reinforce his message and reasoning for entering the race: beating Trump in the general election. Through that lens, it seems like it would make a lot more sense to focus his influencer marketing efforts around individuals and organizations related to voter registration, Democratic issue advocacy, and voter turnout. His campaign would have been able to create mutually beneficial relationships with those sorts of influencers to authentically present him as someone who wants to win the general above all else, while promoting and supporting those influencers doing important work.
Bloomberg’s separate microinfluencer strategy makes more sense, but still feels like a negative for his campaign. He paid for submissions where smaller accounts explained their support. It seems like he could’ve gotten enough of that from organic followers rather than spending money and risking negative perceptions about authenticity. Another part of his strategy involved paying small accounts to post themselves, where the campaign actually provided something to copy and paste, while not requiring those posts to designate themselves as sponsored. Some accounts quickly contradicted themselves (see image below). This should be a warning sign to future candidates about disclosure and the importance of finding natural matches with influencers, small or large.
Bloomberg gets credit for taking a new and unique approach to social media for political campaigns. Influencer marketing strategies will certainly be valuable for candidates in the future. However, those candidates have to be careful to uphold their authenticity. There are plenty of spaces to spend money on social media, whether it’s influencers, advertisements, or content creators and analytics for your own pages. Don’t force yourself into a space that’s not meant for you.
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Connall, I learned something new from your post. This is actually very interesting, politicians using social media influencers as a marketing strategy. I agree that there’s different ways to approach a strategy like this. I’m curious if influencers and brands will be willing to work with politicians in the future as influencer marketing has taken social media by storm.
Hi Conall,
Really great article, you did a great job summarizing Michael Bloomburg in his presidential race and how money and capitalism can really impact how you market yourself. I also find it interesting how Bloomburg used all these social media strategies in his presidential race and none of them really had an impact.
Hi Conall,
Really great article, you did a great job summarizing Michael Bloomburg in his presidential race and how money and capitalism can really impact how you market yourself. I also find it interesting how Bloomburg used all these social media strategies in his presidential race and none of them really had an impact.
Hi Conall,
I really enjoyed this post, and had not been aware of Bloomberg’s attempts at social media marketing. It definitely feels a bit tone-deaf and counterproductive for him to market his own wealth given current attitudes against the rich popularly held by young liberal voters. Given that Bloomberg is ancient, I would assume this campaign is the lazy or out-of-touch work of a younger PR team. Still, you bring up a great point that this is innovative political campaigning that has potential to work better for other candidates.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Conall! I like how your post shed a light on an example of a mistake to be avoided rather than a social media campaign gone right. It is easy to look at successful strategies and seeing what went right, but I think this is a great example of how even with a large budget, not thinking through the ramifications of various tactics when building a social media plan can cause the campaign to damage a brand more than help it.
Hi Conall! This post was really intriguing. Marketing and politics are always hot topics. There are a lot of different ways to Market a politician or a brand. Using influencers is a great way to gain attention. Some tactics may receive backlash but in the long run influencer marketing pays off big time! Great work!