Obama was widely applauded in 2008 for his effective use of social media, particularly Facebook, to raise roughly $750 million in 21 months, more than all the candidates in 2004 put together. In 2012 he increased this to almost $874 million.
With Obama unable to run for a third term, a new, and quite different social media beast has reared its bizarre toupee. Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is a masterclass in how to game social media through provocation and offence.
As he’s funding his own campaign, there’s no need for him to attempt to encourage donations through social media, allowing him to bring the full force of his personality to the fore. A personality, that occasionally says things like this:
He’s not got much better in the run up to his possible election as Republican Candidate for President…
But, for better or worse, Trump’s Twitter feed is infinitely more interesting than those of his opponents and is regularly covered by national and international press.
Whilst other candidates have been trying to take advantage of Snapchat and Periscope to get their message across, Trump has been taking advantage of something much more potent; his personality. Time will tell how effective this proves to be.