The Twitter Candidate
The mastery of social media by Donald Trump was his real ground for victory in Us presidential campaign. He later got the name the twitter candidate since it was his main campaign tool. Trump continued proving wrong the political analysts through consistently remaining ahead in polls, and the majority of the social media gurus started to think that the online campaign presence by Donald Trump was the prime reason keeping him in power.
According to the media guru, Justin McConey, aged twenty-nine years and a digital strategist at Trump’s campaign stated that, since Donald Trump joined the presidential race, there was an exponential growth in the presence of real estate of a social media magnate. Trump used only a fraction of what his counterparts used during the campaign era in advertising but managed to remain the greatest publicity since his work was mostly on the social media especially the twitter.
As stated in the Playboy interview that talking primarily about the television and the manner that it is revolutionizing political disclosure and politics as claimed by McLuhan, the present political showman should figuratively and put on his audience. He should do so just like he would do to a suit of clothes and be a corporate image of the tribe; Trump did the same. He put on his audience like a person would put on his or her suit. He did so on social media platform especially the Twitter. According to social media guru, Morgan, the Trump’s style of taking his campaign on social media gave him a competitive edge over his rival Hillary Clinton.
He came off as incendiary and dynamic while Hillary Clinton remained uninspiring and reserved. Morgan also goes ahead to state that each moment that the public could dispel Trump from the presidential race, especially after the rude comments regarding the immigrants, Muslims and also the general public, Trump inadvertently proved time and time again that the brand was a force of reckoning. One such utterance was, “I could stand in the middle of the Fifth Avenue and shoot a person, and I would not lose the voters.” Donald embodied what it entailed being a savvy social politician and also cashed in the dynamic of the Twitter, the genuine time tool for messaging for his total and the utter gratification.
Just like the other known individuals like Hitler, Mussolini and the Jack Kennedy during the era of television that were all tribal emperors on a social scale unknown in the world since they all mastered their media, Trump too joined the same trend in ensuring victory for his presidential race. As McLuhan goes on claiming so far that the political candidate understanding the television and other social media may gain a hidden power in his history despite whatever political party that he uses, the ascending to power by Trump is not an exception. He ascended to the power because of his mastery of the media.
According to Justin McConney, a 29-year-old strategist of digital affairs of Trump’s campaign, the secret behind the success of Trump was his successful online presence. The administrator reportedly encouraged his presidential candidate to offer to the supporters and fans whatever they wanted through the social media. In the case of Trump, that meant controversy, i.e., the greater offensive the content was, the better.
Moreover, according to the digital political analyst, Alan Rosenblatt, there exists a factor of conversion of between the touches on social media and the real-life votes. As the campaign consultants convert their numbers for door knocks numbers, handshakes and yard signs in securing votes, there exist some touches for the social media to a single vote. Since the start of caucus voting in Lowa, it is indisputable that Trump received considerable hostility from the traditional analysts that criticized his absence of ground game.
However, the work that Trump’s made up for his lack of ground game it online that was extra intent than the way it previously assumed. There was an allusion to the disciplined and methodical strategy of a campaign by Trump despite an appearance of chaos. The Twitter feeds by Trump had an adamant sense of the society and majority of his followers were the ardent supporters of his policies, and this again reflected on the social media in grounding the support conversion. Trump’s social followers often created memes and the witty hashtags to their selected candidates and perhaps greater than any other aspirant for the presidential candidate in some part as Trump frequently retweeted their support.
It is evident that critics may argue that Trump’s campaign was inconsistent, amateurish and disconnected but in a similar respect, whether a person loves or hates him, he or she has to admit that his game on social media was unlike anything ever seen. Also, he set in motion an evolution for the social politics. Mostly, the primary reason that makes the traditional analyst remain to get regularly stunned by Trump’s success in polls was that they were operating out of the old rulebook since this was a no traditional campaign and Donald Trump was not the case of a traditional candidate.
The social media and networks and of which Trump possesses several of them, Instagram, Facebook, snap chat and the most notorious, the twitter replaced or at least offered a complement to traditional campaign template by Trump. Just like Obama possessed a program of intentional social media from the beginning but still inventing its way as the campaign unfolded, Trump, on the other hand, set up an excellent standard for his followers on the Twitter from the very start. The individual participation on social media by Trump created a connection to a voter that felt to be closer than the length of arms feeling that they received from their politicians.
