Political campaigns in the US turn to digital influencers to get their messages across

by

Between posts doing exercises, Ky’Wuan Dukes, 20, a football player at Johnson C. Smith University, tells his 21,000 Instagram followers that they need to vote.

He has also spoken out on gun control and abortion rights, part of a campaign he is paid to participate in by the political action committee (PAC) and Democratic advocacy group NextGenAmerica.

Luke Stone, a contestant on the reality show “Bachelor in Paradise”, shared with his 33,000 followers an ad on women’s reproductive rights paid for by another PAC Democrat, American Bridge.

And in July, Grace Hunter, who has 4 million followers on TikTok, posted a video showing the responses she received on a dating app when she asked people she matched with what their views were on abortion. Then, as part of a sponsored campaign titled “Hot Girls Vote,” she encouraged her followers to go to the polls to vote.

These digital influencers and micro-influencers — people who are not celebrities but who attract a relatively large number of social media followers — are being paid hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars per post to spread political messages.

They are part of a growing group of people paid by political campaign operators to create content aimed at influencing the midterms, the midterm elections in the US.

According to researchers, political firms, particularly those aligned with Democrats and progressive causes, have increasingly turned to digital influencers in an attempt to reach Gen Z and non-English-speaking voters. Influencers represent a new, unregulated way to promote political messages.

Strategists say the use of digital influencers can increase campaigns’ engagement with key voters who can shape the course of tight races. They are a low-cost way to communicate with large, localized audiences, something that attracts greater engagement and circumvents the ban on spreading political propaganda on platforms like Twitter, TikTok and Instagram.

“Digital influencers know their audience better than anyone,” says Jessica Floyd, president of American Bridge. “They talk to people every day about issues that people care about.”

Young voters tend to favor Democrats, having voted for Joe Biden in the last presidential election by a 60% margin to Donald Trump’s 36%. But they form the age group most likely not to turn up to vote. In a New York Times/Siena College poll taken in September, only 30% of young voters said they were “almost certain” they would vote midterms.

People First, a progressive firm that specializes in partnering with influencers, found in a study that 43% of respondents trust influencers more than campaigns.

CEO Curtis Hougland said People First worked with about 10,000 influencers this election cycle to cover seven congressional races and a dozen other campaigns at the state level.

NextGen PAC has set aside $2 million to fund its digital strategy and digital influencer programs, in which it has partnered with college athletes and TikTok users. As part of the deal, influencers need to reveal which posts are paid for and by whom.

PAC Democratic Majority Action has focused its efforts on congressional races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, offering digital influencers between $300 and $500 for each post, said Sannie Overly, a former Kentucky state representative who leads the organization. .

And some campaigns have hired digital influencers to integrate their teams, recognizing the power given by a large base of followers on social networks to spread their messages.

Many organizations require influencers they pay to issue publications to reveal that the material is sponsored. Even so, the partnerships create dilemmas, as federal guidance on specific aspects of political ads run by influencers has never been published.

In practice, this means that users and political campaigns only have an honorable duty to disclose when content has been paid for by a political campaign or organization. Experts fear that this could exacerbate the spread of misinformation and the spread of dubious political messages.

GL DiVittorio, 27, is a tiktoker who has a political account called The Pocket Report and has partnered with advocacy groups to create content. To her, this whole area is like a “Wild West.”

She says social media companies and political firms are still studying how to implement disclosure rules. PACs like PeopleFirst review posts from their digital influencers before they go live to ensure that the user has disclosed that the content has been paid for, according to Hougland, but generally do not tamper with the message so it can remain personalized and genuine.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which oversees the law on campaign finance, including political advertising, does not provide specific regulations for digital influencers, so they are not subject to the same standards applied to traditional advertising, such as television ads and radio, which must reveal who paid for the content.

Political action committees are required to report how they spend their money, but are not required to reveal the names of digital influencers or individual accounts they partner with. And people who receive money from campaigns or PACs do not have a legal obligation to report what they receive.

According to FEC data, campaigns and PACs have already spent more than US$300 million this election cycle on consultancy and digital advertising and on social platforms. It’s impossible to discern how much of this was paid directly to digital influencers, because PACs and campaigns often pay firms who then hire influencers to work.

Platforms like Twitter and TikTok have banned political ads. TikTok has even banned political ads from paid digital influencers. But Eric Han, the platform’s US director of security, admitted in a note ahead of the midterms that political advertising from uninformed influencers is still an issue.

Even when social media companies try to identify sponsored political content, it can be difficult to determine whether a post is paid or just reflects the user’s views, says Laura Edelson, co-director of cybersecurity for democracy at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. .

According to her, the monitoring of political content published by digital influencers often leaves something to be desired, because “the content of influencers completely breaks with the model”.

You May Also Like

Recommended for you