Obama revamps social media strategy to better connect with voters
US president Barack Obama’s social media team has undertaken an overhaul of its digital communications strategy in an effort to reinvigorate audiences ahead of his landmark State of the Union address.
This has seen political staffers produce a clutch of custom content including videos, digital op-eds, Facebook and Twitter posts and even six-second animated GIFs to entice viewers away from the mainstream media.
Commenting on the shift from established media to social Jennifer Palmieri, the president’s communications director, told the NYTimes: “It’s still true that most people still get their news from television and big newspapers. But if that’s all you’re talking to, you’re missing big parts of the population. National media is going to cover a story like health care through a political lens. The average person is thinking: ‘How does that health care law affect me?”
Recently Obama has increasingly targeted platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to speak directly to voters – sidestepping sceptical White House reporters.
In recent months Obama’s approval ratings have nudged up to 50 per cent but American politics remains riven along partisan lines.