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Twitter Donald Trump Marketing

The social tao of Trump: 10 things we can learn from the president's last 200 tweets

By Alex van Gestel | VP of Consumer Products

February 24, 2017 | 8 min read

President Donald Trump's @therealdonaldtrump Twitter account has become legendary for its ferocious style and seemingly ‘shoot- from-the-hip’ spontaneity.

donald trump press conference

And in spite of the backlash from the public and both parties to his unconventional Twitter presence, he’s been getting millions of ‘favourites’ and ‘retweets’ since his 20 January inauguration. Those 144 characters are connecting with people.

In fact, engagement with his personal account has skyrocketed in the past month, from 13 million before the election to about 25 million and growing today. Whether he’s criticising companies, selecting cabinet members or supporting daughter Ivanka’s fashion-line, his tweets continue to make national news.

As throughout his campaign, Trump’s use of language and overarching verbal strategy continue to have a polarising effect, reinforced by the audience’s confirmation bias whereby they search for, and interpret the information that confirms their preconceptions. Those who voted for him are likely to be buoyed and reinforced in their support, seeking a consistency in their cognition and behaviour.

The frequency, topic and force of reaction to key events suggests he is acting more impulsively and on intuition rather than reason. But the language that’s used is consistent and deliberately direct with little nuance.

So, there is much method in the seeming ‘madness’. In studying the language of his tweets, clear patterns emerge… Here are 10 methods to his social web success:

1. Creating movement through language

Trump uses a consistent rhetorical style with powerful effect. His writing is like his speech: highly inflected language and emphasis. For example, a repeated focus on security framing provides a simple rhetoric, framing issues in terms of association between making America great and making America safe. Securitisation is used to justify the use of "extraordinary measures" to "handle" the situation. And to prove (and justify) he is implementing his campaign promises.

2. Forceful repetition

"Fake news" and biased media is referenced in over a third of his last 200 tweets – that’s over 66 tweets! His repetition spans from themes of ‘bad people pouring in’ to the success of the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit. This aids short-term retention of information as well as acting as a simple rhetorical trick. The entire White House is highly aligned and on-point.

3. Conspiratorial framing

“ …WRONG (or lie)!” and “What is going on?” consistently feature. There’s a common enemy attacking America, taking our jobs, emptying our factories. And the political establishment is part of the conspiracy. This language galvanises an audience and draws people into choosing a (or his) side.

4. ‘Notness’ language

In psychological terms Trump effectively uses ‘fissures and pinions’, exploiting his audience’s cognitive biases through his language use; in this case, identifying the beliefs that unite the audience, eg ‘old guard’ as the problem, things are unfair (be it Washington and therefore the political system or threats faced from the Muslim majority populations)… Trump then ‘matches’ the problem with his language by framing himself and his policies as the proposed solution – ie collectively making everyone agree there is a problem and then framing himself as the solution through language which acts as a shortcut for people to identify him as the solution.

Perfectly represented here in tweets one after the other in this order:

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

“I have instructed Homeland Security to check people coming into our country VERY CAREFULLY. The courts are making the job very difficult!”

5. Us (I and we) vs them

Trump is overtly binary in his stance of ‘with us or against us’ powerfully juxtaposing "Those intelligence chiefs" and "Crooked opponents try to belittle our victory" with Trump supporters. This type of rhetoric is a simple tool to enhance the status of his supporters, the in-group. It enhances his own self-image by holding biased views against the out-group – framed in visceral, emotive language against anyone that attacks him. This is linked to his 'notness' language – clarifying who/ what he is not rather than what he is.

6. HYPERBOLE (and capitals)

Use of hyper-exaggerated, emotive language framing of sentences for emphasis or effect. Positively framing – glorious, amazing, wonderful and negatively framing – fake, biased, lie, WRONG, dishonest, eg:

“A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE”. 'Very unfair!'

7. Forced timing driving a sense of urgency

Trump has consistently employed scarcity and priming as an effective strategy to push people from deliberation to a need to act. In this case, primed language around security with ‘worst case scenarios’ of Islamist terrorism and illustrations of examples of terrorism in Europe and the need to act NOW.

“Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!”

“If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the "bad" would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad "dudes" out there!”

“The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is very real, just look at what is happening in Europe and the Middle-East. Courts must act fast!”

8. Our/We – Collective responsibility/injustice

Trump relies on collective and emotive language to prompt an emotional response to his claims. He uses this with security framing/ justifying and diagnosing why they need to ‘make America great again’. For example:

“Just look at the mess our country is in – bogged down in conflict all over the place. Our hero Ryan died on a winning mission."

“Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!”

“We must keep “evil” out of our country!”

“Where was all the outrage from Democrats and the opposition party (the media) when our jobs were fleeing our country?”,

“The American dream is back. We’re going to create an environment for small business like we haven’t had in many, many decades!”

9. My – Personal/Trump as the solution/disruptor of the broken system

A continuing thematic is the sense of a divide in the language that Trump uses – “Our country”; ‘my campaign’ and simultaneously some use of high self-entitlement, self-esteem, traits of arrogance like

“Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!’ “

"I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalise, lies!"

10. Selective factual underpinning

The Trump camp use evidence to support his own popularity; tweets in quotation marks used by Trump with link to polls:

"Trump administration seen as more truthful than news media" (LINK TO POLL)

"Majority in Leading EU Nations Support Trump-Style Travel Ban' Poll of more than 10,000 people in 10 countries…" (LINK TO REPORT ON POLL)

"Immigration Ban Is One Of Trump's Most Popular Orders So Far" (IMAGE OF POLL).

Three examples of a declarative style, asserting an inarguable truth.

Trump and his administration continue to deploy new techniques to circumvent the news industry and gain direct influence with audiences in the US and abroad. By studying his tweets, it’s clear how deliberate a communicator he really is.

Clear verbal strategies pattern matched against the psychology of his audience is creating en masse engagement and his terms.

This is method not madness.

Alex Van Gestel is chief executive of Verbalisation

Alex Van Gestel is CEO of Verbalisation

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