Compare & Repair:Hillary Clinton vs. Donald

TrumpAn analysis and evaluation of the two politicians’ social media.

Group 1: CoffeePhiltersSarah AlexanderSandra Graybill*Karli PetersonTaylor ThomsonAshley Vickney

DECEMBER 2015

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Hillary Clinton “Twitter Word Cloud” (Top); Donald Trump “Twitter Word Cloud” (Bottom)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………..3Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….4

PurposeThe CandidatesSocial Media & Politics

Methodology………………………………………………………………………………………………………5

State Goal & HypothesisData PointsMethodology

Hillary Clinton……………………………………………………………………………………………………8

Introduction5Cs:

Clinton’s Social Media & GoalsConnections Grid Positions/Strategy ExplanationChannels & Content: Content Donut AnalysisRatingsEvaluation of EffectivenessBest/Worst PostsSuggestions for Repair

Donald Trump…………………………………………………………………………………………………..14

Introduction5Cs:

Clinton’s Social Media & GoalsConnections Grid Positions/Strategy ExplanationChannels & Content: Content Donut AnalysisRatingsEvaluation of EffectivenessBest/Worst PostsSuggestions for Repair

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Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………………19

Rankings/Results6th C – CapacityTo the Polls…

Final Suggestions for Both Candidates………………………………………………………….22Rejected Solutions/Insights……………………………………………………………………………23So What?..........................................................................................................................24Continuous Improvements……………………………………………………………………………..26Appendixes……………………………………………………………………………………………………….27

A: List of Illustrations & ExamplesB: 100 FactsC: Green Feedback Sheets

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The American people have always been fascinated by politicians. However, with the dawn of social media, citizens have access to so much more information than is portrayed by the media or in the debates. The leveraging of social media for political candidates is the new deciding factor in the success of a modern-day political campaign.

Two notable Presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two social media “regulars.” With profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and on a few other smaller sites, they have hired expert teams to manage and live-stream their personal brand, reputation, and campaign through social media.

In order to effectively evaluate these candidates’’ social media usage, a thorough, per-post evaluation was conducted to identify good and bad types of posts on each platform, and then zoom out to create a comprehensive outline of the types of content most often posted (Content Donuts). There were also 5 criteria to evaluate each candidate: coordinates (How well does their communication strategy of a social media presence align with the business-focused goal of winning the election?); connections (How well does the candidates’ profile link with other communication efforts such as other platforms, websites, or traditional media efforts?); channels (Identifying which channels or platforms contain the “biggest bang for the buck” in terms of reaching the target demographic of voters that 1) align with their political stances 2) hold the swing vote); content (Does the content match their personality? Is it relevant? timely? informative? appropriately presented?); and capacity (How long will this campaign’s success last? What is the longevity of the existing strategy?)

Through these sectors, it was determined that Clinton was the overall “Social Media President.” Clinton was a clear winner when it came to coordinating her business and communication goals; it was clear that her presence had a focus on her campaign, not filled with personal ramblings. She also had very appropriate channel choices. Another aspect of the channels that pushed Clinton to the top was the strategic choice of who she follows—those who align with her stances. Trump, on the other hand, ranked higher in terms of quality content. Trump had greater variety and portrayed a very real and genuine personality online, whereas Clinton’s content came across as repetitive and robotic. Both campaigns were ranked highly in terms of their capacity to maintain interest, but because of

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Trump’s candid personality and celebrity-like draw, his campaign is projected to increase in capacity and popularity over time.

However, Clinton and Trump both struggled with connecting their social media back to their content-controlled websites. In addition, both need to engage further with their followers, within reason (avoid debates online, but engage occasionally with passionate supporters) and remain conscious of the perception that their followers have of them (Clinton can be seen as robotic, Trump as crass or rude). While not perfect, both candidates are strategic in their social media efforts; the report shows just that.

INTRODUCTION

Purpose

Social media is not only an important aspect of modern-day relationship building for individuals, but it has become a growing platform for businesses, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and brands. Additionally, this coming election is showing just how important social media can be for political use. According to a PEW Research Center report, 16% of registered voters were following political candidates in 2014 following the midterm elections. However, it is extremely likely that those numbers have increased dramatically in the last year, especially considering the candidates that have decided to run in the 2016 election.

It is important to evaluate politicians in this particular election because it is relying very heavily on social media advertisements and promotions. For example, Donald Trump is completely relying on social media and is refusing to use any traditional media.

While evaluating politicians, it would be easy to get caught up in their stances and cause the audit to derail. However, as a disclaimer, although this report focuses on political candidates, it does not evaluate their stances, views, or opinions, and does not have a bias; rather, the focus remains on their effective use of various social media platforms, their general content arenas, and success or failure of posts made from November 6, 2015 through November 14, 2015.

The Candidates

The candidates evaluated here are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. They both had comparable social media sites (in terms of which platforms they most heavily used), usage (the frequency and types of posts), and number of followers. Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, or Bernie Sanders were also considered, but Clinton and Trump were the most comparable and relevant.

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Social Media & Politics

According to an article from CNN in October of this year, “a triumphant politician is the one who masters his era’s media tools.” The article made a few comparisons with past presidents: Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first “radio” president; John F. Kennedy the “television” president; and Barack Obama was the first “Internet” president… So who will be the “social media” president? It is imperative that social media be an essential part of any modern day campaign. In order to reach the younger demographics and the next generation of voters, the candidates had to adjust to their audiences and go where they are. No more are the days of long-winded attack ads filling up the commercial spots on every television channel: this election is going viral.

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METHODOLOGY

Stated Goal & Hypothesis

The goal is to create and complete a thorough content audit and social media presence analysis of two social media superstars: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

HypothesisAfter tracking each candidate’s presence for eight days and

evaluating the use-effectiveness of each platform, the winner, or “Social Media President,” will be declared.

Data Points

Timeframe The selected timeframe for this audit was Friday, November 6, 2015

through Saturday, November 14, 2015. Part of the reason these dates were selected was because of the Paris terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday, November 13. As unfortunate as these attacks were, it is imperative that a political candidate had some sort of response to this sort of tragedy, and monitoring their response, or lack thereof, would have been very telling.

PlatformsTrump and Clinton both had a similar presence on various platforms

in terms of number of followers and frequency of posts; greater focus was placed on the more prominent platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Methodology

Explain Equations & WeightsEach platform has similar ways that users can interact, react, and

engage with profiles, and each of those interactions carries a different weight that affects the overall tone (positive or negative) of the post.

Key Terms: React: Users or followers will have some sort of immediate, or “gut”,

reaction to the post. This is usually a positive response. Interact: Users or followers are compelled to do more than simply

click once or twice (to like/favorite); they want their opinion to be heard. Interactions can occur between the User/Follower and the Profile, or between Users/Followers.

Facebook Twitter Instagram

ReactionLike *1 Like *1 Heart *1Share *2 Retwee

t *1 Tag Friend *2

Interaction

Positive Comment

*3SUM = SCORE

Positive Comment

*3

Negative Comment

*(-4)Rationale for the lacking

Twitter analysis:

It is nearly impossible from a

front-end

Negative Comment

*(-4)

Troll / Unrelated Comment

*(-1) Troll / Unrelated Comment

*(-1)

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approach to find the number of retweets and

quoted retweets and if they had

positive or negative

reactions since that number

would be

SUM*1000 / # of Followers = SCORE

SUM*1000 / # of Followers = SCORE

Tools Before delving into each post, tools such as twitaholic.com and

twittercounter.com were used to analyze popularity and post frequency of each candidate over a month’s timeframe. These sites showed the number of new followers added per day, number of tweets per day, and worldwide rank. See Appendix A for screenshots of the candidates’ profiles according to these web tools.

In order to analyze each post, the most recent 50 comments were counted on both Facebook and Instagram and were categorized into categories of positive comments, negative comments, and unrelated or trolling comments. From there, the 50 comment sample size became the representation for all of the remaining comments. For example, if there were 10 positive comments out of the 50, then there were likely 1000 positive comments out of the 5000 total comments. From there, the weight of the positive comment (*3) was multiplied by the extrapolated positive comments, and that gave the score of 3000 for the positive comments out of the sample comments. The same process was done for each different type of comment or interaction. See Appendix A for a sample of these calculations.

Barriers & BottlenecksOne barrier encountered when tracking social media posts included

not being able to get accurate and complete data, especially on Twitter. It was very difficult to track the positivity or negativity of retweets, and other than the number of retweets from the original post, there was no way to follow the string of retweets beyond that, nor whether or not the re-

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retweets were positive or negative. Another issue was the sheer quantity of comments on each post, sometimes in the thousands. So in order to try to gage a comprehensive interaction with the post and the followers’ general sentiment, the most recent 50 posts were placed into categories and counted, as mentioned above.

If this was a real-life analysis of a profile, all comments would be counted individually and back-end data would likely be available.

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HILLARY CLINTON

Introduction

Hillary Clinton grew up in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Clinton completed her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College, May of 1969. Shortly after, Clinton graduated from Yale Law School in 1973. Clinton was one out of 27 women in her Yale Law School graduating class. While acting as First Lady of the United States, Clinton worked with the Children’s Health Insurance Program to provide health coverage to more than 8 million children. In 2000, Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, and reelected November 7, 2006.

Clinton launched her first Presidential campaign in January of 2007 and it spanned until June of 2008. It ended after Clinton lost to Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. Then, President Barack Obama assigned Clinton to be the 67th U.S. Secretary of State.

Clinton announced her 2016 presidential candidacy in a video she tweeted on April 12, 2015. The video contained Americans talking about preparing for different life events and stages, then it cuts to Clinton and she states that she is preparing to be the next president of the United States.

Throughout Clinton’s social media and website, her political stances are clearly stated. Clinton has always worked to ensure children get a quality education, and quality healthcare coverage. Clinton is a pioneer for feminism and a strong advocate for equal treatment and rights of all genders, sexes, races, and religions. There was controversy early in her political campaign because she once believed in marriage solely between a man and woman, but she later changed her view to be in support of LGBT rights. Clinton believes that America needs to have a comprehensive immigration reform that allows immigrants to become citizens in a timely manner.  Clinton supports Obamacare but wants the program to be edited and made stronger. Her political “game changer” lies with her stance on marijuana, and it is believed that her “wait-and-see” position will change to a “yes” to attract more and newer audiences.

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5Cs

Clinton’s Social Media & Goals

Clinton can be found on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, and Pinterest. Clinton’s Pinterest is full of merchandise, quotes, and edited logos to match holidays and events. The Pinterest board is titled “…an ‘H’ for every occasion.” She has 6,500 Pinterest followers with no interaction, and it only connects to her website. Women are a primary audience of Clinton’s campaign, so Pinterest offers a large reach. Clinton is least active on Google+: changing her profile picture on August 20th, 2015 was the only activity to her 959 followers. As for Snapchat, Clinton occasionally posts on her “story,” but does not snap back. Clinton has 34,000 followers and posts about one YouTube video per week.

This report will focus on Clinton’s Facebook Twitter, and Instagram because this is where Clinton and Trump match and consistently post.

On Facebook, Clinton posts 2-4 times per day to her 1.8 million followers in both English and Spanish. She posts variations of videos, pictures, links, and quotes to connect with her audiences. On Twitter, Clinton has 4.84 million followers and tweets 5-11 times per day and likes to retweet what influencers or opinion leaders are saying about her. Also, she voices her opinion with the famous “-H” signature. On Instagram, Clinton has over 554,000 followers and averages between 1-2 posts per day.

Clinton’s communication coordinates/goals reflect her drive to educate, inspire, influence and relate to the American people. She does an effective job of coordinating her business goal of wanting to win the election with her communication goal of aligning her target audiences that have the same or similar viewpoints.

Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation

As a group, we determined the placement of Clinton’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on the “connections grid” (See appendix A). We believed that each platform deserved its own placement on the grid because each platform delivers different results alongside its own strategic goal.

We placed Clinton’s Facebook in the upper-middle section of the “Abundance” quadrant because she does post often and her messages are rich. Her strategy is to utilize Facebook's ability to handle large amounts of text and pictures to engage and create conversations with her audiences. We placed her Twitter in the lower, right-hand corner of “Reach/Breadth” because Clinton’s tweets do not have original quality, but there is a large quantity of tweets mixed with many retweets. The strategy for Twitter is that she posts every hour to reach the different audiences by constantly being on her their radar. She also uses retweets of “influencers or opinion leaders” to persuade her audience to believe in her and to continue to grow the conversation. Lastly, we placed her Instagram in the lower middle of

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“Reach/Breadth” because the average post is 1.5 times per day, and she averages between 1-2 times per day. This placement is so low on the “Intensity” axis because the content is weak and does not link back to the website.

Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis

Clinton does a good job of analyzing the proper channels to be on and who to follow on those channels. After looking at her channels and content, they offer a new and different way to interact and reach her target audiences of young, female, and those that are culturally diverse. She is very strategic about the amount of effort put into each social media platform.

Clinton uses a mixture of images, videos, and texts to supposedly reach her intended audiences with the demographics of the social media platforms. Clinton is still working on her content coming off as genuine and not robotic. Clinton does a decent job of sticking to a campaign and consistently hash-tagging and linking to her other social media accounts. She does not, however, link back to her political website very often.

We tracked the social media posts of Clinton from November 6th through November 14th. Those dates were chosen to include the Paris Attacks and to include every day of the week. As we tracked the three different social media platforms, we also categorized the content and created content donuts (Appendix A).

The consistent content categories were as follows:- environment/climate, - gender/women/activists, - personal, - race/culture/religion, - stance (i.e. education/immigration/social/global), - violence/war/justice, and - other (quotes/debates/thanks)

We also created special categories like posts about veterans/the army, Paris attacks, and calls to action/hashtags.

On Facebook, for the 22 categorized posts within the timeframe, “Personal” and “Stance” were the most popular categories of posts on the platform. On Twitter for the 49 categorized posts, “Personal” and “Other” (specifically Clinton’s quotes or opinions about the Democratic Debate) were the most popular categories. Lastly, for her 16 posts on Instagram, “Other” (again, quotes and debate topics) and posts about “Race/Culture/Religion” and Clinton’s “Stances” were most prominent on the platform.

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Ratings

From Clinton’s social media analysis above and the 5Cs, the following numbers provide our group’s average ranking in relation to how each “C” was used with a rating from 1-10 – 1 being the worst and 10 being the best:

- Coordinates: 8.5- Connections: 6.8- Channels: 8.4- Content: 7.1

Evaluation of Effectiveness

According to twittercounter.com, Clinton is ranked 514th in the worldwide most popular Twitter users and 16th by followers in New York, NY.  Taking a closer look at her tweets, the chart in Appendix A represents the last 30 days, where Clinton tweeted 506 times, making her average 16.9 tweets per day.

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of Clinton’s social media presence, our group analyzed all posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram from November 6th through November 14th. By looking at the amount of likes, shares, and comments, we were able to create an evaluation tool (see “Methodology” section) to find her best and worst post on each platform during that timeframe.

Best/Worst Posts

Our group chose to evaluate Clinton’s effectiveness on Facebook by analyzing the number of likes, shares, positive comments, negative comments, and the trolls/unrelated posts by giving each category a multiplier based on the level of effort it takes to create the given interaction. For every like a post received, we multiplied the total of likes by 1 because it does not take a lot of extra effort to “like” a post, however, we weighted shares higher, multiplying the total number of shares by 2, because it does take more effort to share a post. The same goes for producing a positive comment, multiplying the total number of positive comments by 3, and the total number of negative comments by -4. Finally “trolls” or unrelated comments were multiplied by -1. From this tool, we were able to determine Clinton’s best and worst posts for Facebook while giving it a score and providing our rationale.

Clinton’s best Facebook post was on November 14 (see Appendix A), relating to the Paris attacks. This post received 26,940 likes, 1,671 shares, 1,222 comments total. Out of the 50 comments recorded, 35 were positive, 10 were negative, and 5 were trolls or unrelated comments. After applying

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the calculations listed above, the scores were added together for a sum of 30,342 which was then divided by Clinton’s total number of Facebook followers. After all calculations were completed, the rank for Clinton’s best post on Facebook totaled 16.73. This post was successful because of its timeliness and global relevance. It is likely that many other businesses or people who posted about this event received many interactions as well.

Clinton’s worst Facebook post was from November 11 (see Appendix A), a post about “The Arkansas Travelers.” This post received 831 likes, 106 shares, and 247 comments total. Out of the first 50 comments, there were 8 positive, 27 negative, and 27 trolls or unrelated posts. After applying calculations, the total equaled 980, which we then divided by the total number of Clinton’s Facebook followers and got a rank of 0.54. Her worst post did not do nearly as well as the other posts she had since it focused on one group of people from one state. This content did not resonate with the majority of her followers, most of which are not very concerned with her past work, friends, or the state of Arkansas.

Next, we looked at the effectiveness of Clinton’s Twitter. However, because we did not have access to the exact count of replies and the effects of the retweets, we were unable to fully analyze her Twitter to the extent we would have gotten with back-end metrics. Instead, we added the retweets and favorites of each post to determine the Twitter post rankings.

Clinton’s best post on Twitter was from November 13 (see Appendix A), a personal (signed with “-H”) post about the Paris attacks. This post got 16,300 favorites and 9029 re-tweets, receiving a sum of 25,329. This was a successful post for the same reason this type of content did well on Facebook: it was timely and contained content that was not only globally relevant but could also resonate with multiple users.

On November 6, Clinton’s tweet regarding ice cream and criminal records (see Appendix A) received 353 favorites and 173 retweets, receiving a sum of 526 – making it her worst Twitter post during those eight days. This again has a small target of interested followers. It does not align with her major stances, and it only touches on the small criminal demographic. The Wall Street Journal came out with an article about creating an appealing frame for a picture. This is overall a very bad image and does not make an effective use of the frame. The image and the actual content of the tweet do not have a direct link. By looking at the picture, one would not be able to determine the purpose of the tweet.

Finally, we evaluated the effectiveness of Clinton’s Instagram by using the same measurements we used for Facebook; again, evaluating the number of likes multiplying the number by 1, multiplying the number of shares by 2, the positive comments by 3, negative comments by -4, and trolls or unrelated comments by -1. From this tool, we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of Clinton’s Instagram posts finding the best and worst post.

Clinton’s best Instagram post was from November 13 (see Appendix A), a post regarding a Clinton-inspired cross-stitch pattern. This post

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received 23,025 likes, 1,281 comments, 819 shares, 691 positive comments, 1842 negative comments, and 179 trolls or unrelated comments, receiving a sum of 22488.4 – which was then divided by the number of Clinton’s Instagram followers, receiving a rank of 40.59. This post was successful because it made good use of her hashtag (#Hillary2016) and provides a link to her bio, for anyone who would want to “put the fun in fundamental rights” to get the cross-stitch pattern. It is also important to note that out of all Clinton’s Instagram posts, this post received the highest amount of positive comments. From this, we can assume that her audiences utilize Instagram for its intended purpose of being a visually-engaging platform. We can also assume that she is directly targeting her fellow feminists with this post.

On the other hand, Clinton’s worst Instagram post was on November 10 (see Appendix A), a post relating to her quantifiable career achievements. This post received 7,526 likes, 154 shares, 154 positive comments, 1025 negative comments, and 192 trolls or unrelated comments – which was then added together to receive a sum of 6,616; it was then divided by the total number of Clinton’s Instagram followers, receiving a rank of 11.94. This was a poorly executed post creating the least amount of likes and comments during the eight analyzed days. The visual component is near impossible to fully comprehend. This post consists of 11 numbers flashing in six seconds with no explanation of what any of those numbers represent (except for the three in the heading). If the intention of this post was to solidify Clinton’s career promoting her as a good choice for the 2016 presidential election, it failed.

Suggestions for Repair

After reviewing Clinton’s posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we were able to come up with a few Continuous Improvement ideas we suggest Clinton take into consideration.

1. Centering her Gravity, or linking her post back to her website: by driving users to her website through social media, she can create a greater awareness of herself and her campaign.

2. Produce less repetitive content: Clinton’s posts all have somewhat of a consistency to them and, at times, appear boring with content that is repetitive or irrelevant. This benchmark error for Clinton could quickly affect her image on social media.

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DONALD TRUMP

Introduction

               Donald Trump was born in Queens, New York in 1946. He attended New York Military School and later obtained a degree in Economics from the University Of Penn Wharton School Of Business in 1968. While transitioning from real estate to the construction of Trump Towers, he married twice and had five children.               In 1999, Trump, through the use of an exploratory committee, wanted to see if he should run for President Reform Candidate in 2000; with a poor showing in the California primary, he withdrew his position.               Trump held Democratic views through 2005, a little ways into his participation of his show “The Apprentice” with NBC. Now, running as a Republican candidate, his catchphrase is “Make our country (or America) great again.” Trump’s top competitors in the presidential run are Ben Carson and Marco Rubio (on the Republican side) and Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (Democratic).

Trump takes pride in his self-funding for his personal campaign purposes, stating: “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.” As he has made well-aware, Trump runs on honesty. 

With focus on immigration, trade, tax, and veterans administration reforms as well as policies regarding the right to bear arms, Trump makes his stances well-known across social media platforms, too.

5Cs

Trump’s Social Media & Goals

               All of Trump’s messages through each platform always reflect his stances and his honesty – whether brutal or not. He puts the “me” in social media (there are no rules!). Trump’s social media accounts and strategy are run by Justin McConney, a 29 year-old “social media whiz” – but Trump is still the author of his posts. While his unfiltered views and opinions are expressed daily, Trump is in the race to match his organizational and communication goals.               As an “organization,” like seen similarly with Hillary Clinton, Trump’s goal is to win the election, plain and simple. As mentioned across his stances and on social media, he wants to “make America great again,” and he does this with coordination between his stances and his posts, discussed further later.

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Trump is primarily visible across his social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. (He does have a Vine account, but he has not posted since 2013.)

He posts on Facebook 2-5 times per day, and has over 4.3 million “likes” on his page. For Twitter, he posts, on average, at least 20 times per day to an audience of 5.1 million followers. As for Instagram, with 3-5 posts per week, he reaches his 640,000 followers.

Connections Grid Positions/Strategy Explanation

   Like with Clinton, Trump’s social media placements are analyzed and seen on the connections grid (see Appendix A). For Facebook, we placed him in the “Reach/Breadth” quadrant but slightly closer to “Abundance” because he aims for many, many followers but is still remaining his true self in relation to what his followers want. For Twitter, we placed his actions in the “Abundance” quadrant because he frequently retweets and acknowledges other people’s posts (about him). And for Instagram, again in the “Reach/Breadth” quadrant because he has many followers but almost no interaction – it is just a platform to get his actions out there.          Channels & Content: Content Donut Analysis

While Trump’s coordination of posts to his stances and to his social media goals have briefly been discussed, channel usage and analysis comes into play. Trump’s messages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram supposedly reach his intended audiences. What can be assumed is that the majority of followers of Trump’s social media are there to support his campaign, and those against him are there to either troll his efforts or see what he is up to next. He does utilize each platform effectively as far as posting short messages, videos, and/or pictures. With Connections, Trump does share articles, quotes, and videos of himself in interviews, shows, and other day-to-day activities from other sites, but he does not usually link back to his political website.

We tracked the social media posts of Clinton from November 6th through November 14th. Those dates were chosen to include the Paris Attacks and to include every day of the week. As we tracked the three different social media platforms, we also categorized the content and created content donuts (see Appendix A).

The consistent content categories were as follows:- bashing (other Republican or Democrat candidates), - hashtags used (i.e. #Trump2016), - personal/opinion, - poll results, - stances (immigration, administration reforms, gun laws), and - other (quotes/debates/thanks)

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We also created special categories for his posts about Veterans Day recognition, the Paris attacks, and any specific calls to action.

Trump makes his opinions heard on Facebook more than his other platforms. From November 6 through November 14, 23% of his posts centered on his “personal” statements and opinions – again, he is an honest, unfiltered guy. Coming in second to his personal side is “other” posts at 18%. These revolve around quoted posts, debate comments, and “thank you” messages to his supporters.

For Twitter, focusing on many retweets and his own tweets for the time period, one third of his messages are “bashing” other candidates – Republicans AND Democrats. Again, unfiltered. Falling behind those posts are more “other” posts on the various debates and quoted articles.

Finally for Instagram, with only 4 posts for the timespan of eight days, his images portray mainly themes centered on his “stances” for his campaign and “other” comments about polls.

Ratings

From Trump’s social media analysis above and the 5Cs, the following numbers provide our group’s average ranking in relation to how each “C” was used with a rating from 1-10 – 1 being the worst and 10 being the best:

- Coordinates: 6.4- Connections: 6.4- Channels: 8.0- Content: 8.2

Evaluation of Effectiveness:

In the same time period that was used for Clinton, we evaluated Trump’s social media channels from November 6th through November 14th. We also used the same evaluation tools for Trump that were used for Clinton.

On Facebook, Trump has 4.7 million fans with whom he interacts with less than on Twitter. This channel is managed by his campaign team, and he influences what is posted there. No one from the campaign interacts with fans, however, there is a lot of interaction with the post itself with people commenting, sharing, and liking.  This channel gives connections and the ability to share Trump’s messaging and turns them into lions in their own circles reaching people that may not be following Trump. Trump’s campaign does make good use of the platform in the sense that they have a video or photo on every post throughout the eight days. On this channel, Trump could be more useful by highlighting his famous lions, responding to comments, or sharing testimonials from his supporters.

Trump makes the best use of Twitter by tweeting his thoughts honestly. His campaign social media strategist gives him topics to tweet

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about, but everything tweeted is tweeted by Trump himself. On this channel, he has 5.15 million followers and he interacts with his connections by quoting their tweets and liking them. Trump normally quotes 5-10 tweets from regular supporters daily. The idea that they could be quoted by someone they admire and support encourages his supporters to tweet directly at him. These supporters then become lions for Trump within their own circles. According to twitaholic.com, Trump is ranked 459th in terms of followers in the world, and 13th in the geographical area of New York, NY. Trump gets the most bang for his buck on Twitter, and uses it a lot better than Clinton does to interact with his connections.

Instagram is the least used channel for Trump, and he has 691,000 followers. He does not post every day, and he does not comment or interact with any of his followers. Trump could highlight his lions here and “regram” pictures that his supporters post of him when they meet. An example of highlighting his lions would be to post a photo of him and a popular celebrity or well-known person together. Instagram is a very visual platform, and posting daily will keep him fresh in his followers’ minds.

Best/Worst Posts

Trump’s best Facebook post was about the Paris terror attacks and his opinion that President Obama was not doing enough to stop ISIL (see Appendix A). The score for this post was 82.87 and was posted on November 14th at 11:24 a.m. with 268,181 likes and 30,318 shares.  This message was so popular because it is right on target with his audience. Many conservatives and even some liberals do not believe that President Obama is doing enough, and so whether or not you are a Trump supporter, this message resonated with a large number of people. It was also very timely and relevant. People were also on Facebook quite a bit in order to get more information about the attacks and were more likely to see his post.

Trump’s worst Facebook post was very odd. It was a video of Ben Carson with the caption of “Happy Friday the 13th” (see Appendix A).  This post was ranked 1.83 on November 13th at 10:07 a.m. with 21,212 likes and 4,114 shares. The video was a compilation of news clips and interviews of Ben Carson. The video was long, and with very little description, it was not enticing. Posts bashing other GOP candidates on Facebook do not generally do as well as other posts, and this was definitely hard to understand what Trump was trying to say.

Trump’s best Twitter post was about his guest appearance on Saturday Night Live (see Appendix A). This post had a score of 8773 and was posted on November 6th at 6:08 p.m. with 3,030 likes and 4,208 retweets.  He posted a photo of him, singer SIA, and an actress from SNL,

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and in this post he is wearing the same wig as SIA. This episode was the highest rated show for SNL since 2012, and a lot of viewers tuned in for the entertainment value of having Trump on a show that mocks him.

Trump’s worst Twitter post was a quoted tweet at 11:52 a.m. on November 6th with confusing content. This post had a score of 1610, a difference of 7163 from the best post of the week. It had just 1,164 likes and 444 retweets. The quoted tweet’s content was confusing because it used jargon from the campaign trail, meaning that if you do not follow the campaign trail closely you were not sure what that meant (see Appendix A). Trump ostracized some of his followers since they were unsure of what the meaning was, also stopping people from interacting with the post as much.

Instagram is not one of Trump’s most used platforms, but when he did post a photo of him in a SIA wig in a Saturday Night Live dressing room, it was very popular (see Appendix A). This post received a score of 34.86. Very similar to the best tweet, this was a highly anticipated episode of Saturday Night Live, and this was a fun teaser.

The worst Instagram photo is still relative, and since there were only four posts on Instagram that week, it is hard to quantify so little posts in a ranking system. This post received a score of 22.56, and was within 12 points of the best post that week. This post had boring content, simply Trump signing his book “Crippled America” for Bill O’Reilly on O’Reilly’s show (see Appendix A). It was not interesting and did not reveal anything like the best post that week did.

So What?

Trump does very well on Twitter, he creates his tweets himself, interacts with his followers, and creates lions for himself. This seems to be the key to his social media strategy, and, since he is recognized on Twitter, the traditional media is forced to cover his thoughts in order to stay relevant. His best practices are his honesty, consistency of his messaging across all three channels, and his ability to make lions for himself on Twitter.

Suggestions for Repair

Trump does really well on Twitter, but there is always room for continuous improvement. His campaign misses opportunities to interact with followers on both Facebook and Instagram. As mentioned earlier, highlighting well-known followers as well as highlighting regular people he met along the campaign trail is a great way to encourage his lions to

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support him on Facebook and Instagram. If he did this, he would move his Facebook and Instagram accounts from the “Reach/Breadth” section of the connections grid to the “Abundance” quadrant like his Twitter account. While there is a bottleneck of having too many comments to reply to, his team should pick some for him to respond to. Interaction with every comment or reply is not practical, but some is possible.

Since he is only active on three platforms, it is feasible for him to be on at least two others. Tumblr is a great visual content channel and he could use this to post promotional images as well as quotes. Many people use images from Tumblr on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, and this would be a great way to also answer questions from followers in a controlled manner. He would also be able to reach a younger demographic of voters. Another suggestion for the Trump campaign would be to start using Pinterest. Having members of the Trump family curate their own boards, as well as use it to pin messaging would be examples of content. Trump has a large support group called “Women for Trump” and, as Pinterest’s demographics are overwhelmingly female, this would be another channel to reach them on. It would give the public a peek into his family life as well, maybe making him more likeable to others.

Finally, competitive pressures often deter candidates from doing certain things or make them do other things – but Trump does not care. His campaign should capitalize on this even further and use it to be even more innovative than they have been already, especially on Twitter.

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CONCLUSIONS

Rankings/Results

Donut ChartAs a result of analyzing each post, content donut charts were created

to show the percentage of posts that fell into each category. Some categories include “bashing,” “stances,” or “military support.”

RankingsEach group member evaluated the candidates’ use of social media

through the 5 Cs on a scale of 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent). The expectation was that both candidates would have high rankings because they have the funds and ability to find and hire superb social media managers.

Coordinates: Clinton: 8.5 // Trump: 6.4

Clinton does a bit better of a job with coordinating her business and communication goals of winning the election and the way she reaches her audiences via social media. Trump has a different set of communication goals because he does not care what people think and tends to be less filtered on social media.

Connections: Clinton: 6.8 // Trump: 6.4

Both Clinton and Trump were pretty average with their “connections” ranking. A correction here for both candidates would be to link back to their websites more often than just in their Facebook or Twitter bios.

Channels: Clinton: 8.4 // Trump: 8.0

Clinton and Trump were both rather highly ranked in terms of their channel choices. They know where their key audiences are and know how to target them.

Content: Clinton: 7.1 // Trump: 8.2

Trump beating out Clinton in the “content” area was not surprising because of the “real” factor. One of the biggest complaints Clinton received during her previous political efforts was that she did not seem “real” to the

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people. Although she has improved on that, Trump still has her beat out. Readers or listeners know that when Trump talks, he means what he says.

6TH “C” – Capacity

In addition to the 5 “Cs”, there is a critical 6th “C” when analyzing a social media campaign: “Capacity.” Capacity measures the projected longevity of a particular campaign, strategy, or profile. This tool basically allows evaluators a way to predict the life of a trend – whether it be in the form a hashtag or a personality such as Donald Trump.

Key Components

There are two key strategies that affect capacity component: intrinsic strategy and extrinsic strategy:

Intrinsic strategies have a self-centered purpose when posting. This means that the profile is posting strictly for itself (i.e. focusing solely on selling the product, posting about “me, me, me,” and little-to-no follower engagement). An example would be the candidate Donald Trump. He posts whenever he feels like it and his content contains his genuine thoughts, regardless of what the predicted follower reaction will be. This sort of profile is most commonly found with celebrities or for personal use of social media platforms.

Extrinsic strategies have deliberate and targeted efforts to be audience-focused when posting. The focus of the profile is strategic and each post is carefully mapped out. For example, a profile may know that statuses with colorful pictures, a quick anecdote, and a link to another site tend to get the best reaction and the most engagement. Therefore, the profile will likely post more of those types of posts. Another example is if a profile is trying to expand (i.e. a small business), they may realize that their new products resonate better with a new audience that has not yet been targeted on their existing social media. Therefore, the profile (small business) must refocus their posts and add a new strategy to target that new audience’s interests.

Potential Outcomes

There are three different ways to label the predictions of capacity: decrease, increase, and plateau:

A decreasing capacity means that over a certain period of time predetermined at the outset of the campaign, the popularity of the trend or campaign decreases. An important aspect to consider with further research and development of this idea is to determine the rate at which the capacity decreases and how to better measure this. This measurement falls in with

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analyses such as the diffusion of innovation or the rate of adoption for different groups.

An increasing capacity is the exact opposite of a decreasing capacity: the popularity of a trend or campaign increases and the lifetime extends beyond that which was originally set in goals of the campaign.

The third potential outcome of capacity is a plateau: the goals from the beginning of the campaign were met, but the lifespan of the trend has come to an end right when it was projected to end.  

The Candidates’ Capacities

Capacity: Clinton: 7.5 // Trump: 7.82

Clinton has an extrinsic presence. She tailors her content to specific audiences to drive home her points. She must craft her messages carefully to connect with her audiences in order to extend the life of her campaign. Our group predicts that Clinton’s campaign will have a plateau effect. She may have some high or low points, but she does consistently come back to a middle ground.

However, Trump’s presence is intrinsic. He posts for himself, not caring about what anyone else has to say. This style matches his personality, giving him a “real” presence and voice, increasing the capacity of his campaign. Our group predicts that Trump’s campaign will have an increasing effect, meaning it will grow in popularity over time, until his stated goal (the election) is accomplished.

To The Polls…

In order to determine the overall winner, the group ranked each candidate on each of the 6 Cs as shown above. Those rankings were averaged to get the score:

Trump: 7.364 // Clinton: 7.66Therefore, Hillary Clinton is the next “Social Media President!”

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FINAL SUGGESTIONS FOR BOTH CANDIDATES

Aside from the suggestions mentioned before, there are some areas of improvement for both of the candidates. However, because of their personalities and campaign styles, they will have to take different routes to successfully implement and maintain these changes.

More Engagement with Followers

Both Clinton and Trump have massive numbers of followers, so it would be completely unreasonable to ask them to engage with every follower. However, there should be more engagement with their supporters. We would not recommend engaging much with opponents, as to avoid an online debate.

Personability

Regarding personability, Clinton has already improved from her last campaign by signing the tweets she actually writes with “-H”, but she needs to show her personality more and be less robotic. As much as Trump may not want to change, his personality is affecting his campaign. Becoming less offensive could be an option to boost support, even though that is unlikely.

Link to Websites

The third arena is linking back to their websites. Neither candidate really links back to their respective websites from any platform. However, since that is the one space that they can truly control the content and fully explain their stances and rationale, they should be linked consistently.  

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REJECTED SOLUTIONS/INSIGHTS

The largest rejected insight that we had was the original companies that we chose for this project. We first chose Netflix and Amazon Video because of the popularity of streaming, and we decided that it was the most comparable. We also took into account comparable social media channels as well. However, as we dug deeper into each company’s social media channels, it became clear that it was incredibly difficult to separate all of the different products of Amazon, especially Amazon Video. Since Amazon Video does not have separate social media accounts, it became increasingly difficult to compare Netflix and Amazon Video’s social media strategies when they do not each have unique accounts. After a heated discussion, we decided that we would drop Amazon Video. After another heated discussion, we could not quite come to a consensus on which was the best competitor. We then agreed to pick two new organizations to compare. Since we all agreed Donald Trump would be interesting, we decided to pick Hillary Clinton because she had the most comparable social media. This made it much easier to compare their strategies, and we were able to gain better insights this way.

Another rejected insight had to do with our equations for evaluating effectiveness. At the beginning, we wanted to take into account every single negative and positive comment. However after thinking about it and hearing in the class the next day that it was too hard, we decided that extrapolating was completely warranted in this case. Extrapolating made it easier to evaluate everything, and spend time evaluating the actual strategies.

Along the same topic, we had to use a different equation for Twitter because the information that we needed is only available to the person who holds the account. We were unable to get the exact number of quoted tweets, retweets, and replies. Quoted retweets would weigh more because the person felt the need to add something to it, positive or negative. With the added data, there is a more accurate rating for tweets. But since we do not have access to that data, we were unable to include it in the ratings we used for this report.

Our final rejected insight was how we decided to do the corrections portion of our project. It was very difficult to separate our personal views from our strategist views. Due to that, we had to remind ourselves often that it was not actually a political correction, but rather a social media one. That being said, we had to take a different approach to Trump’s corrections. Since Trump does not believe he has ever done anything wrong, he would not feel like he needed to correct anything so we went with things that he could add to his social media strategies and tactics instead. Clinton has changed her stance, but never actually corrected anything. Since politics is

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rarely the arena in which people admit they are wrong, corrections were based on what they were not doing rather than content.

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SO WHAT?

Sarah Alexander

For this project: The social media match-up is very important to address your competitors and see where you excel and where you need to work on. Although, having a clear understanding of the business and communication goals are also very useful on which platforms you should be on and to keep your audiences and messages consistent and clear.

For Communication presentations: I have learned to put all-in on research, and creating a large “tool box” to guarantee all perspectives and angles. Also, that “sexy” is a good word; it has its denotative definition, meaning attractive and exciting, but the connotative communication meaning of completeness, strategic, and creative.

Sandra Graybill

Comparing who Clinton and Trump follow and how they align with their political views as well as their core messages, and by analyzing Clinton’s and Trump’s audiences on social media has helped me become a better strategic thinker.

Karli Peterson

As a Communication major, the amount of strategic and critical thinking skills put into one project is immeasurable – and I could not be more thankful for the experiences I’ve had within group projects, presentations, and classroom settings. Through this case study alone, I have learned how to back out from “consumer view” to analyze social media while wearing an executive’s hat – a big take on audience analysis in which I had not experience prior. Also, looking specifically at the social media course, there are not any rules (as to go off of Renegades Write the Rules). With a developing and ever-changing environment online, this study was a great way to apply all wisdom from various communication courses to a more modern social media challenge.

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Taylor Thomson

Throughout my years as a Communication major, I have learned several things about presenting, working with a group (something that I had always dreaded in high school), and professionalism. However, after going through this program, I feel well-educated and prepared for the real world. The projects and crises prepared me strategically for whatever job I end up taking. I have learned that crucial strategic plans are applicable no matter the case—audience analysis, research, and strategy are key. I cannot wait to get out into the “real world” and apply the countless lessons learned from these case studies to my career.

Ashley Vickney

The Communication program at UWGB has been the best decision I made senior year of high school. Two big takeaways have come from this program for me. One, continuous improvement is a lifelong commitment, and even if you are good you can always get better. Being self-aware is actually a good feeling, and it allows you to be the most authentic version of yourself. Two, you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. No matter how good you are, it is going to be lost when you do not challenge yourself consistently. It is important to remember that being challenged is a good thing, and that in the end that is how you become a better version of yourself.

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CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENTS

Nailed It:

Introduction slide and background information Connections Grid - the brilliant aspect is showing the different

connections per platform. See Appendix A for both charts and a combined chart for both candidates.

o Follow up question to think about: Do different social media platforms have an optimal location on the grid?

Depends on the social media strategists’ goals for the voice and presence of the organization’s social media….

Areas to Improve:

Time management o We could have cut a bit of the information that we presented.

We also had a very short amount of time to get a lot of information in!

Clarify ratings of the 6 Cs.o These were further explained throughout the report earlier.

Section dedicated to “Methodology”o Please see the section addressed in this report. We went into

thorough detail of our processes and results. Explain “other” category in pie charts.

o This was explained in further detail in the paper. The “other” category varied by platform and candidate and included anything and everything that did not fit into existing content categories.

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APPENDIXES

Appendix A: List of Illustrations & Examples

- Screenshots (Web Tools)

Hillary Clinton

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Donald Trump

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- Example of Rank Calculations

(Image of spreadsheet: “Social Media Tracker: Hillary Clinton’s Instagram Posts)

- Connections Grid

(Hillary Clinton’s Social Media Platforms Connections Grid)

(Donald Trump’s Social Media Platforms Connections Grid)

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- Content Donuts

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- Content Donuts (cont’d)

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- Rankings Graph

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- Best/Worst Posts

Hillary Clinton

Facebook:

Twitter:

Instagram:

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- Best/Worst Posts (cont’d)

Donald Trump

Facebook:

Twitter:

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Instagram:

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Appendix B: 100 FactsHillary Rodham Clinton

1. political leader2. human rights activist3. women’s rights activist4. first lady5. Profiles - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Google+6. Born  - Oct. 26,1947 // Age 687. Married to : Bill Clinton 8. Party: Democratic 9. Children: Chelsea Clinton 10. #Hillary201611. Twitter: 4.71 Million Followers12. Facebook: 1.775 Million Followers 13. YouTube: 33,747k followers14. Instagram 500k followers15. Google+: 938 followers, last post Aug 20th, 201516. “Wife, mom, grandma, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR,

FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, 2016 presidential candidate.” (FB Bio)

17. Methodist18. Children’s Defense Fund, 1973 - 197419. University of Arkansas School of Law, 1974 – 197720. Rose Law Firm, 1977 - 199221. First Lady of Arkansas, 1979 - 198122. First Lady of Arkansas, 1983 - 199223. First Lady of the United States, 1993 - 200124. U.S. Senator for New York, 2001 - 200925. U.S. Secretary of State, 2009 - 201326. Wellesley College, 196927. Yale Law School, 197328. Hillary temporarily worked on Republican Barry Goldwater’s

campaign in 196429. HC wanted to be an astronaut and wrote to NASA, but they

weren’t accepting women at the time. 30. HC is also the First Lady to have a post graduate degree and be

elected to national office, also she is the first to be subpoenaed and fingerprinted by the FBI

31. HC has a Grammy Award for her 1997 best spoken word album for her recording of her book “It Takes a Village.”

32. Most traveled Secretary of state, 112 countries and spent a quarter of her time in the air.

33. HC out-earned her husband Bill Clinton (as Governor) several times, when she was First Lady of Arkansas.

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34. 1964 - Works on the presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.

35. 1968 - Switches to the Democratic Party and campaigns for Eugene McCarthy.

36. 1970 - Works as a summer intern for civil rights lawyer Marian Wright Edelman.

37. 1973-1974 - Works as an attorney for the Children's Defense Fund.

38. January 1974 - Begins working for John Doar, the special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, who is in charge of the inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

39. August 1974 - Moves to Arkansas to teach at the University Of Arkansas School Of Law.

40. 1974-1977 - Director of Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

41. 1974-1977 and 1979-1980 - Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

42. 1976-1992 - Attorney at Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, Arkansas. Is named partner in 1979.

43. 1978 - President Jimmy Carter appoints Clinton to the board of directors of the Legal Services Corp., an organization that provides federal funds to legal-aid bureaus throughout the United States.

44. 1978 - Bill Clinton is elected governor of Arkansas. Hillary Clinton continues to work at Rose Law Firm, making her the first First Lady of Arkansas to continue working while her husband is governor.

45. 1979 - Governor Clinton appoints her chairperson of the Rural Health Advisory Committee, whose members deal with the issue of providing health care in isolated areas.

46. 1979 - The Whitewater Development Corp. is formed by the Clintons and James and Susan McDougal.

47. 1980 - Governor Clinton loses the 1980 gubernatorial election. He returns to office in 1982, and is re-elected in 1984, 1986, and 1990.

48. 1983 - Governor Clinton appoints his wife to head the Arkansas Education Standards Committee.

49. 1988 and 1991 - Hillary Clinton is named one of the 100 most influential U.S. lawyers by the National Law Journal.

50. 1992 - Bill Clinton is elected president.51. January 1993 - The president names Clinton to lead the Task

Force on National Health Care Reform.52. September 28, 1993 - Testifies before the House Ways and

Means Committee in support of President Clinton's health care package. The health care reform bill is later defeated by Congress.

53. February 6, 2000 - Announces her candidacy for the U.S. Senate.

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54. May 16, 2000 - Accepts the nomination of the New York State Democratic Party for the U.S. Senate.

55. September 20, 2000 - Independent counsel Robert Ray announces that the evidence found in the Whitewater case is insufficient to prove that the Clintons knowingly participated in any criminal conduct.

56. November 7, 2000 - Is elected to the U.S. Senate with 56% of the vote.

57. February 13, 2001 - Makes her first address on the floor of the Senate.

58. June 9, 2003 - Releases her memoir, "Living History." The book sells over 200,000 copies on its first day of release.

59. November 7, 2006 - Clinton is re-elected for a second term as Senator.

60. January 20, 2007 - Announces she is creating an exploratory committee for the 2008 presidential race.

61. January 8, 2008 - Wins the New Hampshire Democratic primary with 39% of the vote.

62. June 7, 2008 - Suspends her presidential campaign and endorses Barack Obama.

63. August 27, 2008 - Clinton is formally nominated as a candidate for president at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. She receives 341 votes before interrupting the roll call to ask that Obama be nominated by acclamation.

64. September 2008 - Campaigns across the country for the Barack Obama/Joe Biden ticket.

65. January 21, 2009 - Is confirmed as secretary of state.66. October 15, 2012 - During an interview with CNN, Clinton takes

responsibility for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. She claims as head of the State Department the security of more than 60,000 people in 275 posts is her responsibility.

67. December 15, 2012 - Sustains a concussion after becoming dehydrated and fainting.

68. December 30, 2012 - Is hospitalized after doctors discover a blood clot during a follow-up exam related to the concussion. Doctors announce on December 31st that the clot is located in between Clinton's brain and skull, but they are confident she will make a full recovery.

69. January 2, 2013 - Is released from the hospital.70. January 23, 2013 - Secretary Clinton testifies for more than five

hours before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

71. February 1, 2013 - Resigns as secretary of state.72. March 18, 2013 - Clinton announces that she supports marriage

rights for same-sex couples. In the 2008 presidential primaries she

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supported civil unions and partner benefits, but not same-sex marriage.

73. March 2, 2015 - The New York Times reports that Clinton exclusively used a personal email account during her time as secretary of state. The account, fed through its own server, raises security and preservation concerns. The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya discovered the personal account when the Department of State -- through Clinton -- provided those emails to the committee.

74. March 10, 2015 - During a press conference, Clinton says she used a private domain for her official work during her time at the State Department out of "convenience," but admits in retrospect "it would have been better" to use multiple emails.

75. April 12, 2015 - Clinton officially announces a second bid for the White House. The initial word comes in an email to supporters from John Podesta, a longtime Clinton ally, then a video launched on YouTube and a newly minted Facebook page. Shortly after declaring her candidacy for president, she resigns from the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation's board of directors, according to foundation officials.

76. August 10, 2015 - During a town hall event in Exeter, New Hampshire, Clinton introduces a plan to make college more affordable. The $350 billion program would lower student loan interest rates so tuition costs will no longer "be a barrier" for young people aspiring to earn a degree.

77. August 11, 2015 - Clinton's spokesman announces that she will turn over her private email server and a flash drive to Justice Department officials, as an ongoing probe into the handling of classified information continues. Inspector general, I. Charles McCullough, III notifies Congress that two of Clinton's emails contained top secret materials.

78. October 22, 2015 - Clinton testifies for 11 hours before the congressional panel investigating the attacks on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya that lead to the deaths of four Americans.

79. Eighty-five percent of U.S. adults use the Internet, according to Pew Research. Of those Internet users, 72 percent are on Facebook, while Twitter lags far behind with 23 percent penetration. About 64 percent of all U.S. desktop searches come from Google, while its search app is installed on a majority of U.S. smartphones. -The Hill

80. Reason for posting old photos: “The pictures of her early years are important to telling her story, where she came from, the moments that shaped her life,” said Jim Margolis, one of Clinton’s media advisers. Strategists think it’s a wise strategy that’s made even more effective by her celebrity. People love looking at photos of celebrities. And when their pics of celebs before they were celebs, even better.

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“Baby pictures are warm and emotional,” said one Democratic strategist. “That’s what Hillary needs to show.” -NYTimesLive

81. Here are the Secretary's stances on five key issues that appeal to young voters:

1. education, 2. marijuana, 3. immigration, 4. climate change and 5. LGBT rights.

82. Education: Clinton released what Inside Higher Ed called "by far the most detailed plan released by a candidate yet." The plan included ensuring that the maximum award given by Pell Grant increased with accordance to rising college costs, simplifying the application for financial aid, giving a $10,000 education award for those who participate in AmeriCorps, and providing millions in grants to four-year colleges and community colleges to improve completion rates, among other proposals.

83. Former Secretary Clinton also endorsed President Obama's plan to make community college free for two years.

84. Marijuana: During the 2008 election Hillary Clinton was not in favor of decriminalization, which is a step below legalization. Since then, however, her views have become watered down and vague. "I'm a big believer in acquiring evidence," Clinton told NPR affiliate KPCC in July of 2014. "And I think we should see what kind of results we get, both from medical marijuana and from recreational marijuana, before we make any far-reaching conclusions. We need more studies. We need more evidence. And then we can proceed."

85. Immigration: Hillary Clinton strongly backed President Obama's immigration executive order, calling the plan to protect nearly 5 million undocumented immigrants a "historic step."

86. The Environment: Hillary Clinton believes in climate change, and called for greater tax incentives and greater research for green energy. Clinton also supports a carbon tax.

87. LGBT Rights: Hillary Clinton has evolved on LGBT rights. She also made a historic speech in Geneva on International Human Rights Day, where she declared that gay rights were human rights.

https://www.facebook.com/hillaryclinton/info/?tab=page_info http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/hillary-diane-rodham-clinton-

1632.php http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/us/hillary-clinton---fast-facts/ https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/hillary-clinton-believe-candidate-

stands-10-issues/

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http://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/ #pinterest (Pinterest demos)

Donald John Trump88. Born June 14th, 1946 in Queens, New York89. Fourth of five children 90. Attended the New York Military School 91. Went to Fordham University92. Went to University of Penn Wharton School of Business,

graduated in 1968 with a degree in Economics93. Went to work with his father at Elizabeth Trump & Sons

(real estate)94. Was too ambitious and the profit margins were too small 95. He started to expand into Manhattan 96. Married his first wife Ivanka in 1977 97. Trump and Ivanka had 3 children 98. 1982 the first Trump tower is built99. Expanded into Atlantic City with Harrah’s Casino 100.Expanded rapidly into Atlantic City and West Palm Beach101.Bought an airline called it Trump Shuttle in 1990102.Bankrupt in 1990 as well because of the real estate market103.1991 divorce from 1st wife104.1993 married 2nd wife 105.1997 divorce from 2nd wife 106.1999 he announced an exploratory committee to see if he should run

for president as the Reform Candidate in 2000107.Because of a poor showing in CA primary, he withdrew108.2004 started the Apprentice with NBC109.Announced June 16, 2015 -- announced in front of Trump Towers110. “Make our country great again” 111. Trump made derogatory comments about Mexicans and NBC

dropped him 112. Filed a $500 million lawsuit against NBC113.July 18th, 2015 said that John McCain wasn’t a military hero114. Top 10 Republican Candidates 115.5 Children : Ivanka is the only one in the spotlight 116. Ben Carson as biggest (Republican) competitor117.Marco Rubio also large competitor118.Jeb Bush has been one before recent dip in the polls 119. Hillary Clinton as main Democratic competitor120. Bernie Sanders also a main Democratic competitor 121. It is important to note that he was a Democrat until about 2005122. Trump is famously self-funded, but does accept donations 123. As of Oct 2015 he has 74,000 donors with about $50 average

donation

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124. $3.7 million of “unsolicited” contributions125. Donated 1.9 million to his own campaign 126. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not

using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”127. Facebook

a. 2-5 posts per dayb. 4.26M likes on page

128. Twitter a. 20+ posts per dayb. 4.89M followers

129. Instagram a. 3-5 posts per weekb. 551K followers

130. Vine a. No posts since 2013

131. In the US alone, there were 6.4million interactions regarding the launch of his campaign generated within 24 hours

132. In fact, including all the contenders, only democrat Hillary Clinton can beat that with a huge 10.1 million interactions after her speech the week before.

133. Trump made his formal presidential announcement on Periscope, the new live streaming app

134. “Social media has power and Trump knows its value.”135. Justin McConney (29YO social media whiz for Trump)136. Instagram attack ads137. “As Dan Pfeiffer, a former top communications adviser to

President Obama, tweeted last week, Trump “is way better at the Internet than anyone else in the GOP which is partly why he is winning.”

138. Trump is his own social media strategist today.139. Frequent re-tweeter (STRATEGY: focus on voter interaction and

direct no-mess-around style)140. Advised to tweet several times a day and share unfiltered videos

of his thoughts and opinions on anything and everything141. STRATEGY: Live Tweet Events (ex: 2012 Republican Debate)142. Trump was an established figure on social media before running

- gave him the opportunity to transform personal pages to political pages

143. #AskTrump campaign: voters and interested parties can ask Trump a question and he would post a video response on FB.

144. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain campaign: began with a youtube video April 2015 Trump has thus far REFUSED to buy TV ads

145. “…it’s (social media) great,” he [Trump] said in South Carolina in July. “It’s like owning a newspaper without the losses.”

146.  Trump is (possibly) the first “social media” or “reality tv” president

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a. FDR = radio; JFK = tv; Obama = Internetb. “The reality-show president could soon become reality.”147. In the old system, Trump’s style would have killed a campaign. 148. HOWEVER - Trump is an innovative social media user - the

ultimate “real” person that people can look at and know he isn’t a lying politician like the rest of them… that is what resonates with the people; “authenticity”

149.“No wonder almost every time we predict Trump will collapse, he only grows stronger. Trump is not breaking the rules. He is playing by a new set of rules.”

150. “But every political era is shaped by the media environment of its time.”

151. Trump understands the environment and has the skills, resources, and knowledge to act on it.

152. September 21, 2015 around 10am “#AskTrump Send me your questions to answer live from @TwitterNYC later this afternoon.”

153. Received an array of questions, negative comments, and trolls.154. Responded via video clips on topics such as “student debt, to

helping the homeless, to the Dallas Cowboys’ NFL future without injured quarterback Tony Romo.”

155. This campaign was trending #1 worldwide

http://www.biography.com/people/donald-trump-9511238#synopsis http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/15/donations-to-

donald-trumps-campaign-outpace-self-funding/?_r=0 https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/?fref=ts https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump https://www.instagram.com/realdonaldtrump/ https://vine.co/u/971820855623622656 http://www.digitalbinx.com/donald-trump-pushes-campaign-social-media/ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/trumps-social-media-guy-214309 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKqCEuv5c6M http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/26/opinions/jones-trump-social-media/ http://www.ibtimes.com/asktrump-hashtag-backfires-donald-trump-

twitter-headquarters-visit-prompts-social-2106932 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11c68f9e-5a1d-11e5-a28b-

50226830d644.html#axzz3rhnptDmM http://theweek.com/articles/580110/trump-still-king-social-media

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Appendix C: Green Feedback Sheets

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