I am in a recent Washington Post piece about Sen. Rand Paul’s recent debut on Snapchat. Before elaborating on the piece, I should first acknowledge that I’m not an avid Snapchat user. And Paul’s snaps themselves are a little esoteric for my taste… but I am in my 30s, so perhaps I’m not the target audience.
What Senator Paul’s office wanted was a process story, and they got one. Actually, they got several, so mission accomplished on that, and congrats to his PR team.
But where does it get him (and other elected officials considering following him)? Ultimately, the purpose of being on a platform is to engage with people for a goal—whether that is focused on helping you to govern (as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau does so well), communicating with constituents about the substantive work you’re doing (as do electeds like Claire McCaskill or Cory Booker), or mobilizing your supporters (as President Obama has done so effectively).
As for the challenges that Rand Paul faces on Snapchat, here are three:
- The medium is hard for him—content there is temporary. It is hardly the place to leave announcements, or get responses, or be meaningful over the long-term. Although the “story” feature could be helpful, it really doesn’t add up to be a good use of staff (or candidate) time.
- The audience is not exactly his core, either by state or demographic. It’s hard to be absolutely sure about this because Snapchat isn’t that clear about their usership, but presumably there’s not a lot of CEOs and gun owners on Snapchat, and that’s the Republican base these days. Success in any medium is driven by the ability to be authentic. Is Rand Paul really going to fit in as an authentic Snapchat user?
- Snapchat will be especially tough for Rand Paul because you can’t just copy other people to post good content (like with his speeches). So it’s hard to see how he’ll translate well.
Despite the potential pitfalls of new platforms, rewards can plentiful if leveraged to make meaningful connections in authentic contexts. Certainly new platforms that aren’t big (or even launched today) could be huge by the time the 2016 election heats up. YouTube didn’t exist in 2004, but was absolutely integral to Obama for America in 2008 and in 2012. OFA tweeted once on election day 2008, but was a core communications platform in 2012 with thousands of targeted messages. In fact, OFA still holds the record for most retweeted tweet in history—Four More Years— with more than 810,000 retweets. Looking to 2016, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr will most likely remain core, but the jury is still out on next platforms that will matter most. Snapchat? Google Glass? Tinder? Stay tuned…