Snapchat in the Presidential Campaigns

By using the “Live” feature in Snapchat, a candidate can create a digital boundary around the location of the event. Then, attendees post videos or photos to the “Live” event via Snapchat. Snapchat curators string together the event’s videos and pictures to create a “story” that is uploaded in real-time to over 100 Million Snapchat user feeds worldwide. Recently, Snapchat users witnessed the “Hello, Hillary 2016” live story, showing videos from Clinton’s rally in Roosevelt Island. Jeb Bush’s campaign introduced the “Campaign 2016” live story, showing Bush’s candidacy announcement event in Miami. Both of these live stories were seen by millions of Snapchat users.

In an article by TIME, Rand Paul’s digital strategist Vincent Harris said, “Many younger ‘off-the-grid’ voters aren’t consuming traditional news outlets and are increasingly using platforms like Snapchat as their source of information…” Harris also said that Rand Paul will continue to use Snapchat in his future ad campaigns.

Vincent Harris speaking at the University of Texas Annette Strauss Institute
Vincent Harris speaking at the University of Texas Annette Strauss Institute

The true success of these campaigns remains to be seen, but if campaign managers continue to choose Snapchat for spreading their message, it is a safe assumption to say it is contributing to results with the Snapchat target demographic.