LTO Links #314

Why Politicians Are Bad At Podcasting

Learn. Test. Optimize.

Issue #314 |

Advertising

How digital news publishers will compete for political ad dollars in this year’s U.S. midterm elections

"Typically, political advertisers turn to digital news sites right before an election to persuade people to vote. Homepage takeovers on websites days before an election can help capture people’s attention, according to executives at two digital political agencies."

Campaigns

On TikTok, Knitting, Rapping and Promoting the Child Tax Credit

"That, they argue, combined with senior leaders’ penchant for top-down control, has led to a lack of creativity in political messaging — which is why they allow their creators to write their own scripts as long as they are factually accurate."

How American Bridge is reaching new audiences

"Since optimizing our vertical content this year, our Instagram and TikTok followers have nearly tripled, and our YouTube subscribers have grown by over 30%."

Content

Wow, Politicians Are Really Bad at Podcasting

"The most successful podcasters accomplish something that politicians cannot, no matter how hard they try: to be so consistently idiosyncratic, so personal (and personable) in their approach, that the listener develops a peer-like relationship with them, if only in their mind. To hear politicians try to do this is to better understand how they’re pulled by trend, ambition or mere curiosity toward means of communicating with voters that simply don’t work, and how they fundamentally misunderstand their role in creating the sense of community and social identity that podcasts engender."

Data

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg won’t be deposed over the Cambridge Analytica scandal

"Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg were in line to give hours of depositions in response to a lawsuit over Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, but now that won’t happen — the company has reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs."

Design

Digitally-altered image of Dr. Oz standing alongside individual holding ‘NO’ poster

"The unaltered image shows the individual holding the poster correctly so that it reads “OZ.” Further text on the poster reads: “U.S. Senate” and “Paid for by Doctor Oz for Senate.”"

Email

Effective & Ethical Ways to Build Political Lists

"As mentioned in today’s NGP VAN webinar on effective and ethical list-building for politics and advocacy, here are a few resources from Epolitics.com and my monthly pieces in CampaignsandElections.com."

International

Google to verify political ad funders of Brazilian state candidates

"Starting this week, advertisers linked to state-level candidacies will have to go through a verification process to be able to run electoral advertising on Google Ads and Display & Video 360. The steps involve checking where the would-be ad funders are reputable."

Social Media

Trump's social media app facing financial fallout

"Former President Donald Trump’s social media outfit, Truth Social, is locked in a bitter battle with one of its vendors claiming that the platform is stiffing the company out of more than $1 million in contractually obligated payments, FOX Business has learned."

  • Another stumbling block for Truth Social: Google bars app download over violent content (CBSNews.com)

Twitter’s newest crisis deepens its midterms morass

"That’s a lot for a social media company to tackle less than three months before the November vote. And multiple Republican and Democratic lawmakers say they’re concerned that the latest revelations are leaving Twitter unprepared and understaffed to combat that expected flood of election-related misinformation around the midterms."

Most local election offices still aren’t on social media, new research finds

"In North Carolina, we found that voters whose county board of elections used Facebook to share clear information about voting by mail were more likely to have their mailed ballots accepted than mail voters whose county boards did not share instructions on social media."

Technology

Is the Sun Beginning to Set on QR Codes?

“I think something really positive that QR codes have done post-pandemic is driven an older demographic that wasn’t used to going on a digital platform,” Delgado said. “They all know how to use QR codes now.”

Robotext onslaught

"Campaigns have already sent 90.5 million texts this election cycle, including some 68 million from Democrats and around 23 million from Republicans, Axios' Lachlan Markay reports from data by RoboKiller, a blocker app."