Advertising

Elon Musk’s X Courts Political Advertisers Ahead of a Contentious Election Year
Wall Street Journal
“Some of the same factors that undermine X’s ad sales to brand advertisers—the platform’s reputation for brawling political exchanges and Musk’s decision to pull back on content moderation efforts—have made it more attractive to some candidates and advocacy groups, experts say.”

How To Write Campaign Search Ads That Win Support
Best Practice Digital
“Writing an effective search ad is first and foremost about answering the question the voter is searching for. A generic ad will not perform as well as an ad that is specific to the keywords being searched and addresses the topic.”

International

The digital campaign that rewrote NZ's political playbook
Topham Guerin
“This led to the creation of a political game on TikTok, allowing users to engage with the National Party in a new and unique way. Marrying policy with play, the game was titled ‘Tax Relief Rush’ and the first of its kind in the political landscape. Not only did the game receive the endorsement of Luxon himself, but it also engaged voters to the tune of 22,000 gameplays in the campaign's final stretch. By converting political messaging into interactive entertainment, they ensured that their message permeated in a memorable and impactful way.”

Social Media

X usage plummets in Musk's first year
Axios
“Usage has also decreased, with monthly active users falling 14.8% globally and 17.8% in the U.S. year-over-year for the month of September, per SimilarWeb.”

Inside Hamas’ Social Media Strategy
Slate
“Hamas has a political wing where they develop films and political campaigns for their members. So they actually have a fairly established comms team. And they described it as a very premeditated strategy meant to appeal to their supporters and show what they had done…But the decision to take the cell phone of someone they were holding hostage and use their Facebook account to live stream it was very specific and deliberate.”

Technology

From Comms to Strategy: Where AI Will Have the Biggest Impact In ’24
Campaigns & Elections
“You have to embrace [AI] from the political and public affairs perspective. You have no choice. You have to learn how to utilize it in your day-to-day. And it’s a matter of scale. It provides a lot of quick resources to any operation that’s going on.”