Team Hillary ran a hard-fought campaign, but..

Dubai - Team Hillary ran a hard-fought campaign, but a conservative and 'Trump bashing' online campaign disengaged voters

In 2007, no one in racially divided America, would have imagined that a tall, lanky black man in his mid-40s could become the leader of the free world. But Ba-rack Obama and his campaign team had other plans. They harnessed the power of social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, spawning global reach and popularity and driving home their message of 'change'.
Since then, social media has played an integral role in swaying people's vote and influencing US presidential election results, including in 2016. Republican candidate Donald Trump has emerged victorious, riding a wave of populist resentment to defeat Hillary Clinton in the race to become the 45th president of the United States.
It's no longer the televised presidential debates that hold the key to people's minds - it's the continuous conversations in the online sphere that differentiate the victor from the vanquished. In effect, it's no longer mind over matter - it's noise over poise, and this election, as ugly as it was, Trump created more noise than anyone else to drown out the voice of liberal Democrats.
After yesterday's historic loss to Trump, it is introspection time for Hillary and her band of social media strategists to figure out what went wrong.
Jenna Lowenstein, digital director for Hillary's campaign, has at her disposal a team of more than 100, including staffers who develop con-tent and strategy for social media, video, email outreach, audience development, digital organising, advertising and the 'briefing' blog. Compared to the Trump campaign, which has a presence on Facebook and Instagram but relies significantly on Twitter to connect with voters, Hillary has had success on less conventional platforms, including Quora and Pinterest.
But while her team has been lauded for running a robust online campaign tugging on people's heart strings with emotional posts, critics feel that a conservative Hillary is ill-suited for social media.
Trump, on the other hand, has a personality that is 'best suited' for social media. The Republican business tycoon, during the campaign, continued to make headlines with his outrageous and awkward comments, sending him top of the trending charts across social media platforms.
Clinton and Trump have one thing in common - they are both popular figures in the US, but Trump's loud personality gave him an edge over an otherwise proper and conservative Clinton.
A report by social media analytics site Ezyinsights shows that Trump dominated social media in October 2016 - for good and 'nasty' reasons alike, engaging with 5 million users daily while Hillary's campaign managed to only garner nearly a million.
In terms of Live Video engagement on Facebook, the Trump camp once again dwarfed Hillary's social media strategy, engaging over 2 million, while Clinton struggled to even cross the 500,000 mark all month.
With the controversial Holly-wood access video leak, from 10 years back, surfacing in October, where the Trump can be heard 'en-gaged' in 'locker room' talk with a TV presenter, the team saw a high of more than 1.6 million. This was mainly due to a clarification video released by Trump.
The Clinton camp, which stuck to 'slander ads' slamming Trump for his misogynistic and divisive comments and remarks over the years, did not fare well in video engagements either. In terms of overall Facebook engagement, Trump's team ended the month with a high of over 1.2 mil-lion while Hillary once again struggled to cross the million mark.
The bottom line is that - at the end of the day - Trump had the following and clout on social media before Hillary, and in the end, his online 'messaging' coupled with his larger than life persona saw him sway the votes when it mattered - on election day!
yousufk@khaleejtimes.
What happens to Obama's @POTUS handle
President Obama has a stellar social media presence. From his mic drop videos to his appearances on Jimmy Kimmel, Barack Obama knows how to stay cool with millennials. The White House also doesn't fail to remind us that he is, indeed, a social media president. Among the many social media firsts credited to him the ones that stand out are that he's the first to have @POTUS on Twitter, the first to go live on Facebook from the Oval Office, the first to answer questions from citizens on YouTube, and the first to use a filter on Snapchat.
The President of the United States, First Lady, the White House. all have their own Twitter accounts. Fun fact: It passes on to the next President as soon as he assumes power. If you're a fan of President Obama's @POTUS Twitter ac-count, don't worry - he isn't going to go completely offline.
Obama's official @POTUS ac-count will be taken over by the next president Donald Trump on January 20, 2017, even as Obama's tweets will move over to a new handle, @POTUS44.According to the White House website, the account will retain its more than 11 million followers, but start with no tweets on the timeline. All of Obama's tweets will also be archived by the National Archives and Records Administration and easily available for reference by the public. The White House is also looking at newer ways to ensure all this data is preserved.
So, President-elect Trump need not worry. He'll still have all the followers on social media handles and be able to start afresh without any previous tweets
Reuters

• Battle For White House