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Democrats commissioned a $20 million study to figure out why young men are voting Republican, called the SAM project (‘Speaking with American Men’).

Save your money. I’ll tell you for free.

First tip: don’t let any man know that you’re calling this the ‘Speaking with American Men’ project. The cringe will be so strong that Rogan will grow another bicep.

And I don’t work in politics. But I have spent decades working in digital media, where a primary focus involves influencer marketing, meaning, often, speaking with American men to change hearts and minds.

Don’t kid yourself: politics IS marketing.

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Teaching Grandpa to Tweet

Hearts and minds are being built and broken on social platforms.

And built/broken hearts and minds are the primary driver of political opinion.

You see if in our news every day. Why don’t the news networks agree on the facts?

Simple: because spin got so extreme that it turned into flat-out lying.

And there’s no accountability. And study-after-study will tell you trust in the media hangs around 31% (ouch).

So it’s more important that ever that politicians find ways to speak directly with their audience through social media.

The natural question arises: why are so many so terrible at it?

I boil it down to one simple mistake that I greatly attribute to their old, out-of-touch strategists and pollsters: they are conforming their media strategy to social media instead of conforming a social media strategy to their media strategy.

They still think their ‘Morning Joe’ appearance is paramount and their Facebook posts are secondary.

Impressions data and trust in social headlines tell a different story.

So, politicians that don’t understand why young men don’t like them, let someone with a few decades of experience helping fast food and video game companies sell to young man give you a few words of advice:

1. It’s more important to be authentic than practiced. Politicians aren’t Marlon Brando. Most can’t act their way out of a paper bag. And when a politician is repeating a line written for them, we can tell. Nobody believes Hillary Clinton came up with “Pokemon Go to the Polls!” on the spot, and the cringe was insurmountable. Say what you will about Donald Trump’s relationship with the truth, but he’s very authentic. He has no filter whatsoever. He’s quite literally the cranky old man watching Fox News and yelling back at the TV. And a lot of people, young men included, would rather have that then a puppet.

2. It’s a game of volume. Don’t spend a month creating the perfect TikTok video. Because it will be less perfect because you spent that time on it. Especially on micro-blogging platforms like Twitter, reach is a game of volume, and if it takes you a full day to write one A+ tweet, it will have less reach an impact than 20 B- tweets. It’s called the attention economy, not the perfection economy. Suck at being creative and authentic quickly? Take an improv class.
   

3. Be ready to talk to anyone anywhere. You don’t get a cookie for going on smaller media outlets that are more aligned with your political party. The game isn’t to build excitement with no-brainer audiences. I’m not going to only market the new Call of Duty game on the streams of Call of Duty gamers because their audience is already in the bag! Want to reach Middle America? Try a sports podcast! Try a comedian podcast! Pop into a politics debate TikTok Live! Have some fun with it, for godsakes! I got beat up on LinkedIn for posting about Kamala not bending over backwards to show up on Joe Rogan before the election after the Trump appearance, pointing out that while Trump was on Rogan Kamala was doing whistle-stop tours at local diners and speeches at libraries, and I’m very comfortable saying that I was proven right.

4. Fill out your identity. If nobody knows your story, your real, honest-to-God human story, they’re not going to like you. When our creators have issues driving deeper fandom, we encourage them to talk about their life. Not just the rosy stuff or the lessons-learned. Talk about the grimy stuff. Don’t tell a story then end it with, “and that’s why I care so much about women’s health policy!” Just be a full, flawed, freaky human being.

5. Let your community be your marketing. Bernie Sanders didn’t raise all of that money in small dollar donations by sending a stupid amount of texts. He gave people a reason to care, a story about their lives, then gave them actionable ways to be part of the movement. If you have to beg people to be a vocal supporter, you need to work on your audience development. I’m still shocked, SHOCKED, that every major political candidate doesn’t have a newsletter where they share a round up of social media posts and ask them to like/comment/subscribe. That would do more than the millions of dollars in cringey paid media they put behind their ‘star spangled awesome’ 30 second ad units.

6. Go wide, dummies! If you made an awesome piece of content, or even a so-so piece of content, put it EVERYWHERE! I’m amazed how few politicians can be found on Twitch (dude…run a phone cam at your campaign events!), TikTok, RedNote, Rumble, Threads, and Reddit. Heck, put it on Truth Social! And when a post does hit, thread it! Repurpose it! Again, 83 year old Bernie Sanders is one of the few politicians embracing wide distribution, often simply screenshotting his tweets.

7. Nail your brand. What’s your ‘thing’? You can have opinions on everything, but you need to be known as the “_____” person. MrBeast is the spectacle guy. PewDiePie was the Edgelord Gamer. Addison Rae is the Gen Z siren. And Donald Trump is MAGA. If your thing is ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’, it’s going to be hard to get a dedicated fanbase.

I’d be happy to continue but, frankly, that would require repeating over 100 editions of my Grow 1% newsletter. Instead, try saving a ton of coin on marketing consultants and spend $30 per hour on a recent college grad that rocks at YouTube strategy.

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GROW 1%:

Phil Ranta’s weekly social media growth newsletter with one actionable tip to grow.

This week’s ‘Grow 1%’ is titled What Does 'Community' Mean? and discusses actionable steps to turn your audience into a self-sustaining community.

Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the entire edition in the link above:

If you've talked to social media experts for more than one awkward 'cornered at a party' moment, you likely heard:

"The goal isn't just getting views, it's building a community!"

Awesome! I live in a community! I'm part of online communities! I'd love for my content to have a community!

Okay, time to build a community, first step...

Oh! Communities need a place to congregate! I'm a gamer, so I'm going to set up a Discord.

Okay, Discord is looking good. Now I'm going to tell all of my fans to join.

Great, people are rolling in. They're introducing themselves. This is great.

.....*ahem*.......okay.....

Wait, did I win? Do I have a community now?

I mean, I suppose you do. You have the three essential needs for a community: people, place, and reason.

So why does it feel so empty and useless?

I'll tell you, Sammy Strawman! It's because communities, just like relationships, need to be nurtured.

Luckily, I have a framework for this! If you did the basics but want an active community, I recommend starting with three key tactics:

✅ Have stuff to do. If you're a conference nerd like me, you likely check the events right after you buy your ticket and start scheduling. What panels do I want to attend? When do I have free time for meetings? When will I eat? If I didn't have that event calendar, I'd likely just try to connect with people one-on-one, which isn't really creating a community. The more 'team events' you put together, the more opportunity there is for people to meet, connect, and all join together for one larger goal.

Continue reading here.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.