This whitepaper examines the profound shifts in the media and political landscape illuminated by the 2024 U.S. election. It offers actionable insights and strategies for brands to adapt to this fast-evolving environment, ensuring their relevance and resilience in the face of change.
Executive Summary
The 2024 election revealed a rapidly evolving media ecosystem, characterized by the declining influence of traditional media, the growing importance of politically aligned mega-influencers, and the rise of alternative platforms like Bluesky and Threads. These changes require brands to adapt strategies to maintain trust and engagement with their audiences.
Key takeaways include:
- A shift from fleeting, trend-driven content to long-form, authentic influencer partnerships focused on niche topics and cultural discussions.
- The importance of navigating platform fragmentation and understanding emerging political influences on media.
- Building robust, owned communities while diversifying media investments to stay agile.
State of Play
Harris vs. Trump highlighted two distinct challenges and strategies; Trump focused on rebuilding his reputation through hyper-targeted voter engagement that spoke to narrower slices of the electorate, while Vice President Harris had to fund and execute her campaign within 100 days. Trump spent significantly less - focusing on influencers and direct communication - while Adweek shared that Harris had outspent him by $460 million in traditional advertising.
While both camps leveraged a blend of traditional and digital channels to reach young, minority voters, the scale of Trump's outreach was bigger and broader in terms of channel mix – with clear results. Axios reported that Trump ‘s approach won a greater share of the under-30 vote than any Republican presidential candidate since 2008.
This underscores a significant shift: away from high-reach, traditional media, to spaces where influence flows through channels we may not have considered legitimate a few years ago. The goal isn’t to be everywhere, but to be focused and engaged in the spaces your audiences are truly spending their time. This requires a fundamental reconsideration of who tells your story, what format it takes, and where it might live.
Key Areas of Transformation
1. Evolving Role of Influence
Influencers are no longer just marketers; they are cultural and political power brokers. This shift requires reevaluating how influencers are integrated into campaigns, and which ones are the right messengers. It’s no longer just about reach; it’s about credibility and sustained engagement.
Trump’s three-hour interview with Joe Rogan hit 26 million YouTube views within 24 hours, making it a masterstroke in reaching young male voters (a key demographic in the election). He continued this strategy by giving interviews to podcaster Theo Von, Barstool Sports' "Bussin' With the Boys," Logan Paul's "Impaulsive" podcast and appearing on a Kick livestream with controversial streamer Adin Ross - which at its peak had over 580,000 viewers.
These podcasts provided authentic, unfiltered long-form interviews with a highly engaged audience, hosted by influencers who deeply understand their listeners. In contrast, Harris’s focus on short-form, trend-based content like TikTok videos lacked the depth and connection needed for sustained impact.
Actionable Steps:
- Build trust with long-term, aligned partnerships: focus on establishing long-term collaborations with influencers who deeply resonate with your brand's values and audience. This ensures authentic connections that reinforce credibility over time.
- Leverage long-form content for depth: invest in long-form formats like podcasts and YouTube collaborations to create meaningful, engaging content that fosters trust and builds lasting audience relationships.
- Use data-driven insights to enhance storytelling: leverage analytics to identify culturally aligned voices, and integrate their storytelling into broader communications strategies - including crisis plans - to humanize the brand and maintain transparency.
2. Platform Leadership and Political Connection
Platforms are becoming increasingly tied to political narratives, with leadership shaping discourse and amplifying ideologies. Elon Musk has been tasked with co-leadership of the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a role that the BBC expects will gain him influence over government policy - and the regulatory environment facing his enterprises.
Section 230 reform, which could significantly impact content moderation and platform liability for brands, is a critical issue under consideration. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is involved in this discussion, as we see in the Financial Times’ analysis of the company’s stance on artificial intelligence, acknowledging past mistakes in terms of moderation. While TikTok’s removal of pro-Russian influencer accounts in Romania ahead of the election further highlights this as a broader issue outside of X and Facebook alone.
The proximity of these platform leaders to such polarizing issues is creating unease with users, and communication strategies must adapt to align with audience expectations of different platforms while ensuring brand messages remain consistent.
Actionable Steps:
- Proactively monitor and respond to policy and platform changes: track platform updates to understand their implications on liability, moderation, and brand safety. Use real-time sentiment analysis to adjust messaging strategies accordingly.
- Diversify and customize platform presence: avoid over-relying on a single platform by maintaining a diverse presence across multiple channels. Craft platform-specific strategies that align with the cultural norms and audience expectations of each space to ensure messaging resonates authentically.
- Strengthen stakeholder communication: prioritize clear and timely communication with internal stakeholders to prepare for potential reputational risks tied to platform policies or political developments. This ensures leadership is equipped to navigate politically charged environments effectively.
3. Emergence of New Platforms
Fragmentation is rife in the face of the election. Users are migrating to new platforms like Bluesky and Threads, driven by privacy concerns and perceived toxicity from spaces like X as detailed by Fortune.
Bluesky reached 24 million users after the election, driven by its decentralized strategy. The platform allows users to host their own data and create custom feeds, reducing the risk of data breaches and providing complete control over their personal information. Speaking at WIRED's The Big Interview event, CEO Jay Graber described this approach as her “recipe for success,” emphasizing the importance of empowerment in a new media landscape.
Meanwhile, Threads experienced an 11% surge in daily active users following election day and 35m additional signups in November according to The Verge, leveraging Meta’s robust infrastructure to scale rapidly. Like Bluesky, Threads positions itself as an appealing alternative for users seeking a fresh start from X, focusing on simplicity and engagement.
Both platforms offer new opportunities for paid amplification over the long term, with Threads beginning to offer ad placements as early as January 2025. However, brands must carefully evaluate these platforms. X also saw 5% growth in daily active users following the election, so specific analysis of audience channel usage is key to understanding where to be present.
This trend isn’t just about new spaces, but also a reconsideration of large platforms and the role they play. LinkedIn, traditionally viewed as a professional networking site, has become a vital space for brand communication and public perception management. With over 1 billion members worldwide, including more than 300 million active users each month, it offers extensive reach and engagement opportunities. According to Microsoft’s third quarter 2024 earnings call, video uploads grew by 34% year on year, and the platform sees 1.4x more engagement with video than other formats, highlighting the platform's effectiveness in disseminating compelling brand narratives.v
Actionable Steps:
- Audit channel and content performance: consider the roles each social platform plays in your communications and marketing mix. Is content driving engagement, traffic, or impact? Are these channels central to your communications plan, or is publishing there just a box-ticking exercise?
- Use audience insights to inform platform selection: as well as content performance, examine existing audience data as well as your target audience to confirm if you’re using the right channels and the right formats to meet your audience where they are spending their time. Consider audiences across the board - the public, media, stakeholders, investors, and influencers.
- Identify appropriate new channels for testing: using this content performance and audience data, align on new platforms and social strategies to experiment with. Is this something private and monitored like Discord, or a more public space that’s easier to jump into like Threads?
4. Shift in Paid, Earned, and Owned Media
The lines between paid, earned, and owned media are further blurring, demanding greater integration and agility. The demise of mainstream media may be front of mind; there will always be a place telling truthful, relevant stories. But where and how these stories are earned and shared will continue to evolve.
Paid strategies are leaning heavily on programmatic and native formats, while earned media increasingly involves collaboration with influencers and advocacy groups. Owned media must now prioritize storytelling and utility to stand out in a fragmented ecosystem.
Assessing a brand’s unique blend of paid, earned, and owned media requires a nuanced approach based on industry, business/strategic objectives, and audience behaviors, but key trends across the media mix provide opportunities to test and learn.
Actionable Steps:
- Diversify paid media investments: across both emerging and established platforms, leveraging programmatic advertising or platform-insights dashboards for highly specific targeting. Utilizing tools like Google Analytics help to prioritize data-driven targeting, refine audience segmentation, and implement A/B testing to identify high-performing content.
- Invest in building strong owned communities: this creates a controlled environment to cultivate direct engagement and foster a dedicated audience, offering a haven from the noise and negativity of polarized platforms. The popularity of Facebook Groups, Discord servers, Subreddits and even forums are seeing a resurgence for this very reason. To enhance even further, brands can offer opt-in subscriptions for exclusive, tailored content. This could include newsletters, curated updates, or premium resources aligned with the brand’s values and expertise. By allowing people to actively choose to receive this content, brands can build a more engaged and loyal audience while maintaining relevance in an increasingly personalized media landscape.
- Unfiltered, authentic storytelling over rehearsed soundbites: a good story is still fundamental to earned strategy, but the tone, format and speed that this comes to life now looks very different. Bringing key spokespeople on that journey, focusing on the impact of this new approach, is vital.
Conclusion: Adapting to the New Normal
The post-election media landscape, shaped by fragmented platforms, evolving influencer roles, and shifting audience behaviors, presents both challenges and unprecedented opportunities.
To thrive in this transformed environment, brands must adopt a forward-thinking approach. Embracing long-form, credible influencer partnerships allows for meaningful audience connections, while diversified platform strategies ensure adaptability in a fragmented ecosystem. By building robust owned communities and fostering direct relationships through opt-in strategies, brands can secure engagement and loyalty even in polarized environments.
These are not just strategies for the present—they are investments in future resilience and growth. Inaction risks irrelevance in a world where agility and cultural alignment are paramount. By prioritizing authenticity, data-driven decisions, and adaptability, brands can strengthen their reputations and emerge as leaders in an era defined by rapid change.