Biden expected to revisit winning social media strategy for 2024 run

President Joe Biden unexpectedly made news Monday morning when he told NBC’s Al Roker «I plan on running» for reelection in 2024, a slightly firmer commitment than previous statements about «intending» to run – but still not an official launch.

When he does launch his presidential bid, Biden is expected to lean on the sway of popular social media content creators – also known as «influencers,» according to a report by Axios – who may get their own briefing space at the White House or remotely.

The Biden administration has worked with influencers and leveraged their reach on social media before.

In May 2021 Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci participated in a virtual town hall with popular YouTubers Coyote Peterson, Mark Vins (who helm the Brave Wilderness channel), Manny Mua and Jackie Alina (the latter two are popular beauty YouTubers) to promote COVID-19 vaccinations. Pop singer Olivia Rodrigo appeared at a White House Press Briefing and made other social media-focused videos with White House staff to promote COVID vaccines in July of that same year.

Then, the White House hosted the popular K-pop band BTS last summer to discuss Asian inclusion and representation as well as address anti-Asian hate crimes – which expontentially grew across the U.S. during the pandemic.

Biden’s political accounts on YouTube and Instagram feature short form videos, or «shorts» to encourage voter turnout, promote the president’s accomplishments and criticize Republicans.

It makes only perfect sense that Democrats would be using social media to reach their base voters, which are younger people who are more likely to be on these platforms, use them more often and be more influenced by the messages that they see on social media because they’re less inclined to consume traditional media and get a broader scope of stories,» said Andrew Selepak, an instructional assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Department of Media Production, Management, and Technology.
Influencers often have accounts on multiple platforms, like progressive Gen Z activist Harry Sisson who has about 665,000 followers on TikTok, 124,000 on Twitter, 10,000 on Instagram and 5,000 on YouTube. According to Axios, Sisson is among the creators working with the White House. If TikTok is banned in the United States, it may be a scramble to shift followers from to other platforms.

“The president has been very, very clear about his concerns, his national security concern as it relates to the American people with this app,» White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters last week.

Selepak called it hypocritical for Democrats to express concern about the dangers of TikTok while using it to spread their message, even if they’re not directly posting to the platform themselves.

And instead using the influencers, giving these influencers access to Biden, to the vice president, giving them access to the White House in sort of a pay-for-play where you get this experience coming into the White House, meeting the president of the United States which is something very few of us get to do and then in doing so, there’s kind of an expectation that you will then make positive stories, do positive coverage for Biden, for the Biden White House,» Selepak said.
Republican frontrunner former President Donald Trump, on the other hand, has stopped using mainstream social media platforms with the exception of a few Facebook posts and gone all-in on Truth Social, the platform he founded in 2021 after he was banned from Twitter an Facebook (those bands have since been repealed). Selepak said in general, Republicans are «missing the boat.»

“They’re missing out not just on having their message heard,» Selepak said, «but they’re missing out on this huge potential of younger millennials, of older Gen Z who are gonna be a big part of the voting base and of voters in this country for decades.