Political TikTok comes of age
Groups like Gen-Z for Change are creating a new paradigm for political & civic engagement on the platform
It’s time we had…the talk. About TikTok.
The vertical video platform was the most-downloaded free iPhone app in the US last year, ahead of YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. It’s now the 3rd largest social media platform globally, and it continues to grow faster than any other major social media platform in the U.S. 🤯
As TikTok comes of age, so too does political activism on its platform. In this week’s FWIW, we break down how creators and politicians alike have used the app to reach millions of viewers with informative content and calls to action.
But first…
By the numbers
FWIW, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Meta platforms (Facebook + Instagram) last week:
Last week, President Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Justice Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court. Democratic campaigns and progressive organizations were prepared for the move, as we’ve seen *over a dozen* groups already up with Facebook ads urging for her swift confirmation (or using her nomination to fundraise from the grassroots). We’ve been writing this newsletter for a while, and it’s quite rare that so many groups move so quickly with similar ads:
Whether or not thousands of far-right truckers ultimately end up rolling into DC this weekend, someone is still making a lot of money off of them. A new Facebook page created on February 14th called Truckers for Freedom has spent $150,000 in the past two weeks on ads fundraising off the potential protests. It’s run by the “Great American Patriot Project Inc.,” a newly-incorporated PAC that claims it will support “vetted Patriot candidates for Federal office.”
Last week, Sen. Rick Scott made waves by releasing a Republican midterm policy platform that would raise taxes on over half of Americans and potentially sunset Medicare and Social Security. Some in the political press predicted that this would soon make its way into Democratic attack ads, and in fact, it already has. Rep. Val Demings, running in Florida to unseat Sen. Marco Rubio, is hitting her opponent over the proposed plan in a new Facebook ad.
Meanwhile, here were the top-spending political advertisers on Google platforms last week, including YouTube:
On YouTube, we saw Democratic candidate for PA Governor, Josh Shapiro, is up with a powerful new ad highlighting his offices’ efforts to hold priests accountable for child sexual abuse. As far as we can tell, the campaign is currently targeting just one county with the ad, where the priest scandal has been in the news lately.
Lastly, here are the top political ad spenders on Snapchat so far this year:
Midterm spending takeaways
The midterms are upon us, and we’re keeping a close eye on digital ad spending in key Senate, House, and Gubernatorial contests. For full access to the most comprehensive dataset of midterm digital spending, become a paying subscriber here. >>
Raphael Warnock was the top-spending battleground Senate candidate on FB + Google ads last week (view Senate data).
Stacey Abrams was the top spending battleground Gubernatorial candidate on digital ads last week (view Gov data).
AZ-01 was the most expensive swing U.S. House district race online last week (view House data).
New from Campaigner
Political campaigns, especially large ones, too often operate with teams that are siloed by different functions. Rigidly separating teams like fundraising, organizing, and digital can have unintended consequences for a campaign’s ability to reach voters with one cohesive message. In this week’s Campaigner newsletter, we spoke with Samantha Steelman, co-founder of Triptych Strategies, who shares her take on why campaigns should do things differently - especially when it comes to breaking through echo chambers and integrating story-telling into everything that they do in order to better reach audiences online. Read + subscribe here >>
Political TikTok comes of age
It’s time we talk about TikTok.
The video-first social media platform was the most-downloaded iPhone app in the US last year, ahead of YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. It has the highest social media engagement rates per post, and U.S. users on average spend a whopping 858 minutes (14 hours!) per month swiping through its vast universe of vertical videos. It is now the 3rd largest social media platform globally, and it continues to grow faster than any other major social media platform in the U.S.
When we last wrote about TikTok way back in 2019, the company had been making a point to stay far away from politics - banning political ads and claiming to de-prioritize political or “controversial” content. Nowadays, however, it seems like the youths have taken to posting and sharing whatever they want - including 🔥 entertaining and informative political content that is reaching millions of users. Responsible for a huge amount of that political content is a group called Gen-Z for Change.
Gen-Z for Change is a network of over 500 politically-engaged creators on TikTok who boast a combined half a billion followers. These are not just political creators, though many of them are activists first and foremost, and the coalition includes some of their generation’s most recognizable faces in comedy, lifestyle, cooking, and acting. The organization has hosted textbanks that have reached over 250,000 voters, mobilized support for Democratic candidates nationwide, caused headaches for newly-elected VA Gov. Glenn Youngkin, helped resettle an Afghan refugee family, and most recently has been supporting Starbucks workers in their push to unionize. According to the group, their audiences have cumulatively spent over 285 years watching their content.
Gen-Z for Change started during the 2020 election as “TikTok for Biden,” and gained enough traction to eventually partner with the presidential campaign itself to help disseminate pro-Biden messaging on the platform, as the Biden campaign’s team couldn’t have an official presence on the platform (due to security concerns). “Political groups partnering with creators who already have large audiences on the platform is particularly effective,” said Aidan Kohn-Murphy, the organization’s Founder and Executive Director (and creator in his own right) in an interview with FWIW. “All of our creators already understand different parts of how to be successful on TikTok. That's an especially powerful thing - because you can do these market-tested focus groups and messages, or you can just go to creators who intuitively know what works.”
Knowing what works is critical when you’re trying to get as many eyeballs as possible from younger audiences rapidly swiping through video after video. Gen Z’s Deputy Executive Director (@victoriahammett), Victoria Hammett, broke down for FWIW how the group thinks about curating content on its own account:
“When we're producing content, we think about both how to entertain and educate, because at the end of the day most people don't go on TikTok to just learn and only learn. My job is to figure out a way to deliver very important information and important calls to action that'll get people to stop scrolling. We can do that in many different ways, whether by using trending sounds, sharing important stories or through funny titles, like our series “Dumb Shit Your Politician Did This Week.”
While Gen-Z for Change could be the largest group of politically-engaged, progressive creators on the platform, they’re not alone. With his organization Inequality Media, 75-year old former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has grown a following of nearly 450,000. His videos capitalize on the latest trends to explain the news and politics of the day in an entertaining format.
Campaigns and politicians are starting to catch on, too. When we wrote this newsletter back in 2019, we struggled to find any serious politicians with their own TikTok accounts (except you, Julián Castro!), but today, that’s beginning to change.
Rep. Val Demings, running for U.S. Senate against Marco Rubio, recently joined the platform and has tried her hand at some of TikTok’s signature dance trends. So far, her team has posted 5 videos that have earned a combined 1.1 million views. By contrast, her average video on Facebook earns around 1,500 views. 🤯🤯🤯
“TikTok has the potential to humanize candidates in a way that’s different from other platforms. People want to see a video of a candidate’s day in the life - starting their day with coffee, making calls," says Glennis Meagher, co-founder of Generator Collective. "The opportunities for going viral and reaching larger audiences are so much higher on TikTok, especially among young people.
Further down-ballot, Kentucky State Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey has built a huge following on the platform too. The @KYSenateDems have a TikTok following that’s ten times larger than their Twitter audience, and their videos have been liked 3.9 million times.
At the end of the day, this may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of political and campaign engagement on the platform. “There are many more (progressive and political) organizations who have been joining TikTok recently and I'm excited about that, but I'm actually surprised it's taken them so long to start taking TikTok seriously,” says Madeline Twomey, a Democratic strategist and advisor to Gen-Z for Change. “I think we have been proving that the platform can be impactful, and we're really just getting started.”
Want to get involved? Gen-Z for Change is a 501(C)4 nonprofit organization currently raising its first seed round. If you’re interested in partnering, give them a shout at team@genzforchange.org.