Progressive advocacy groups face diminished digital influence
Progressive advocacy groups face diminished digital influence
Meta’s withdrawal from politics and the rise of TikTok has reduced some legacy organizations’ online distribution
FWIW, this week’s newsletter is sponsored by Civic Shout
Democrats have long benefitted from a constellation of progressive advocacy groups, nonprofits, and labor unions that work on political issues like reproductive rights, climate, LGBT equality, gun violence prevention, and worker’s rights. Many of those organizations have been part of the party’s establishment for years, creating an off-year talent pipeline, funding paid media efforts, or running grassroots lobbying campaigns. They’ve also historically played a large role in engaging and informing Democratic activists and voters on social media.
Their online grassroots power, however, could be waning. These organizations’ digital influence has been significantly diminished in recent years, driven primarily by changes to Facebook’s algorithm, a decline in X/Twitter usage, and an industry-wide failure to embrace TikTok.
Cratering engagement on Facebook
Let’s start with Facebook. Groups like MoveOn, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Sierra Club spent a decade building their page followings to share petitions, disseminate messaging, and spread information about their causes. But as the social media giant has slowly withdrawn from promoting political and news content for years, these types of organizations have seen their engagement crater.
Here’s a look at the total Facebook post engagement from April 2019 to the present for twenty (20) influential progressive advocacy nonprofits or labor unions:
Together, these pages have over 16 million followers - but over the past five years, half of them have actually seen a net decrease in audience size. All of them have seen a precipitous decline in engagement every time they post: Once averaging 4 million interactions a week, last week their posts received just over 200,000 likes, shares, or comments.
Despite this, all of these organizations continue to prioritize sharing content on Facebook on a near-daily basis.
Slow to join TikTok
By contrast, we looked at these same groups and found that only 55% of them post on TikTok weekly, and 10 have under 10,000 followers on that platform. Combined, these 20 groups have a total TikTok audience of just over 1 million followers.
Unlike Facebook, TikTok currently provides political brands and creators with a powerful content discovery engine that can supercharge audience growth. That’s why progressive movement groups' underinvestment in the platform is noteworthy.
There are a few bright spots, however: the Human Rights Campaign, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and SEIU have each used TikTok in unique ways to reach larger audiences.
At the pleasure of Big Tech
We’ve reached a point where our political and news industries can only distribute content or build audiences at the pleasure of several big tech companies. Maybe it’s always been that way, but a particularly volatile social media ecosystem in recent years has only made that truth more obvious. Meta’s Instagram and Threads are also beginning to pull the rug out from under-political creators, while X (formerly known as Twitter) is also reportedly on the decline.
In 2020, progressive advocacy groups had huge social media megaphones by which they could reach voters organically with election or cause-based messaging. This time around, will Biden or Democrats feel the impact of their diminished online reach? Or will a new class of viral creators and brands make up the difference? Only time will tell.
By the numbers
FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $9.5 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Climate Power has a new ad campaign targeting swing-state voters and highlighting the federal government’s clean energy investments via the Inflation Reduction Act. They’re touting those successes at a microsite, www.thecleanenergyplan.com
Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $3.5 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Spoiler candidate RFK Jr. is taking a page from the Republican playbook and running YouTube ads about the border. Specifically, RFK himself went to the border and took a vertical selfie-style video of himself essentially condemning migrants while they were processed by Customs and Border Protection.
On Snapchat, political advertisers in the U.S. have spent $763,100 on ads year to date. Here are the top spenders:
This week, Priorities USA partnered with the League of Conservation Voters to run new Snapchat ads touting President Biden’s green investments, particularly those that benefit Black and Brown communities.
…and lastly, political advertisers on X (formerly Twitter) have spent over $1.6 million on the platform in 2024. Here are the top spending accounts:
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Your 2024 digital dispatch
FWIW, here’s how weekly digital ad spending (Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube) compares between the Trump and Biden campaigns year-to-date:
From around the internet:
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