Presidential content on social is heating up! While Tubular’s social video analytics can’t predict who will win the 2024 presidential election, it can tell us what US audiences are interested in on social. It’s important to understand what videos and topics are trending because media does affect voter decisions and what happens in the polls.
Let’s look at what social audiences are currently interested in and how young voters are engaging with political content ahead of an important election year.
Presidential social content ramps up!
One of Tubular’s unique capabilities is measuring quality viewership. Our 30-second view metric using Tubular Audience Ratings allows you to differentiate between those who are watching and those who are scrolling. The following graph looks at US Presidential Election content on YouTube and Facebook, 30-second views have increased drastically from the beginning of the year:
Audiences watched 116 million minutes of US Presidential Election content on YouTube and Facebook in August of 2023. That’s up 104% from July!
The US presidential election is a large video category on social. Luckily, Tubular provides over a million Topics and 1500+ Categories generated by AI-learning technology that can track social trends. So while digging in the overarching category of the US presidential election, we can see these Topics listed on the left are important to audiences, as well as the number of video uploads within each.
For example, while former President Trump has 44.8k videos related to him uploaded in the last 365 days, Republican candidate Ron DeSantis has only 1,869.
We can also use Audience Also Watches to tell us what social issues audiences are most interested in.
In the last 6 months, those who watch content in the US Presidential Election category on YouTube were most likely to also watch videos about Immigration. Following Immigration content is Guns & Politics, Transgender, and Women’s Rights.
With Tubular’s historical data, we can see that these social issues are also becoming more relevant to viewers as we get closer to the 2024 election.
While these Top 4 social issues have come up in many debates in the past, one very new hot topic is the politicians’ ages…
Winning the Gen Z vote
2024 will be the first election where AI and TikTok are mainstream technologies used daily by America’s youngest voters. As the election continues to ramp up, the Tubular Team will be tracking how these new advancements are playing a role in the political landscape — but here’s what we can see so far.
Age is not but a number
Vivek Ramaswamy is the first presidential candidate to join TikTok. The 38-year-old Republican candidate is leaning into the platform to reach the newest generation of voters. In his first video, he speaks directly to Gen Z and Millennials and says he wants to address issues that affect young people’s lives.
He is also leaning into the very hot topic right now: the age of politicians.
This issue has come to the forefront after several videos of House Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (81), have shown him struggling to finish his sentences and losing his train of thought. Audiences have flooded social media with memes and videos about the elderly remaining in office after their prime. It has caused many to question, how old is too old?
As the youngest presidential candidate, Ramaswamy is using this issue to his advantage. In other videos, he shows his children and shares “Day in the Life of a Presidential Candidate” content. The comments sections are flooded with questions asking him to share his views on topics like climate change. It’s interesting to see a presidential candidate engaging so closely with audiences as this is the type of interaction that younger audiences prefer and expect from their favorite creators. Will that translate to votes from these audiences? Only time will tell!
AI could wreak havoc on the 2024 election
New technologies create unforeseen issues for presidential candidates. The most viewed TikTok video about the presidential election in August was a series of AI-generated photos of former president Trump running from and being obtained by cops. The video has 13.4 million views and over 1 million engagements. Nowhere on the post does it indicate that these photos are AI-generated. These very real-seeming images could be damaging for those in the race to the White House. Will AI-generated images create issues and spread false information about candidates?
While new technologies and social platforms might seem trivial to politicians, these new advancements are anything but. Media has a massive effect on what happens in the voting booth. Candidates and campaign teams who leverage social media to connect more authentically with Gen Z and Millennial audiences could seriously sway the outcome of the election.
We’re still over a year out from the election— but Tubular will be keeping a pulse on the social media story of the race to the White House.
What political conversations, topics and issues will continue to take place on social?
Will more candidates lean into social media to speak candidly with audiences?
Will we see a higher turnout of young voters thanks to the power of social?
We’ll be answering all these questions and more in the coming year. What do you think about presidential candidates taking to social media to answer questions and engage with voters?
If you want to stay on the pulse of culture through social video’s single source of truth, it’s time to request a free demo of Tubular. Click below to unlock social in a whole new way.