Did Sanders have the right priorities on social media before Clinton clinched?

[Commentary] Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) rode a wave of populist support that nearly upended former shoo-in Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. Are there lessons to learn from his campaign’s social-media strategy that explain why the Bernie movement gained so much traction but ultimately came up short?

A review of hundreds of the candidates’ messages on Twitter and Facebook—using data* from Illuminating 2016, a project supported by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Syracuse University’s Center for Computational and Data Sciences—suggests the candidates took very different approaches to the digital medium in the month before Clinton clinched the nomination. Sen Sanders’s feed had fewer negative messages, relying more on calls to action than Clinton’s feed. And despite his success with small donations, Sen Sanders was more focused on getting out the vote than urging supporters to donate money on social media. Clinton’s strategic use of calls to action was focused on digital engagement—and attempts to create an open and collaborative campaign environment by inviting supporters to engage with policy discussions online.

[Patricia Rossini is a PhD Candidate in Communication Studies at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil), and a research assistant at the Center for Computational and Data Sciences at Syracuse University.]