Social media is a powerful tool; we all know that; but, it has also played an instrumental role in the US election campaign so far. With the election campaign coming to a head in exactly one week, what can businesses learn from the way social media has been used throughout?

Here are 3 social media tips your business can put into practice from the US election campaign 2016…

Hashtags work

Whether you’re jumping on the back of an already popular one, or creating your own to tie a big campaign together, hashtags work. So far, the US election campaign has seen its fair share of original hashtags, from the basic #election2016 and #makeamericagreatagain and #womancard, to #Imwithher. Regardless of who you’re siding with, each campaign has a variety of hashtags that encourage the user to get involved and become part of the American political debate.

• #womancard – has received a reach for October alone of just over 3 million unique users
• #election2016 – has received an October reach of 3.7 million unique users for that one month alone
• #makeamericagreatagain – has received just over one million unique users for the same time period
• #Imwithher – has received an astonishing October reach of almost 42 million unique users

So if you’re thinking of building a unique hashtag for your business’s campaign, just think, what words would create the largest impact amongst your followers? You need something your audience can relate to and would feel proud to include in their tweets, so get those thinking caps on!

Get creative with Snapchat’s GeoFilters

In the US election campaign so far, Snapchat’s GeoFilters have played an important role in helping further engage the 18-34 demographic bracket. Snapchatters are able to show their support for a specific candidate, the GeoFilter gives the user the chance to engage with a particular party even when they’re not present at the event.

If your business has an event coming up in the next few months, maybe think about costing in a GeoFilter for your event attendees to use? This will help hype your event up, whilst giving your business some great social exposure! (And it’ll give you some great pictures for your after event newsletters!)

Be careful what you post

Let’s be frank, Donald Trump has been very controversial; he’s certainly not shy when it comes to publicly sharing his opinion on pretty much everything. The most recent election poll results, as reported by ABC news on 30^th October, highlighted a 46%-45% lead by Clinton. Therefore, although Trump’s approach doesn’t seem to have harmed his campaign results so far, this doesn’t mean your business should also take a gung-ho approach to its social media marketing efforts!

As a business you do need to be mindful when posting on social media; once it’s out there you’ll never get it back – it’s a global platform! Although Trump’s blunt opinions don’t seem to have harmed his stats, he did see a retaliation from the opposition with his throw away comment about Clinton ‘playing the woman’s card’; a remark that Clinton overturned in her favour with the release of a ‘woman’s card’.  The supporter had to donate money in order to receive their card. The #womancard campaign helped Clinton raise $2.3 million in just 3 days!

If you're looking for some social media strategy guidance, contact our team today to see how we can help engage your social community!