BULLHEAD CITY, ARIZONA - OCTOBER 28: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally on ... [+]
Trends reveal quite a bit about popular opinion during election seasons. For President Trump, there’s one stat that might prove either prescient or slightly meaningless.
As you may know, I tend to avoid politics but I do like to analyze curious stats and trends on social media. For high profile figures and influencers, a sudden rise or drop on social media can be an indicator of other trends, especially those in business.
You can form your own inferences from this stat, but likes for President Trump have dipped down steadily over the last few months on Instagram. We’re talking a drop of over 11% this month and a free-fall since about July after a sharp rise since May.
Instagram is not exactly the platform of choice for Trump (that would be Twitter) but is definitely more indicative of popular trends.
Meanwhile, former Vice President and Presidential candidate Joe Biden has seen a steady rise in Instagram likes. A new tool built by Markerly shows these trends and many others. You can compare two different influencers and look into demographic data. For example, the app also shows that President Biden has more women following his Instagram feed at about 71%. Trump has only 35%.
I’m mostly interested in the sudden drop in likes, though. One theory is that it’s due to ongoing racial unrest. Protests started in late May but escalated well into summer. People might see Trump as less of an advocate for racial equality and “vote” by not clicking like. You could also blame coronavirus. People might be clicking “like” on Biden’s posts, many of which show him wearing a mask. Meanwhile, President Trump’s feed has nothing but rally photos.
Sway voters are hard to predict; social media users are even more slippery. However, I think there’s a much easier explanation for why likes are down for Trump.
His Instagram feed just isn’t very good.
Call it shallow thinking if you want, but people tend to like posts that have a stunning and colorful image. Here’s just one random example. The follower count for this user has gone through the roof lately. Every photo is amazing. A college where I used to do some mentoring has clear and consistent images as well.
So, let’s be honest: Trump haters are not visiting his Instagram feed. They’re not clicking like on anything. Trump supporters see a couple of dark images, one thumbnail that is totally greyed out (it’s the beginning of a video that makes him look like Darth Vader). What does it all mean?
Even during a political season like this, image is everything. It’s sad to think that’s the case but it is. We want liberal or conservative viewpoints and a sound political stance to influence voting more than a nice smiling photo of someone, right? On social media, it’s easy to forget that people don’t read anything you say in a post until they connect with the photo initially. Younger voters are on Instagram more than any platform.
Instagram is all about photos. You can post a diatribe that runs 14 pages long but no one is going to read it if they are not first drawn in by the image.
On Trump’s feed, one post has a weird photo of Air Force One. Another shows the cover of a newspaper. Boring! Whoever is running the feed for President Trump is not glancing over at Biden’s feed. There’s a more consistent look with bright blues everywhere. The messaging is better. While Trump has far more followers, the likes are rising fast for Biden (they are up 10% over the last month).
A sign of things to come? Probably not. For some of us, it’s a sign that human beings seem to like colorful and compelling photos.
