The way to voters’ hearts? It must be memes and TikTok, influencers say

Jim Saksa | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call

Politics, it is said, is the art and science of persuasion. A politician gathers power by convincing people — but needs to get their attention first. And who better to give advice on that than those pied pipers of the internet: influencers?

That was partly why a crowd of Capitol Hill communicators gathered last Friday to hear from the likes of V Spehar and Maria Comstock, who have millions of followers on TikTok.

The other reason: networking. Hosted by the Democratic Digital Communications Staff Association, it was the group’s first in-person conference since 2019. Sessions at “Digital Day 2024” ranged from a crash course on “mastering short-form video” to tips on how to get the most out of a lawmaker’s franking privileges.

While current or former Hill staffers led most of the panels, the group also invited a few certifiable social media stars to share their secrets, including Comstock, who uses her channel to interview her dad and other self-described retired spies. And the keynote speaker was Spehar, who earned 3.1 million followers by posting short videos recounting the day’s news from underneath a desk (and from a progressive perspective).

Spehar provided a quick 101 lesson on growing an audience that could be summed up by Marshall McLuhan’s old chestnut: “The medium is the message.”

Social media accounts need to be for just one thing, Spehar said, whether that’s selling, informing or influencing. Too often, politicians try to be cool, or worse, do the trite, overly performative bit of an Old doing the TikTok because their Gen Z staffers said so.

On TikTok especially, you want to speak directly to the camera, using short clips of 30-45 seconds, focused on no more than one topic, Spehar said, pointing to the success Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has had on the app since pivoting to that style after previously posting clips of interviews with traditional media.