Happy January 17th, 2023!

Welcome back to #VIRAL by Girl and the Gov®, a newsletter dedicated to

providing social media trends, tricks and tips, and how-to’s for politicos. 

NUTS & BOLTS

“Color Between The Lines”: Applicable to both TikTok and Instagram, “coloring between the lines” i.e. keeping any text, stickers, call to actions, drawing or effect features “within the lines” is essential for both content readability and capturing the attention of audience members quickly. What we see about 10,000x a day, is that creators are adding text or other features either outside of the ‘content bumpers’ or have text/features bleeding over the bumpers. What that means is that the intended audience can’t easily read and digest the content they’re seeing. It also means that viewers may not even bother to stop scrolling.

Just like when sending campaign posters or brochures to print, there are bumpers or defined areas in which the content must be kept for it to be fully visible. So, where are these bumpers? And how do you put these bumpers to use? They’re built into the apps and you’ve likely seen them before in action, butttt [BIG BUT] not known what they were for.

On Instagram the tool is available on Stories and Reels as seen below & on TikTok, keep the text further up on the video so that the icons and captions don’t cover it:

Oops, I reposted again: TikTok has let a relatively new feature – the repost – fly. The benefit of the feature is that it helps boost content you’re a fan of and therefore further push content of your fellow creators/political friends on the app out to a wider audience net. However, the downside – and yes, there is always two sides of every coin – is that the repost button is positioned on the screen poorly and leads to accidental reposts of content. One could say it’s the butt dial of TikTok. If you hit repost and go “NOOOO, I didn’t mean to,” you need to take recourse ASAP. Remove the repost by:

• Tapping the send/share arrow icon on the lower right side of the video

• Select the Remove repost icon at the top of the drop down (left side, yellow)

If you don’t do this then and there, you will have to track down the video you reposted (best wishes on that), and then go through the two-step process above. Since there’s no way to currently search or see what videos your account has reposted, this is a manual search guessing game from our nightmares. Long story short, if you hit repost by accident, don’t wait, remove it right away. And, importantly be careful what you’re tapping while you’re scrolling.

TIPS N’ TRICKS

The TikTok Playlist Tip: One of the best ways to build an audience across platforms is to create consistent content pillars that the audience can expect and rely on. This essentially means creating a series or several series’ that not only provides value for the audience, but gives them a very specific reason to turn to a particular account [in this case a politico’s account]. On the @girlandthegov TikTok, an example of this is the Text Mess to Text Success Series, which shares campaign text makeovers. This series is saved in a TikTok playlist, which keeps the whole kit and kaboodle organized and easy to find for viewers who are fans of the series. To segway, TikTok playlists are a powerful tool for building out series-based or focused content. They live at the top of the account’s profile and are akin to a better-designed version of the Instagram Highlight. 

Make a TikTok playlist for an existing series by…

• Go to your TikTok profile

• Select the plus sign icon beneath your profile bio

• Name your playlist (25 characters or under, BTW)

• Tap Next

• Choose videos that are a part of the series and that you wish to include

• Select Done

Make a TikTok playlist as you go [for a series you’re just starting by]...

• Make a TikTok video for the series

• Follow the steps above

Add a [Singular] TikTok to a Playlist a la carte style by…

• Select the TikTok video of yours you’d like to add

• Tap the three dot icon at the lower right corner

• Scroll to Add to playlist

• Add to the desired playlist OR create a new playlist 

BONUS BIT: A few series ideas to pontificate in the political space:

• A bill’s journey

• GRWM to go to the House Floor [swap in a political activity]

• The process behind… [fill in a political activity]

• Day in the life of [a particular position]

#TRENDING - Trending sounds to try this week!

…AND TRENDING INSTAGRAM REELS SOUNDS TO SEARCH FOR AND USE FROM THE MUSIC LIB

Original Audio by whowhatwear: You’ll recognize this tune from The Parent Trap. If you don’t, this is your hint to grab some top tier snacks and pop it on for a #tbt movie night. Alas, the sound is great for showing a group or electeds high-fiving after getting a bill across the finish line and/or accomplishing something important together. The sound is the perfect overlay to other b-roll showing a moment of success and smiles.

Paris Madness by Samran: This sound should be a walkout song for any and all sports, including politics. Use this sound over video of showing a team or politico arriving to serve an epic media mic moment, to give an epic speech, or handle hostile colleagues in an epic way.

Original sound by dltoots: This sound is lipsyncing moment in the making. The politico i.e. creator will mouth “this is what I get to do for a living, isn’t it unbelievable?” They’ll do this either in their office/workplace setting pointing to or being within range to a visual job identifier [name plate on their desk with their title]. Or they can do this with a green screen and reference an article sharing how they’re doing ‘this’ for a living. This can be done seriously or satirically. Player’s choice.

WHAT THE ZUCK?!

TWITTER: The golden checkmark is apparently what Elon has up his sleeve these days with the pre-release of Twitter’s ‘Verification for Organizations’ feature. According toTwitter, this feature for businesses will be the ‘new version of the blue check mark’ and will have a new process online for the verification itself. So far, it’s muddy at best as to what comes with this verification and how much dough users will have to shell out for it, but what we do know is that users can apply to be added to the feature’s waitlist, here. We also know that the feature will have a business-specific logo added to any/all accounts associated with golden checkmarks – TBH, we don’t hate that element and think it could help clarify who is who and what is what. Anyways, as always, we’ll keep you updated on this. 

YOUTUBE: The platform is certainly not SHORT on analytics tools with a newly snuffed up subscriber-focused performance tool in the hopper (pun intended). Now, under YouTube Studio, users can view how their account gained subscribers — through longform videos, Shorts, or other avenues (a shared link, etc). This capability and really its move to the Studio display, makes it easy to see what content is converting. Is it an account’s Shorts that are bringing viewers in and keeping them? Is it the classic long-form videos? Or is it something else?

HAPPENIN’ HASHTAGS

Depending on the platform, the use of hashtags is either hot or cold, and occasionally in between. That said, if a hashtag is going to be used to reach either a target audience or a larger, fresh audience in general, it needs to be one that’s getting lots of looks [translation: it’s being searched and it’s being used on/with posts]. A few spotted in the wild, making waves recently are:

TIKTOK:

• Local Politics: #localpolitics

• Politics: #politicsontiktok

• Policy: #politicsandpolicy

INSTAGRAM:

• Political Chitchat: #Politicalmemes

• Throwback: #aboutlastnight

• News/Launch: #newthisweek

YOUTUBE SHORTS:

• Audience: #subscribe

• Politics: #politicstoday

• Learning: #politicsmadesimple

Regular Reminders, Hashtag Edition:

• On Instagram posts, always add the account’s signature or defining hashtag to the base of the post to create a searchable, buildable library of posts. For example, all @girlandthegovthepodcast posts feature the hashtag #girlandthegovthepodcast.

• On TikTok, if you use a purchased and/or promoted hashtag [ex: #pepsichallenge], the content the account creates becomes usable by the company/owner of the promoted hashtag. Don’t use these unless the account is participating in a challenge or has a direct tie-in to the promoter.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
 

CANVA PRO: IYKYK our evergreen fave is Canva Pro, which offers graphics templates for every platform and every occasion under the sun. Try it out here: https://bit.ly/3fboTsM

WHAT WE’RE READING 

• Digitaltrends: Twitter could sell usernames via online auctions

• Marketing Dive: Meta adds additional ad targeting restrictions for teen users

• CNBC: ByteDance board member: Fight against TikTok based on ‘misinformation and misunderstanding’

EASY SHARES

• Girl and the Gov, The Podcast: The Finance Bro’s of Politics: What does a Treasurer do? with Tobias Read, Oregon State Treasurer. Listen here.

• For our YouTube viewers, subscribe to the channel here

• Political Marketing Tip 101. Check out the video here.

GET INFLUENCED

Cheers to the Governor Democratic Governors Association for whipping out top notch TikToks. Their account is a great mix of external clips and creator-made content (featuring a dedicated content creator for the page. Give it a follow to support, and to gather a bit of inspo, here.