Trump And Twitter

The people who are always wrong are convinced that to a significant extent Trump's victory was the result of his masterful use of Twitter.

According to an article in the the NY Times in which reporters in the bubble ask marketers in the bubble why people in the bubble got it wrong....

"...the chief executive of the public relations company Edelman, said Mr. Trump’s use of Twitter — which he often used to forcefully attack Mrs. Clinton and the news media — and reduced reliance on traditional TV ads showed the power of “peer-to-peer” communication."

Horseshit.

As usual, the people who do marketing by selfie-stick think that everyone is like them. According to a study in the UK, an advertising person is almost 7 times as likely to have a Twitter account as a real person.

Here are the facts:

• Only 20% of adults have a Twitter account.
• Only 15% of rural adults (heavy Trump backers) use Twitter.
• Only 11% of people over 50 (the most likely voters) use Twitter.

In fact, if Trump's tweeting had a significant effect it was because of television's obsessive coverage of his tweets. Take away newspaper and, especially, television coverage of his tweets and they would have been dust in the wind.

Think about it. Where did you see Trump's tweets? On Twitter or on television?

Trump is a television creation. Do you think he'd be president if The Apprentice was a fucking webinar?

If you want to have a stroke, read this bullshit about the election from marketing experts.

There is no way in the world Trump should have won this election. But he did. And the reason he did had very little to do with data or social media or any of the other nonsense we're hearing. It was primarily because he had a simple, clear message that was popular with a lot of people -- "Fuck You, Washington."

And the reason Clinton lost was that she had no message. Period. Exclamation point. End of story.

My favorite quote in the Times article referenced above was from the ceo of DDB (apparently a Clinton advisor) translating the lessons of Trump's victory into brand babble... 

“Brands can shape culture, so I think in that sense brands have a responsibility to represent their values and talk about them...And if you’re an inclusive brand — there’s nothing more democratic to me than inclusion.”

I'm sure there's a language in which that horseshit means something, but I'll be damned if I know what it is.