How American Bridge is reaching new audiences
Everything online all at once
Younger voters continue to be one of the most important targets for the Democratic Party, especially as abortion bans and other extremist Republican policies impact them disproportionately more than other age groups. But in order to make sure young voters are engaged and know what’s at stake in this year’s elections, we need to meet them where they are — and the truth is, they’re increasingly online in new (and exciting!) ways. That’s why American Bridge has expanded its online presence across organic social media and adopted a truly multi-platform approach. If we want to reach the most voters and shape the stories about Republican candidates running in the midterms and beyond, we have to reach voters wherever they are on the internet.
At American Bridge, we’re embracing a multi-platform approach to educate our audiences on key races at all levels — from state legislatures all the way up to the U.S. Senate. And we’re doing all of this organically — without paying to boost our posts to a targeted audience. We’re adapting digital tactics from previous cycles at American Bridge to reach those who have been following us from the beginning, by stepping up our game on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. By tapping into breaking news using American Bridge’s unique online voice, and combining it with trending memes, we are able to break through the noise of typical Twitter news coverage with our core messaging — and this Josh Hawley/Little Miss meme is a great example of that. We’re also expanding to new platforms, like TikTok and Medium, to make sure we’re reaching new — younger! — audiences.
Of course, none of this would be possible without Republicans taking steps to roll back fundamental rights, put our democracy at stake, and strip health care from millions of voters — giving us the content we need to make sure voters see. So thanks, Republicans!
Medium (and long-form content)
One of the most natural places American Bridge expanded its content early on was Medium — a platform that caters to long-form written content. Our team spends a LOT of time compiling Republicans’ records on everything from atrocious things said about health care to all the ways Republicans are giving donors tax breaks, so we have a LOT of content to work with. Long-form articles, especially in list format, are a great way to expand on longer proof points while displaying them in an easy-to-read format. After all, not everything can fit in a 280-character tweet!
Medium is a great way to uplift our staff’s voices as well. We’ve got Allyson giving us behind-the-scenes content on how to make a political ad, lifting the curtain for followers who don’t get to see that side of politics. We also have Alex De Luca giving a very personal take on the war in Ukraine and the need to hold Republicans accountable. We also feature American Bridge’s leadership: President Jess Floyd explains our new Bridge to Democracy initiative and why it’s so important to call out down-ballot Republicans who support the Big Lie so we can stop them from controlling elections in 2024. Our co-chairs help make American Bridge unique, and we used Medium to publish Cecile Richards’ perspective on life post-Roe for women in America.
TL;DR: Medium is a great place to dive into a bit more detail on why we need to hold Republicans accountable, using the personal voices of our staff to highlight American Bridge’s work.
TikTok (and other vertical platforms)
We’re spreading Bridge’s message across new platforms, and vertical video has been a key piece of that. Emerging, often overlooked platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts have been great opportunities to grow Bridge’s online presence with video, which is dominating with younger audiences. American Bridge has one of the most unique voices online — we’re able to poke fun at Republicans while pointing out how disastrous these Republicans would be in elected office. That allows us to create compelling visual content, particularly in vertical format. We can maximize our reach to new audiences by utilizing platform-specific features, like Trending Sounds (vertical-specific trends coupled with popular audio) on TikTok, Location Tags on Instagram Reels, and Tags on YouTube. Since optimizing our vertical content this year, our Instagram and TikTok followers have nearly tripled, and our YouTube subscribers have grown by over 30%. At the end of the day, we’re still American Bridge — just in a new, fun, and more engaging format for younger audiences who are spending a lot of time on these vertical platforms.
Hitting the GOP
From the beginning, American Bridge has tracked Republicans in person, on the news, and online. Our job on the digital team is to repackage this content in a compelling format to reach and engage audiences — everyone from politicos on Twitter, to Republicans who dominate Facebook with alternative narratives, to influencers and activists on Instagram. Hitting well-known Republicans and the GOP broadly has proven to be a good strategy for us, as this is the lane American Bridge has cultivated for years. Using groups of Republicans is particularly beneficial when appealing to new audiences who aren’t familiar with individual Republican politicians. It works especially well in popular vertical trends, such as fast-moving photo collages of all the Republican senators who voted against codifying Roe. This was our most-viewed TikTok to date at over 79K views, likely due to its relevance to the news cycle, its use of a trending sound and format, and recognizable Republicans. Highlighting the GOP generally also gives us the flexibility to educate users on lesser-known Republicans while mixing in our more recognizable Republican targets, driving overall engagement.
Republicans in key races
As always, American Bridge has its eyes on the battleground states in the midterms, keeping a close watch on gubernatorial and Senate races across the country. Spotlighting individual, more high-profile candidates has helped expand Bridge’s reach on vertical platforms. Senate candidates such as Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz, perform especially well, largely due to their pre-existing popularity (Oz has over 1 million followers on TikTok alone). However, even lesser-known candidates, like failed GOP Colorado Senate candidate Ron Hanks, perform well when their clip is outrageous enough (like refusing to accept election results!) and when we utilize platform-specific features to boost the video in the algorithm, like trending sounds and race-specific hashtags.
Good work by Democrats
Of course, bashing Republicans wouldn’t be possible without a good alternative, and that’s where we spend time uplifting popular Democratic politicians and candidates. As noted above, well-known political figures tend to perform better on vertical platforms, largely because vertical users are younger and less ingrained in day-to-day political news and elections. By mixing in popular Democrats, such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Stacey Abrams, who share positive messages on a semi-regular basis, we can shift the narrative around the Democratic Party while engaging younger voters online.
It’s clear: the online landscape is changing. While Republicans continue to dominate Facebook and even create their own, new platforms to reach supporters (looking at you, Truth Social), audiences, in general, continue to diversify and find new corners of the internet to explore. In order to effectively shape narratives in battleground races and call out the Republicans who need to be held accountable, American Bridge HAS to be in these far-flung corners of the interwebs to reach the most voters. If all that a voter knows about Mehmet Oz is that he’s really a wealthy New Jerseyan masquerading as a Pennsylvanian (which is a travesty, if I do say so as a Philly girl) because they saw one of our TikToks that used a trending format (this one got over 58K views), then we’ve done our job. We’re beyond the days of hoping that a tweet with a video reaches the people it needs to reach — whether that’s reporters, influencers, activists, etc.
