WASHINGTON — The White House made efforts to engage at-home audiences through social media for this year’s State of the Union. While some say it worked in a big way, how big was it?
Twitter announced the most successful hashtag of the night, #SOTU, made its way into 2.6 million tweets during the address and GOP response. To put that in perspective, the 2015 Golden Globes racked up 2.6 million tweets as well. Affirming that this speech was popular, and not just popular inside the beltway.
The #SOTU tweets were seen by 900,000 more people than last year. A Twitter campaign like this one serves people who usually have no interest in politics, said Stan Veuger, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
“These things are easier for a new president,” Veuger said. “People care more about what he has to say.”
State of the Union viewership on mainstream television broadcast has fallen by almost 20 million viewers since 2009. Viewership fell another 1.6 million this year, according to Nielsen ratings released on Wednesday. Changing public interest and methods of consuming video are rapidly shifting.
Overall, the White House’s official Twitter handle gained 19,385 followers on Tuesday, perhaps buoyed by Twitter placing an ad in all users’ feeds. This is more than double the White House’s daily average of new followers, according to data from TwitterCounter.com. However, Twitter’s most followed account, @KatyPerry, gained 50,737 new followers on Tuesday. Now that’s competition that can’t be matched.
In anticipation of the address, the White House released videos on YouTube, Facebook and its website. In the most popular video, featured on the White House Facebook page, the president discussed his free community college plan. The clip attracted 8.3 million views, the most video hits in the page’s history.
Viral YouTube stars aim to continue to expand the president’s reach. On Thursday, Bethany Mota, Hank Green and GloZell will interview the president at the White House using questions submitted by their fans through the hashtag #YouTubeAsksObama and comments below their posts. Mota’s post on her personal video log channel recorded 377,773 views. Yet, the official interview announcement from YouTubeSpotlight only got 275,885. Mota’s main channel has more than 8 million subscribers, and mostly features tips on fashion and makeup.
In contrast, Green is well-known for his educational videos alongside his brother, author John Green. While GloZell is a comedian noted for her widely views attempt at the “cinnamon challenge,” which has attracted more than 42 million views.
Obama has arranged similar interviews with the public in the past. Last year, using Google+ Hangouts, the president answered questions from people across the country. The video of the interviews earned the White House 335,678 views on its YouTube channel.
If there was one buzzword of the 2015 State of the Union address, it was ‘engage.’
The White House offered enhanced viewing of the speech on its website featuring a split screen between the president speaking, and accompanying graphs and notes to further viewers’ understanding. The website encouraged the nation to skip traditional broadcasts to tune into its special coverage.
Additionally, WhiteHouse.gov featured State of the Union video previews, interactive graphics, profiles on the first lady’s guests and links to all White House social media accounts.
One unprecedented move of the night was the White House’s decision to make the speech text available to the world simultaneously. Usually, members of the press receive an embargoed copy of the speech a short time before the speech’s start, which they quickly distribute it to an “insider” audience.
This year, it released the speech over Medium.com, a platform for anyone to post any article for everyone to see. This was yet another action to engage the public, and surely changed the way future State of the Union addresses will be conducted, Dan Pfeiffer, a White House senior adviser noted on Twitter.
However, WhiteHouse.gov’s interactive viewing experience didn’t go as smoothly as expected. Live camera feeds froze, and graphics and slideshows loaded slowly, sometimes not at all. Despite minor complications, the White House updated its site with graphics and articles post-speech, and continued to do so Wednesday.
“Don’t just watch- participate,” ran on the White House website Tuesday. Between the 2.6 million tweets, 500,000+ “State of the Union” Google searches, and reported 5.7 million Facebook users interacting on the subject, it’s clear that America did just that.
