• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, October 11, 2016

Social media has become a virtual public relations arm for many political campaigns. Donald Trump has especially taken to the 140 characters of Twitter to stay in touch with the over 12 million digital followers.

Until recently, Donald Trump has dominated his political opponents in the social-media landscape. But his approach to social media has not been as sophisticated as the Clinton campaign.

Since September, Hillary Clinton’s social-media accounts have become steadily more active and even surpassed the Republican social-media connoisseur in total monthly followers, posts and engagements.

“It was not until the first debate on September 26, that Hillary Clinton actually overtook Trump in terms of follower growth and engagement,” Phil Ross, principal social media analyst at Socialbakers, told Red, White & Blog.

Data from Socialbakers, a company that offers a suite of social analytics tools to optimize social media accounts, shows Clinton’s content is retweeted about 30% of the time, whereas that number is 25% for Trump.

“This can unscientifically be described as: Trump’s fans seem to be reactive - i.e., unhappy with Clinton, status quo, prospective policies and Clinton’s tendency to be evangelistic — advocating specific policies and moments,” explains Ross.

The trend over the past few months is a slowdown on social media for Trump, and a gradual increase for Clinton, especially since the tail end of July, when the conventions took place.

Clinton’s interaction with social media often happens around high-interest events, including debates and conventions.

Trump’s strategy is a bit less obvious, but his waning activity, particularly on Twitter, is likely due to pressures from within his campaign to stem the offensive and often flailing tweets he sends. That is, unless he’s tweeting at 3 a.m., when Kellyanne and Hope are asleep and unable to intervene.

The Clinton campaign posts twice as many videos on Facebook as the Trump camp, displaying an understanding of the change in the News Feed algorithm that now favors video and shareable content.

Moving back to Twitter, Trump has virtually no interaction with his followers on the platform. Ross notes: “What is most interesting is that Trump never responds — a kind of social customer care faux pas I would not have expected, particularly of a populist candidate.”

Trump might have more followers than Clinton across his social-media channels, but he hasn’t harnessed the full potential of the medium.

Conversely, Clinton has strategically and effectively used social media to amplify her message among her supporters. Importantly, she will likely have a strong contingent of devoted Clintonites ready to flood social media with get out the vote posts and tweets the closer we get to Nov. 8.