Bernie Sanders and Social Media

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Bernie Sanders and Social Media
Introduction
Bernie Sander is a senator from Vermont which is a stronghold for the liberals. He is one of the presidential candidates who is a great competitor to Hillary Clinton on the ticket of Democratic Party. In the past few rallies in the US, Bernie has been able to win the support of majority via the social media especially Facebook and Twitter (Jang and Oh). This paper shall major on the ways that Bernie has used the social media to gain popularity. The paper shall also look at the ways Hillary Clinton and Bernie find themselves in a comparative competition. The Washington Post indicates that Sander attained followers of over 100,000 people.
The great influence has been due to the organized online base that has been very powerful through friends via social media. The great increase in the popularity of the Vermont senator rely much on the Facebook shares and, The Twitter retweets, as well as the personal convincing approach done by his campaign team and friends. Bernie’s momentum has shaken the popularity of Hillary Clinton who has only about 5,500 followers.

How Sanders did it
Just before the week of Sander’s campaign, he allies of Bernie started with an advertising Web page that indicated the location while indicating the e-mail support. The Web page requested the visitors to the website to respond immediately at the same time running an add on Facebook to attain popularity. The candidacy of Sander has gone up at a higher rate via social media just, in the same way, the internet is used passing information online (Jang and Oh).

Some months ago in May, Sander had only 1.5 million followers on Facebook (Jang and Oh). In the current period, the Facebook page of Bernie has a total of 1.7 million likes that enables him to outdo Hillary Clinton on the social popularity. The same output has been observed on Twitter where Bernie has received massive followers, especially from the young liberals. The progress of Bern online is being reflected in “real life” whereby many people are now attending his campaign CITATION Mye15 l 1033 (Kelly). What is needs to be noted is that the online popularity does not guarantee Bernie Sander to outdo Hillary Clinton on clicking the Democrat ticket.
The interview by the two candidates, Hillary, and Sanders came out very hilarious following the presumptions that Clinton would “make a great vice president” as per Bernie Sander. Hillary emphasized on the idea of “don’t be afraid to get dirty,” while the Sanders supporters preferred the idea of thinking to have a better shot at the ring. The main points highlighted on Sander’s campaign strategies are outlined below:

Compete on money
Basing on the third quarter of 2015, Sander has been able to raise a comparative amount to that of Clinton. This is an indication that Sander has a lot of people who can form a large group within a short period CITATION Mye15 l 1033 (Kelly). The donors for the two candidates have shown an interest to continue contributing even up to the campaign stage. Having the support of Iowa and New Hampshire promises great sponsorship to Sander that is likely to help him to have a walkover on Hillary as per the campaign expectations.
Turning Democrats against Clinton
Bernie has not been popular in the Democrat stronghold. This gives Clinton an upper hand over Sander on the support of the Democrats. Sander applies his dirty game at Iowa to turn Democrats against Hillary Clinton.

Being competitive with black voters
The votes from the blacks for the Democrat part are of great importance. The rate in Iowa and New Hampshire has a small impact on the stand of Sander since Sander enjoys less support from the Blacks. The campaign team that runs the whole process has tried to convince people that they no longer need more support from Carolina to win the next election (Jang and Oh). They low profile trailing of Sander convinces themselves that they can win without a 50% support of the blacks. The 2008 elections posted a supportive of 78% of the total black votes that President Obama gathered. The percentage is expected to be less during the 2016 election giving Sander a competitive situation in the coming election. There is the need for Bernie to win at least 30% of the votes from the blacks.
Convincing Democrats that he can win in November
The critical part of the campaign calls for the winning of elections by the Democrat. Bernie has a great challenge of convincing the Democrat supporters that he will be able to cling the presidential hot seat come November next year CITATION Mye15 l 1033 (Kelly). The campaign team indicates that by the last three months to elections, they will have acquired a great attention from the public via online media.
Conclusion
The current trend shows that Bernie is more popular on the social media because of the hash tag that the campaigning team has strategized. Similarly, the Facebook followers to Bernie have bulked quickly indicating how strategic his campaign team. He has gained popularity in the presidential candidates through the ticket of Democratic Party.

Works Cited
BIBLIOGRAPHY Kelly, Myers. “Bernie Sanders rises in democratic presidential race in New Hempshire.” Marlin Fitzwater Fellow: Franklin Pierce University, 2015.
Jang, S. M., and Y. W. Oh. ‘Getting Attention Online In Election Coverage: Audience Selectivity In The 2012 US Presidential Election’. New Media & Society (2015): n. pag. Web.