Picture the era when you will not be coming out with a general political opinion after reading newspapers, listening to arguments, and discussing political views with friends but, instead, flicking through a TikTok video that would appear between two dance challenges. That is not hypothetical any more. Political advertising on social media has become the foundation of the campaign strategy in every part of the world over the last ten years since it became an experiment.
Kantar’s 2024 US political advertising outlook predicts that advertisers invested more than 2 billion dollars in the digital environment, noticeably exceeding many traditional TV budgets. Not to mention that this spending is not about the volume, it is about the targeting accuracy and the viral quality of influence. Over the 20 years I have six people working for campaigns, people have won elections or lost elections by teaching themselves to be these algorithms.
From Billboards to News Feeds: The Digital Migration of Campaign Dollars
Campaigns used to fight over primetime TV, and billboards along the roads. Now they are all about engagement rate and custom audience on Facebook and Instagram. The Trump campaign held in 2016 provides a good example, as it poured much money into Facebook microtargeting to influence undecided voters in swing states. Now in 2024: Pew Research came to a similar conclusion that 72 percent of Americans claimed they use social media to view political content weekly.
This computer movement is not all about economies. It is like making the message to be accurate like a surgery. Dr. Emily Chen of NYU points out that it is apt to say that social media allows the campaigns to test, adapt, and deliver real-time messages, which is not possible with traditional media. The news feed can be the new campaign trail when each and every voter is a potential niche audience.
Microtargeting and the Unseen Power of Data
When you think targeted advertising is only about offering you a pair of shoes you did a search on, you are mistaken. Microtargeting is used in politics, playing upon the experience of what you read, what you like, and what appeals to your emotions. One of the whistleblowers at Cambridge Analytica disclosed that to generate psychological profiles, millions of Facebook accounts were extracted to be used to create messages around local blocks, precisely during elections.
- Real Data Snap Shot: According to a 2024 report by Statista, 67 percent of the US adults found themselves receiving personalized political advertisement to be intrusive; however, nearly 80 percent clicked on them.
- Case Example: The Brexit Leave campaign designed a tailored Facebook advertisement to create fear about immigration in certain demographics, and critics later condemned it due to ethical concerns.
As a digital consultant and doing it on a personal level, the strength of these tools is one thing but it is also capable of backfiring. {The wrong tone of message reads as manipulative, after which the platform should lose its trust, as well as the candidate.}
The Rise of Influencers and Viral Politics
Browse through TikTok or Instagram Reels during the time of elections and you find influencers very discreetly pushing certain policies or even criticizing opponents. This is not by accident; it is through strategy. The 2022 Philippines election launched by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. used micro-influencers to reframe the history of his family among Gen Z voters and reportedly swept in large youth participation.
- According to Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer, influencers now mostly help Gen Z voters worldwide discover political news.
- According to the latest political marketing report by Hootsuite, short-form video is performing two or more times better than any static ad.
It can be likened to this: in the modern age, we have the successors of the town criers, only now with brighter lights and algorithms to boost them. When memes and satire melt into a serious policy debate, voters must distinguish what is true from what is entertainment.
Misinformation, Regulation, and an Urgent Need for Transparency
As powerful as social media political advertising has become, it also fuels misinformation at scale. Labels in ads Twitter (now X) added labels on ads and Meta created Ad Library to become more transparent, but enforcement still has its bumps. In the 2024 Indian election, political groups also used WhatsApp to distribute deepfake videos that triggered real-life protests before fact-checkers could stop them. Experts like Rachel Munro, a veteran political strategist, warn: “We’re in an arms race between disinformation and regulation. The person who runs at a better pace dictates the story.” The EU has begun enacting laws with tougher content moderation, but the world still has a long way to go before it can establish a common ground.
Conclusion: Democracy in the Hands of the Algorithm
Social media has smashed up the political rulebook. Microtargeted persuasion, the use of the influencer, these are the means by which we are related to in the medium, and we are voting in these ways but do not notice it. Whether or not we must regulate these weapons is to my mind no longer the question. The real question becomes whether we will do it in time, before we end up losing so much credibility in the eyes of our citizens that it will be far too late.
The next time you see a slamming stream or a trending meme pass you by, make it a rule to ask: who sponsored this? And what would they profit by? Our democracy might be as healthy as we are ready to ask questions about the feed as much as we eat it.