To get these numbers, the DNC is partnering with Curalate, a startup that spurs online customers to hunt down brands' products they find in images. They'll be posting photos and videos on the convention's website and Instagram that users can click through for more information on platform positions, white papers or even party merchandise. They plan to have useful non-content features on the website too, like registering to vote or watching a livestream of the event, should you not want to watch it on Twitter. After it's over, Curalate will sit down with the committee and crunch the engagement numbers, tracking impressions and clickthroughs just like they would with a retail brand.

They went with images instead of text-heavy posts since that's "how people engage with news-making these days," Democratic National Committee chief innovation officer Andrew Binns told Wired. But since visual content skews younger, this image-heavy emphasis could also help broaden the convention's outreach. Whether the party manages to rake in more viewers or expand their appeal to a younger constituency, analytics hounds will probably be keeping a sharp eye on retail engagement's first foray into politics.