Many have been the postmortem of the 2016 elections, and many are the reasons that Trump and the Republicans as a whole prevailed. Racism! Misogyny! Identity politics! Fundraising no longer matters! Fundraising matters more than ever! Well, I’m not going to dig into philosophical ramblings; after witnessing the 2016 elections, we saw the first instance of a presidential campaign where both candidates (and not just Obama while his opponents forgot the internet existed) placed a significant amount of effort in social media.

Whether it was through coordination with groups like ShareBlue and Correct the Record, or by generating organic support that in turn spread throughout social media on its own accord, this back and forth battle that was waged over social media between supporters of both candidates was unprecedented in its scale. Equally unprecedented, though, were the strategies used by Trump in how he used social media, and there are some important lessons to take from these strategies that could be applied to future campaigns in this new age of social media-infused political campaigns.

Lesson 1: Tweets beat speeches

Now, this may seem rather crass as obviously, candidates will have to occasionally give speeches at rallies and such since they can’t spend their entire campaign only interacting via social media (yet). However in today’s world, our social media and information sharing have reached a point that in many cases headlines matter more than articles, drastically more coverage in the media covers tweets by prominent people as opposed to speeches they have given, and ultimately if a politician or celebrity wants something they said to be remembered for more than one news cycle it probably needs to be 140 characters or less.

But, there are more important reasons why tweets beat speeches beyond questionable news consumer attention spans. For example, a social media post is interactive. Supporters are able to directly show their support for a candidate making a social media post in the comments, an act which is much more meaningful if they can be certain it is their chosen candidate making those posts (as opposed to a bland social media team that occasionally fires off a barbed comment to break up the monotony). In a more twisted sense, it also leaves open the door for detractors to show their disapproval, turning any social media post into a potential battlefield where supporters of a candidate can actually feel themselves making a contribution to the campaign, even if it is in the form of a petty internet argument.

Secondly, speeches, which take time and resources in the form of speechwriters and contributors (even Trump, who reportedly doesn’t use speechwriters, takes at least some input from advisors and staff both now and during the election), can backfire (see Hillary’s ‘basket of deplorables’ speech, after which Trump gained points in the polls) or come off as a dud (see Hillary’s initial speech announcing her candidacy. If you even saw it. It was the definition of a dud). A quick social media post, on the other hand, can be as short and cheap of an affair as one likes, wherein several tweets can be posted within a day, the ones going viral or garnering the most attention being a good, organic indicator of future talking points for the campaign. Who needs focus groups when you can see how thousands of followers react to a short quick statement on a topic, after all?

Lesson 2: Even bad media coverage can be good

It may still hold true that there’s no such thing as bad press, so long as you know how to use it to your benefit. Or, if you’re a Dune fan, Control the Media Coverage, Control the Universe. Now, I feel like there’s a clarifier needed here. According to dissections of the news coverage during the election, Trump supposedly benefited from how overwhelmingly negative it was.

Now, these analyses tend to portray the negative coverage of Trump as him being able to get away with saying more ridiculous things or being ‘normalized’, since its hard to be seen in as bad a light when everyone involved in the election is seen in a bad light. But, I want to ask that you look at it from a different perspective for a second.

Now, assume candidate A says something questionable in a quick social media post. The media then covers this social media post, bringing on commentators and devoting a news cycle to it, the more objectionable the comment the more attention being paid to it. Candidate B, following the typical playbook of a campaign, then releases their own statement calling further attention to Candidate A’s comments, because in a campaign that is filled with negative coverage and mudslinging the goal is to get more mud on the opponent than yourself. Candidate A, now that all the media attention is focused on them and people are coming to their social media profiles, then proceeds to unleash talking points meant to sway people’s minds; whether the media or Candidate B comments on those posts is irrelevant, as they’re still busy within that news cycle trying to push the attention onto Candidate A for that original negative post.

We can see this effect play out even now every time Trump goes on a ‘twitter rampage’. Those that the media focus on, generally those that provoke outrage from one group or another, are almost always sandwiched between posts about him helping veterans, or clips of him or others in his administration’s speaking, etc. During the campaign, it was much the same, media outlets and the Hillary campaign would draw a lot of attention to a specific comment or tweet, people would flock to Trump’s social media pages, and surrounding those negative posts would be positive posts or attempts at persuasive messages.

So what do Republicans draw from all of this? Well, for starters, we’re living in the age of social media. There’s no excuse for a campaign to not have an extensive social media presence. Trump is 71 years old and runs his own twitter account. It is, in essence, free publicity for a campaign, and it is a far more efficient way of not only getting points across but of seeing firsthand how those points and posts do in terms of the attention received. If the post is a dud, it gets ignored and nothing of value is lost. If it goes viral, it pays large dividends for little investment.

If it goes poorly, well, it would seem that now more than ever a round of negative coverage is a resource that shouldn’t be wasted. While I’m not saying candidates should go out and try to potentially piss off voters, perhaps, instead of going on the defensive when some negative detail comes to light, a better option may be to draw the negative attention to your social media postings. Once it is, use the free attention being directed at you to speak out on topics that you’re winning on. Certainly, it wouldn’t hurt your cause if, say, your social media post in which you publicly apologized for body slamming a reporter was surrounded by posts containing campaign promises and retweets of positive coverage of your candidacy thus far. Going forwards, candidates need to enter the present and use these tactics to their advantage.