In the 2020 presidential race, the Biden for President campaign prioritized healthcare access, COVID-19 solutions, small business empowerment, voting rights, and flipping crucial swing states. The Biden for President campaign garnered more votes than any campaign ever before and succeeded in flipping Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
SOAPBOXX SITE
of Soapboxx videos viewed on Facebook leading up to Election Day
of user videos made without editing or production teams
supported video collection by national, relational, and 17 individual state digital teams
The key players in the Biden for President campaign knew that in order to flip crucial swing states, they had to uplift voices from communities that aren’t typically represented during campaigns. They faced difficulties in coordinating with far-reaching communities such as people of color, women, and Republicans for Biden, plus physical issues with story collection due to COVID-19.
There are three features of Soapboxx that helped deliver counties to Biden: organic distribution, ease of use, and the ability to collect and download raw footage.
The Biden for President headquarters handed the Soapboxx tool down to state-level teams to collect voter stories. There are three features of Soapboxx that helped deliver counties to Biden:
Organic distribution is the foundation of Soapboxx. It allows for user generated content to be shared across personal networks of family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Biden voters recorded their videos, shared them to on social media, and even texted links to record new videos to their friends. In counties where voters are typically undervalued, like rural areas, Soapboxx provided a platform for undecideds to hear personal appeals/arguments from trusted, familiar members of their communities. The Soapboxx tool is incredibly user-friendly, requiring no experience with video editing or producing – anyone with access to a phone or computer can participate. This was an advantage for the Biden for President campaign teams when collecting stories from voters of all backgrounds and expertise. The campaign teams downloaded raw video collected through Soapboxx for user-generated ad content. Raw footage also helped create press releases, which were a large part of the state and local level campaign efforts, particularly for “Women for Biden” and “Vote by Mail.”
Democrats won Arizona for the first time since 1996 by flipping Maricopa and Pima counties for Biden. Arizona received the most Soapboxx video submissions, with 70% of the videos coming from Maricopa County. Voters in Pennsylvania used Soapboxx to express their pride in Biden’s home state. A majority of videos in the state came from Erie County, one of the two Pennsylvania counties that flipped. Celebrities and politicians also participated in Pennsylvania’s efforts. The team used Soapboxx to coordinate with high-profile Biden voters and streamline their collaboration with the campaign. The Pennsylvania team also took advantage of Soapboxx’s montage feature to quickly turn out compilation videos of supporters, a task that would have otherwise been impossible due to COVID-19. Michigan participants were not celebrities or influencers, but rather passionate members of their communities who used genuine, authentic messaging to influence their immediate connections. Soapboxx generated heavy traffic in Kent, Musekgon, and Ottawa counties, an area of Michigan that voted much bluer in 2020 than in 2016 – blue enough for Biden to flip Kent county. The campaign was able to influence voters and leaders in the 50,000-strong Hmong-American community in Wisconsin, who were key voters in the election. Wisconsin also had ample participation from Democratic Party members, collecting a total of 112 videos from elected officials at all levels, whose videos organically reached nearly 5,000 accounts. Soapboxx was instrumental in including the most diverse voices in the largest tent campaign in history, garnering not just more votes and any campaign ever, but also lifting up key voices and including them in the political process, in some cases for the first time. Ultimately, nearly 50,000 minutes of supporter-generated Soapboxx videos were viewed on Facebook in the last 3 months of the campaign. That’s over 34 days of watching videos about why your friends and family support Biden for President.
Empower your audience to create and distribute authentic videos.