Social Media & The Lege
Analysis of the online conversation leading up to the 88th Legislative Session
Introduction
Every two years, the Texas Legislature meets at the Capitol to debate and pass legislation. Historically, these policy debates have been shaped by legislators and other key influencers including industry and policy experts, consumer advocates, and the media. While much of that debate and attempts to influence policy continues to take place in person at the Capitol and over traditional earned and paid media channels, a large share of that conversation now takes place on social media.
In many cases, the general public, public officials, and media learn about new developments in policy debates on social media, and the #TxLege hashtag serves as a primary means to call attention to Texas legislative and policy issues.
The following Digital Advance analysis highlights social media trends we have seen over recent years and underlines the importance of monitoring and framing the social media conversation around relevant issues.
About the Firm
Digital Advance (D|A) operates at the intersection of public affairs, digital media, and traditional communications to help clients solve problems and achieve goals around complex policy issues. D|A uses proprietary digital technology and draws on decades of experience in strategic communications and media, community and public relations to:
· Identify the most important influencers and persuasive messages;
· Micro-target communications to key people and communities;
· Create strategic plans tailored to clients’ specific needs; and
· Establish benchmarks to track success.
Our clients include a range of corporations, associations, and public entities operating locally, statewide, and nationally. We work with them to establish goals, define wins, provide critical research and intelligence, and develop and execute winning campaigns and initiatives.
Legislators on Twitter
Over the past year legislators have tweeted 92,319 times – an average of 252 tweets per day – and nearly every legislator has a Twitter account (these tweets include any posts from legislators - not specifically the #TxLege hashtag). The most active public officials are Representative Gene Wu, Representative Diego Bernal, Representative Erin Zwiener, and Senator Kelly Hancock. Use the dashboard below to search for tweets from legislators on topics relevant to your organization.
Top Hashtags
Not surprisingly, the most widely used hashtag is #TxLege, which was designated as the official hashtag of the state legislature in the 2015 session. Some legislators use their district as a hashtag, such as #HD70 freshman legislator Mihaela Plesa. This can be helpful for catching a legislator’s attention about an event or news story in their district.
Who Do Elected Officials Follow?
The following graph shows the top accounts followed by elected officials. Not surprisingly, Texas legislators largely follow each other and former colleagues, along with reporters - especially the Texas Tribune. Third party groups in this list include: Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texas Association of Business, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Texas Realtors PAC, Texas District and County Attorneys Association, Texas Association of Counties, and more.
General Public
Public interest in Texas policy issues extends well beyond the state line, and included 1.3 million tweets that used the #TxLege hashtag in 2022 (3.68K per day) and many others commenting on high-profile Texas issues more generally. Use the interactive search feature and date below and to the right to search by topic and date.
Timeline
Twitter usage saw its heaviest spike around the Uvalde school shooting. Secondary but still significant spikes included the baby formula shortage in May 2022, the February 2022 winter storm that took place one year after Uri, and the October 2022 Texas Gubernatorial debate.
Most Frequently Used Words
The Uvalde school shooting received far and away the most coverage, and tweets centered around school safety and gun access/ability to purchase. Additional coverage included immigration, abortion/reproductive rights, and parental control in schools.
Audience
The Uvalde school shooting received widespread coverage in Texas, nationally, and internationally and many retweeted content with the #TxLege hashtag. Our analysis found that a majority of those commenting were “left leaning voices” based on their twitter bio contents (e.g., “democrat,” “BLM,” “liberal”). The bubble chart on the right is a sample of top keywords from those accounts.
While most social media policy conversations among key influencers take place on Twitter, Facebook remains the most widely used platform for the general public. This large reach makes it a popular choice for advertisers and offers the added benefit of allowing for targeting specific demographic segments and locations.
To increase transparency, Facebook’s ad library now discloses all individuals and organizations running ads on the platform including the amount spent and target audience. The ad library is a highly useful tool for examining peer and opposition messaging, targeting, and ad budget. The graph below shows what Texas-based organizations (defined as those with Texas in their names) have spent more than $18 million on Facebook ads since 2018. This includes a large presence by right-leaning and left-leaning groups, as well as third party organizations.
Issue Ads on Social Media
Snapchat
Snapchat represents a significant advertising opportunity for reaching voters 18-40 years old. The platform also now provides an ad library with transparent insights into who advertisers are targeting and how much is being spent.
Snapchat saw some spending on the Texas elections and policy issues in 2022 with more than $160K in total spending targeting Texans. Nearly all spending was done by progressive or left-leaning organizations, including Planned Parenthood, Beto for Texas, Texas Freedom Network PAC, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, United We Dream Action, SEIU, Resource Media, and Vote Latino. Ads were run in English and Spanish and largely targeted users under 40. (Unilever/.Dove included because of its Rare Beauty campaign promoting the Crown Act Petition.) Below are a few examples of these ads:
Tik Tok
While Tik Tok has been banned from Texas government networks over privacy concerns, the platform can still be accessed using personal data plans and continues to see widespread use overall. Directed primarily toward Gen Z, influencers can go viral without even having accounts thanks to the use of hashtags. Despite the fact that political/fundraising ads are banned on Tik Tok, 2022 saw several state candidates making effective use of the platform and gaining significant followings. Below are examples from candidates, elected officials, and activists.
¿Donde Votar?
High numbers of Spanish-speaking Texans - particularly in South Texas- sought voting information from Google in 2022. Both major political parties in Texas made unprecedented efforts to reach Latinos, particularly those residing in the south. While it is difficult to connect a Google search to a voting action, we can ascertain that voting was certainly on the minds of Spanish-speaking voters in South Texas, El Paso, and throughout much of the state.
While Texas didn’t rank very high in searches about “election results” (#39 and tying with Florida and California), two major metropolitan areas in the Lone Star State stood out for having remarkably high interest in voting.
Uvalde
Not surprisingly, the tragic May 24 school shooting in Uvalde struck a nerve throughout the country. For nearly two weeks following the loss of 21 lives at Robb Elementary, Americans from Colorado to Massachusetts used Google to find out how to help the south Texas community. While waves of support came in from cities in Texas, the outpouring of support from outside Texas contributed to Uvalde’s #5 placement in the “How to Help…” category.
MEANWHILE IN TEXAS
ERCOT
The events surrounding the deadly blackouts from Winter Storm Uri and the onset of more frequent extreme weather events have led to ERCOT becoming a household name. Over the past two years, unprecedented spikes in searches for “ERCOT”, as well as terms associated with grid failures such as “Texas grid” and “power outages” correspond to key weather events like Winter Storm Uri, the July 2022 heat wave, and the powerful arctic front that covered Texas in December 2022. The only other spikes we’ve seen were back in 2011, when a large part of the state last saw rolling blackouts.
Google Trends
Google Trends presents information about the searches that people make on Google’s search engine every day. By taking a look at Google Trend’s “Year in Search 2022,” we were able to examined one of the ways #txlege-related issues crossed over into other digital platforms beyond social media last year, even standing out in national rankings.
