The Winning Political Campaign of the Digital Age: Justin Trudeau's Social Media-Oriented Politics

Given Justin Trudeau’s unexpected win of the federal election of 2015 and his outstanding social media (SM) presence, this paper analyzes Justin Trudeau’s social media marketing strategies through the study of his image on social media and his content creation. Social Media’s effect on our daily lives has been long studied, but the effects of SM on political marketing and politics have not yet been extensively addressed by academic studies. The analysis of Justin Trudeau’s marketing strategy and image on social media is done by comparing Justin Trudeau’s visual, textual, and multimodal content creation on the two SM platforms Instagram and Twitter. The results of the analysis show that Justin Trudeau’s politics and image on social media are dependent on the desires of social media users and concludes his success as being a result of his Social Media Oriented Politics—a term which refers to a politician whose actions are dependent on the desires of social media users.