From Viral to Voting: Meeting Our Community Online During the 2024 Election

By: Tatiana Ivy Moise, Digital Content Manager

How did When We All Vote reach more than 150 million people online during a critical election year? It’s not easy, but it is simple: we meet voters where they are with social media content they can learn from, relate to, and take action with.

This strategy is deeply rooted in When We All Vote’s mission to change the culture around voting and to increase voter participation in every election — especially by Black, Brown, and young voters. Our social platforms allow us to connect directly with our audience through our youthful brand voice, shareable graphic explainers, engaging short-form videos, and culturally-relevant references. Our content aims to make voting relatable and fun.

As a result of our team’s efforts across all programs in 2024, more than 300,000 Americans registered to vote or checked their voter registration with us. And even more received critical information about the election from us. So, the numbers don’t lie — our strategy works! Let’s talk about how. ⬇️

First things first: which social media platforms are we on, and why?

We are a national, nonpartisan organization who wants to reach and register as many voters as we can. Since 2018, we’ve built communities on eight social media sites (yes, eight!) by posting regularly and diversifying our content styles. You can connect with us on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and even Tumblr — and find similar information presented to you in different ways. Take our “History of Juneteenth” and “19th Amendment Anniversary” explainers, for example:

Not only is each social platform optimized for different content formats, but also: different strokes for different folks. Our data shows that our content performs well when we diversify it by platform — so it’s worth the extra time and energy we invest to meet our audience in the online spaces they’re already comfortable with.

How do we reach our audiences and create content they relate to?

When We All Vote leads the charge in reaching Black, Brown, and young voters who have historically been left out of the political process. We use social media to share voter registration and election reminders, information about what’s on the ballot, and resources to help them get to their polling places and vote.

But gone are the days of posting a one-size-fits-all infographic and just hoping it resonates with the voters so many struggle to engage. Our social team is made up of the voters we are trying to reach. So in 2024, When We All Vote flipped the script on what election content can look like by working at — and thriving in — the intersection of democracy and culture. Here’s what that means:

1️⃣ We pay as much attention to trending music and movies as we do to voting rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions. With more than 40 million eligible Gen Z voters and 34 million eligible Black voters, we have a massive opportunity to tap into the content our community is engaging with to reach new voters with key voting information.

When Beyoncé dropped COWBOY CARTER, we took notes on every lyric (though we were totally doing that anyway) and created a guide of every state mentioned on the album and how many eligible Black voters there are in each. Not only was this content viewed nearly 250,000 times across platforms — it also sparked important conversations about voting in the comments.

2️⃣ We cover live award shows and sporting events as obsessively as we share ballot measure updates and voter turnout information.

More than 123 million people tuned in to Superbowl LVIII. While they scrolled on their feeds to find game and Halftime Show coverage, we met them in the trending hashtags with our nonpartisan voter registration memes and polling place messaging — reminding people to get registered and ready to vote just three weeks before 16 states held primary elections on Super Tuesday.

3️⃣ We educate our audience by speaking with them — not at them — in the same ways we talk to each other. Black, Brown, and Gen Z voters are smart, cool, and often chronically online (which is why we get along so well!). Our role is not to assume they don’t know what’s going on with history or politics — it’s to create space to talk about it, share trusted information that expands their learning, and provide tools for those who are ready to take action.

When President Biden announced he was no longer seeking reelection, our social feeds were filled with questions about what happens next. Our response? A nonpartisan, same-day explainer to clear up misinformation, establish historical context, and remind people to prepare for the uncertain road ahead by registering to vote. Meeting the moment in real time earned us more than 725,000 impressions across platforms. We weren’t giving hot takes, we were sharing the good information our audience was looking for.

4️⃣ We partner with culturally-relevant artists, brands, sports teams, and more on collaborative explainers and videos to share key voting information to new audiences.While we’ve built our community up to more than 700,000 followers across platforms, reaching more than 150 million people online in one year is only made possible by collaborating with our celebrity Co-Chairs, Ambassadors, and partner organizations. From an economic ballot measures video with Co-Chair Liza Koshy and a reproductive rights carousel with media partner @FEMINIST to posting voter ID explainers with VoteRiders and key Election Day resources with our Founder Michelle Obama, collaborations are one of our superpowers online.

We reached nearly 22 million people through our creative video content alone in 2024. Two of our most highly-engaged collab videos include our presidential debate meditation exercise with mental health partner Headspace and our NBA Finals “Get In the Game and Vote” video in partnership with the NBA featuring our Co-Chair Jayson Tatum, and players from the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.

Did we stop our voting content after Election Day?

Definitely not. Though much of our content throughout the year helped voters make their plans to vote in November, our work doesn’t end at the ballot box — it starts there. After Election Day, our team took a short break to rest and recharge. Then, we came back to thank voters and volunteers for showing up, celebrate more of the election’s historic wins, discuss voter turnout, and remind our audience to prioritize self care as we transitioned from election season to holiday season, and welcomed the end of a long year.

So… what’s When We All Vote doing now?

While 2024 was big, every year is an election year. With more than 100,000 seats on the ballot in 2025, we will continue to educate our audiences on upcoming election dates and deadlines, key issues, and local races across the country. And of course, we will keep finding new creative ways to raise the bar and bring voting into the culture — because that’s who we are, what we do well, and why millions of people engage with our social content year after year.

Join our community on your favorite platforms — from Instagram and TikTok to YouTube and Facebook — and invite three friends to join you. Stay tuned for what’s next in the fight for our democracy.