How do you actually start clipping for politics?
Plus DNC drama, fandom marketing, and new research about communicating with men online.
Clipping! Maybe you heard the buzzword because I wrote about it as far back as last October or as recently as two weeks ago. Maybe you saw it covered in the Wall Street Journal, Vulture, the Atlantic, and more. Maybe you think I’m just quoting Dorinda.
Chances are though — unless you’re one of a select few campaigns, organizations, or funders on the left — you don’t have a great sense of the actual steps you need to take to start clipping. Today’s newsletter is here to change that! Let’s dive in:
1. Create or compile compelling video content
Before you can clip, you need good source material. For campaigns, that can look like rally speeches, podcast or news interviews, conversations with voters, livestreams, and other moments with your candidate — or even moments where other people are talking about your campaign! For organizations trying to drive broader narratives or highlight issue areas, you have even more options and can draw from any compelling videos that share your message.
What’s important is that these videos have moments that can speak to specific audiences and resonate strongly — often because they’re emotional, have conflict, are surprising, or are energetic.
If you don’t have clippable content yet, it’s time to start making it! Either start filming as often as you can, intentionally curate compelling moments on the campaign trail, or you might even consider booking a studio and creator to film a “podcast” you can clip from going forward.
2. Use new video editing tools to maximize how many clips you share from your owned accounts
Many teams are already doing ‘traditional’ clipping by sharing short clips of their long videos, but it can take a lot of time and effort to do it well. Tools like Opus, Klap, Riverside, Descript, and even CapCut can help you and your team save time by identifying high-engagement moments, cutting them into vertical videos, adding captions, and getting them ready to post in affordable, efficient ways. (Note: I typically use Opus myself, which is why it’s the only one listed with an affiliate link if you do try it.)
To get the most out of these tools, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one main account. You can scale up the number of videos you’re posting by using side accounts, seeing what performs well, and then elevating the best (and more brand-safe) content to your main account.
Agentic tools like Overlap go even farther and help you to automate the full process, including video editing, drafting social copy, scheduling, and posting. You might not get the same number of views by paying for these tools as you would by putting money behind the clips, but this approach can be strong for folks who have longer runways to steadily build a brand and following, or who only want to share content from accounts you directly manage.
3. Use paid clipping to massively scale your distribution and reach
You only unlock the real power of clipping when you put budget behind it like you would any other paid media line item. This is the buzzy kind of clipping everyone’s talking about — where you give third-party editors your content and a budget, and you pay a fixed cost for views on all qualified clips that they share from their network of accounts.
For the same pricing structure as other paid advertising channels, you can massively scale up attention to your campaign or cause quickly, since these clippers have become experts on what it takes to work the algorithm and rack up millions of views. The videos look organic on people’s feeds, so they’re less likely to tune out like they would a traditional ad, and volume actually helps by convincing the algorithm your topic is trending and pushing your investment even farther.
Of course, paid clipping has its own set of risks and tradeoffs, but I really believe it’s one of the strongest ways to break through in today’s incredibly crowded media environment. There are also some exciting new developments trying to make clipping more targetable, and to drive conversion and action (in addition to awareness).
What are you waiting for? I rarely pitch business directly in this newsletter, but if you’re thinking about getting involved with any kind of clipping, I’d love to work with you. If you want to talk about setting up in-house tools, jumping into paid clipping, or just to see what’s out there, please reply to this newsletter or reach out at max@maxlevystrategies.com, and let’s get clipping!
Reads Worth Your Time
Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party (New York Times)
“Dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats. At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members.”
Decent chance you’ve already read this one (or seen screenshots of the important pieces)! If so, I’d go deeper with Rufus Gifford’s “The Democratic National Committee is Worth Saving” or The Bulwark’s “Ken Martin Open to Bringing on Big Name to Help at DNC.”
Small-Dollar Campaign Donors Are Hurting the Political System (The Atlantic)
“For years, most Americans on both sides of the spectrum have bemoaned the ostensibly corrupting influence of large campaign donors… But over the past decade, the most notable shift in electoral politics has been the massive explosion of small donations, which now rival or exceed donations by the wealthiest campaign contributors. Far from cleaning up the system, as some commentators had hoped, the flood of grassroots money has made American politics both more polarized and more performative. Chasing dollars given by people in a fit of pique has forced politicians to become aspiring influencers.”
I disagree! Strongly! But still worth a read, especially if you want to get riled up on behalf of grassroots donors.
Geek Fandom and Marketing Authenticity (Future Fandom)
“It’s common sense that brands need to understand and respect fandoms. I would take it a step farther and say that the goal of the marketer should be integration within the fan community—make the product part of the fandom. Authentically part of the fandom. Of course, that’s a next-level and probably multi-year trick.”
Inside the world of Gen Z political influencers, where the money is messy, but the work keeps coming (CNN)
“As it turns out, the work of a Gen Z political influencer is a complicated, unruly business, Comstock and others can attest. Filming, production and publishing can come with all the responsibilities of a media executive. The clients can be demanding. The atmosphere is often competitive. The pay is inconsistent. And the party you support might get voted out of office anyway.”
Not Another AI Think Piece (Chorus)
“What we discovered over thousands of email sends to millions of people: supporters have distinct topic and content preferences... But the reality is most nonprofits send one email or SMS to everyone, and the reason isn’t intellectual — it’s that doing the work is a complete pain in the ass! Setting up twelve variations of a Giving Tuesday email, generating the copy, cutting the list, syncing the sends, measuring what worked, and feeding it back into next week’s targeting is more than most teams can take on at the standard ROI you would expect. But that’s where new technology comes in.”
Good Posts
Climate Power uses subtly-moving videos in a carousel reminding us to get outside this summer.
The Oklahoma Policy Institute shares a carousel that every graphic designer is sure to love:
Get in loser, candidate for Georgia state representative Lindsay DeFranco is going canvassing.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren lists 5 things that are worth the money.
Cool Tools
My faves over at Harmony Labs are hosting a great webinar next week: “Understanding Men’s Behavior Online: Who They Are, What They Watch, Why It Matters.”
Click here to see more info and register for the event, where Harmony Labs says they’ll “share key findings from their new research report ‘Men’s Flourishing + Media,’ which maps how men behave online: what their media consumption habits are, what types of content resonate with them, and how their views shape their behavior.”
BONUS POINTS: Do you use a tool you think would be helpful to feature? Reply to this email and let me know. I’d love to highlight some community suggestions!