A few  weeks ago, Hillary Clinton released her proposal to make college more affordable. Shortly after sharing her proposal Clinton Atook to Twitter, asking Millennials to explain how their college loans and debt made them feel using three emojis. Unsurprisingly, the plan backfired, as Twitter users took the opportunity to criticize Clinton for oversimplifying a complex issue in an attempt to reach out to young voters. 

Shortly after the emoji debacle — dare I say Emoji-gate? — Clinton and one of the Republican candidates, Jeb Bush, took to Twitter again to discuss rising college costs and exchange volleys, albeit in an unusual way. The two campaigns sent meme-like Tweets back and forth, arguing about which party was to blame for rising college costs and a weak economy.

Nobody loves a good meme more than I do, I was thrilled to see two candidates who I do not especially care for try to appeal to young voters through a medium that I enjoy, and it got me thinking. Young people — defined for the purpose of this article as tho  se between the ages of 18 and 30 — are a rapidly growing voting bloc in the United States. Although, according to a United States Census report published in 2014, registered voters under the age of 30 only had a turnout rate of 45 percent in 2012, this is nearly a five percent increase from 2000. No other age group has had its rate of registered voter turnout rise by so much in the same 12-year period. 

While youth voters may not vote as frequently as other age groups, they are still an important voting bloc that candidates and their communications teams need to take seriously.

Thus came the rise of the candidate Twitter account, Tumblr blog, Spotify playlist, Instagram account and Pinterest board. Clearly, the rise of the politician on social media is not directly linked to increased youth turnout in elections, but I believe there is some correlation. After all, why would candidates hire paid staff (or, more likely, unpaid interns) to constantly generate content and come up with catchy, or not-so-catchy, hashtags for websites? According to a Pew Research Center study in 2014, 89 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds use on a regular basis, if not to try to reach out to younger voters? 

As the youth vote and voice becomes more important in elections, campaigns have to adapt to find ways to reach out to this new demographic.

However, reaching out to young voters is more complicated than “make a Twitter account and throw up a few poorly Photoshopped graphics.” Millennial and young voters are like any other demographic; they are not a monolith. 

No campaign can take a one-size-fits-all approach, or expect that trying to talk down to a voting group will make a difference. Think of Mitt Romney’s disastrous Univision visit in 2012, where he showed up with a very bad fake tan and attempted to speak Spanish. It was a lazy attempt to integrate into a voting bloc and it did not work. The same can be said of Clinton’s “emojis to describe student loans” tweet: a poorly thought-out way of trying to connect with a described demographic.

There are a lot of bad things to say about Millennials, but we are not stupid, especially when it comes to social media and marketing. I personally would much rather have a candidate tweet like my mom—a direct quote from my mother’s Twitter: “Are shoe selfies a thing? #selfie” with a photo of her foot in a shoe attached—and not really get how hashtags or the “@” feature works but still provide content, information and humor in 140 characters than have a campaign give me perfectly written tweets that are devoid of meaning. It is not actually hard to get a great message in 140 characters. One of my favorite civic groups, Rock The Vote, routinely uses Twitter and Facebook, forums with limited space, to get tons of information about voting registration out by including links and keeping their message short but still informative. Perhaps some campaigns should follow their model. 

It is all too common to watch campaigns turn complex shades-of-grey issues into sound bites, and, unfortunately, outlets like Twitter make it even easier to further condense a nuanced position into 140 characters. However, it does not have to be this way. Using social media as a cynical way to reach out to young voters can and almost always will backfire.