On this episode of TechInColor, we spoke with Jenna Golden, former Head of Political Sales at Twitter and founder of social media consulting firm Golden Strategies. After discovering an initial interest in politics through Model Congress in high school, Jenna decided to pursue politics in college / post-grad. Opting not to work on Capitol Hill, she combined her love of politics with media and technology through advertising for political publications like the National Journal, and later, spearheading Twitter’s political advertising team from 2012 to 2017, including the 2016 presidential election. Since November 2019, Twitter no longer allows political advertising.
Jenna dives into how advertising teams are structured (vertically, with industry experts for each sector), how Twitter firewalled the political ads teams by party and PAC in the 2016 election, and the balance between ethics and hitting revenue goals. She explains how contrary to many large brands, political campaigns only spike every 2-4 years, are cash-strapped, and rely on eliciting specific actions – like collecting emails or fundraising – rather than brand awareness. Despite political ads bringing in the least revenue among ad sectors, Twitter focused on them for their impact in spurring activity, trending posts, and headlines, and allowing smaller campaigns to gain a larger social media footprint.
Jenna then discusses her founder journey building Golden Strategies to help new candidates make the most of their ad budget using social media, and how it helped to “start quietly.. to see if its really what you want” instead of going all-in with a big founding announcement. She advises listeners like us just starting in their careers: always trust your gut, raise your hand when something feels off, and always have something exciting planned in the future to work towards.

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