#TrumpTrain reaches 30 million, changes how campaigns use Internet
In just a year, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his close-knit family and team of social media warriors have shattered Internet records, collecting over 30 million followers and fans and generating billions of views, according to a Secrets analysis.
The social media #TrumpTrain, as fans know it, is driven by the candidate, who touches base with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and even Snapchat 18-20 hours a day, sending out his own messages or quickly scanning those offered by his family and campaign team.
"The success to our social media is all Mr. Trump and his messaging. What sets his social media apart from the rest is simple — since day one, he has been directly involved and he LOVES communicating with the American people," a top aide emailed.
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Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a real estate and publishing force, and the campaign's social media director, Dan Scavino, who was general manager of Trump National Golf Club, team to run the multiple platforms, updating them many times a day with news from events, hits on Clinton and peeks behind the scenes of the unconventional campaign.
But it's the number of eyes on Trump social media platforms that even has the campaign shocked. Just consider:
Donald J. Trump
Twitter: 11.6M
Facebook: 10.8M
Instagram: 2.5M
Total: 24,900,000
Thank you Toledo, Ohio! It is so important for you to get out and VOTE on November 8, 2016! Lets MAKE AMERICA SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) · Toledo, OH, United States
Others on Twitter:
@IvankaTrump: 2,000,000
@DonaldJTrumpJr: 663,000
@EricTrump: 463,000
@KatrinaPierson: 167,400
@DanScavino: 155,000
@KellyannePolls: 99,000
@TeamTrump: 81,000
@LaraLeaTrump: 64,200
@JasonMillerDC: 17,000
Total: 3,679,600
Ivanka Trump: 1,508,000
Donald Trump Jr: 589,000
Eric Trump: 296,000
Daniel Scavino Jr: 85,400
Total: 2,478,400
Instagram:
Ivanka Trump: 1,100,000
Donald Trump Jr: 277,000
Eric Trump: 154,000
Lara Trump: 52,700
Daniel Scavino: 12,300
Total: 1,596,000
Periscopetv Live:
@DanScavino: 156,000
That's a total reach of over 30 million. And just looking at Facebook activity, the campaign has registered 11.5 billion impressions.
By comparison, Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, who has had a decade of experience developing an online network, has fewer followers than Trump. And even when including her popular daughter's followers and the huge network former President Bill Clinton has, her reach is still short of Trump's.
Scavino said that Trump's fast startup is historic. "It has never been seen before. It will never be seen again. His social media platforms outperform those of Fortune 50 companies."
And it's all being done without the huge social media team Clinton and others in the political world, like the White House, have. Clinton, for example, has at least 100 staffers working social media platforms for her. Trump has 131 total staffers for the whole campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.
At Trump Tower it's basically the Trump family, with Scavino on the road putting out news and features about events as they happen from Trump Force One.
"We do not have consultants to review messages. We don't have focus groups, to get their reactions to messaging. We don't have a public relations firm, like Hillary, where we spend millions of dollars on 'PR' to craft messaging. We don't have 15 people viewing each and every post — before it goes out. We don't have more consultants crafting additional messaging, should Plan A not work out. We don't have 45++ staffers working on executing posts via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and now Snapchat — it's just me with Mr. Trump traveling the United States of America," said Scavino.
Facebook is a huge part of the Trump operation and now the campaign is incorporating Facebook live to show both behind the scenes moments with Trump from the trail and also the massive crowds that attend his rallies.
The live streaming platform Periscope, first broadly used by former presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, is also a big hit. The campaign is considering calling their account #TrumpCam.
"When you are reaching out on social media, with 30,000,000 eyes on Mr. Trump's social media platforms, it is massive," Scavino said.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com
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