At the TikTok-sponsored Power 30 party, conservative content creators leaned into their new customers, dancing to Top 40 hits for hours in Make America Great Again hats with TikTok-labeled earmuffs stretched over them. At another TikTok-sponsored party at Capital One Arena on Saturday night, conservative creators received merchandise from the company, like a koozie with a graphic of Trump dancing or earmuffs in highlighter pink and blue colors of the company. (Behind the scenes, TikTok seemed to be in turmoil. The app was offline Saturday evening before the alleged ban, but returned on Sunday and sent a notification assuring its users that Trump would save the app once he took office.)
“One of the best parts of my job is spending time with our YouTube creators, because they are the ones who truly define the culture,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in a statement following the event. Sunday meeting of the company’s creators. “They’re experimenting with new ideas in the media landscape, and it was incredible to be at the forefront last year. »
At Sunday’s influencer awards night, Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz, the architect of this winning, web-focused influencer strategy, received an award honoring his digital contributions. Years before joining Trump’s team, Bruesewitz ran X Strategies, a political media agency, working with young online political candidates like Matt Gaetz. In 2022, he publishes Winning the Social Media War: How Conservatives Can Fight Back, Reclaim the Narrative, and Turn the Tide Against the Lefta book telling Republicans how to use social media for electoral gains.
“Social media has created a whole new battle front for us,” Bruesewitz wrote in 2022. “We must fight back, we will make them listen and we will reopen the market. »
Bruesewitz saw that potential podcasts needed to deliver Trump’s message to voters who weren’t already hearing it. Podcasts played a major role in Trump’s election, giving him a massive audience of what Bruesewitz described as “mid- and low-propensity male voters.” in a WIRED interview after the election. It was these voters, who Bruesewitz said generally do not consume mainstream media, who ensured victory.
Others agreed: Shapiro told WIRED on Sunday that the podcasts “gave a window into the authenticity of the candidates.”
And according to Pearson, this year’s conservative influencer takeover is just the beginning.
Over the summer, Pearson hosted an event with the Heritage Foundation to train more than two dozen conservative creators on how to communicate their politics to voters online. Savannah Chrisley, Sean Mike Kelly and Emily Saves America, some of whom are from the Turning Point USA Ambassador Program, attended the event.
Since 2019, Turning Point has been recruiting and training at least 400 conservative influencers in what is essentially an incubator. Some of the most popular right-wing influencers have come from the Turning Point program, including Alex Clark, Benny Johnson, and Candace Owens. Training typically takes place at summits across the country where Turning Point leaders, like Charlie Kirk and Tyler Bowyer, teach participants to publish. Once an influencer is onboarded into Turning Point’s influencer program, the organization’s public relations team actively presents them to producers at networks like Fox News. They are invited to special events where speakers (including Trump and Tucker Carlson) give speeches and allow creators to network and collaborate to grow their audiences.