At a Power 30 party sponsored by TikTok, conservative content creators flocked to their new patrons, dancing for hours to Top 40 hits in Make America Great Again hats with TikTok-labeled ear muffs. At another TikTok-sponsored party in the Capitol One area Saturday night, conservative creators received company paraphernalia, like a koozie with a graphic of Trump dancing or earmuffs in the company's highlighter pink and blue colors. (behind the scenes, tiktok Seemed in turmoil. The app went offline Saturday night before the anticipated ban, but returned on sunday And issued a notification assuring its users that the app would be saved once Trump takes office.)
“One of the best parts about my job is actually spending time with our YouTube creators, because they really set the culture,” YouTube CEO Neil Mohan said in a statement after the company's Sunday Creator Event. ” “They're experimenting with new ideas in the media landscape, and it was amazing to get a front row seat last year.”
At Sunday's influencer awards party, Trump campaign consultant Alex Brusewitz, the architect of this winning influencer and online-focused strategy, received an award honoring his digital contributions. Several years before joining Trump's team, Brusewitz ran X Strategies, a political media agency that worked with young, online political candidates like Matt Gaetz. In 2022, he published Winning the Social Media War: How Conservatives Can Fight Back, Reclaim the Narrative, and Turn the Tide Against the LeftA book instructing Republicans on how to use social media for electoral advantage.
“Social media has created an entirely new battlefield for us,” Brusewitz wrote in 2022. “We have to fight back, we will listen to them, and we will reopen the market.”
Brusewitz saw the potential the podcast had to deliver Trump's message to voters who were not already listening to it. Podcasts played a major role in Trump's election, giving him a massive audience of what Brusewitz described as “moderate and low propensity male voters”. In an interview with WIRED after the electionIt was these voters, whom Brusewitz said do not typically consume mainstream media, that ensured the victory.
Others agreed: Shapiro told WIRED on Sunday that the podcast “gave a window into the authenticity of the candidates.”
And according to Pearson, this year's conservatively impressive acquisitions are only the beginning.
Over the summer, Pearson hosted a program with the Heritage Foundation to train more than two dozen conservative creatives on how to communicate their politics with voters online. Savannah Chrisley, Sean Mike Kelly and Emily Saves America, some of whom came from the Turning Point USA Ambassador Program, attended the event.
Since 2019, Turning Point has recruited and trained At least 400 conservative influential people Basically what is an incubator. Some of the most popular influencers on the right have come out of Turning Point's program, including Alex Clark, Benny Johnson, and Candace Owens. The training typically takes place at summits held around the country where Turning Point leadership, such as Charlie Kirk and Tyler Boyer, Teach attendees how to postOnce an influencer joins Turning Point's influencer program, the organization's public relations team actively pitches them For 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.