Trump’s new blog is a flop on social media, data shows
New site said to have seen just over 200,000 engagements
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump’s new “communications platform”, which boasts a blog-like format, has flopped on social media since its unveiling last week, according to a report.
Following his banning from mainstream social media websites amid the Capitol insurrection, including Facebook and Twitter the former president set up “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”.
NBC News reported that engagement with the new blog is drawing a considerably smaller audience than his now-banned social media accounts ever did.
Citing data compiled with BuzzSumo, a social media analytics company, the broadcaster says the platform has only raked in 212,000 engagements.
In comparison, a single post on the former president’s Twitter account to his 88 million followers could receive more than a million likes in one go, mainlining his every musing to the front of national attention.
The outlet defined engagements as backlinks and social interactions such as likes, shares, and comments on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Reddit. The Independent has reached out to Mr Trump for comment.
On the “From the Desk” site, users can’t comment or interact with the post, but can only share them to other platforms.
“In the case of Trump’s new platform, it is so technologically primitive that there is no way for his followers to even migrate,” Jeremy Blackburn, an assistant professor of computer science at New York’s Binghamton University, told NBC News.
“Who cares about a platform where you can’t even own the libs? There are plenty of other newsletters that people have been adding to their spam boxes for years.”
Last week, the Facebook Oversight Board upheld Mr Trump’s ban from the platform, forcing the former president to continue to share his thoughts through the official statements released by his office.
Previously, the former president would see high-level engagement on Twitter and Facebook from users and the media with Mr Trump tweeting frequently throughout the day.
On the new site, Mr Trump continues to offer a mixture of informal political endorsement and attacks, general news, and personal updates, which can also be received by email.
However, his casual and pithy jabs against “fake news media” and targeted vilification of his political enemies such as Wyoming Rep Liz Cheney are no longer appearing to land as successfully.
More broadly, interest in the former president has also been waning in terms of his stature in the social media sphere, polls show.
Axios reported exclusive data from NewsWhip in May which showed that social media interactions concerning the president had fallen by 91 per cent since January.
While interest in Mr Trump maintained consistent time throughout the election and his subsequent loss, it has since dropped drastically.
Exclusive data from SocialFlow reported by the outlet showed that clicks to Trump stories dipped 81 per cent from January to February and another 56 per cent from February to March.
Mr Trump, however, has maintained that social media platforms are worse off without him and that he, in return, is much better without them.
“When I put out a press release, you see what happens. Everybody is waiting and I think I’m getting better and more coverage with that than I did with tweeting,” Mr Trump said in March on Newsmax.
He added: “But no, I like this better than Twitter. Actually they did us a favour, this is better.”
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