Under the radar pro-Trump Facebook network grows
A Florida twenty-something just created more than two dozen pro-Trump Facebook pages - and they’re gaining steam
Nine months ago, we wrote about a dizzying network of over 70 pro-Trump Facebook pages with millions of followers controlled by a handful of individuals. Since March, this network of “Facebook MAGA Mills” has continued to proliferate, greatly expanding its footprint on the social media platform.
In this week’s FWIW, we’ll share how that network has grown - including how one 20-something from south Florida is reaching millions with two dozen pro-Trump Facebook pages. But first…
By the numbers
FWIW, political advertisers spent just over $11.7 million on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. These were the top ten spenders nationwide:
Election Day 2023 is only a few days away, and there are some highly-contested races and ballot initiatives in several key states. As a result, we’re seeing a ton of digital ad spending on platforms like Facebook and Instagram in the home stretch. Over the past 90 days, $6.3 million has been spent on these platforms in Ohio, where an abortion referendum has dominated the airwaves; $5.7 million has been spent in Pennsylvania, where voters will choose a new State Supreme Court Justice; $5.6 million has been spent in Virginia, where the entire General Assembly is up for election; and $1.8 million in Kentucky, where a Democratic Governor is seeking re-election.
And speaking of elections, Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity was the top spender on Facebook and Instagram ads last week. They launched new ads attacking incumbent Democratic senators who are running for election in battleground states in 2024.
Meanwhile, political campaigns spent $3 million on Google and YouTube ads last week. Here were the top ten spenders nationwide:
In Kentucky, incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has the tough task of being re-elected in a ruby-red state. To defeat Republican challenger Daniel Cameron, Team Beshear is leaning hard into abortion-related advertising, which boosted Democrats in 2022. Beshear has been seen as a slight favorite heading into Election Day, but a new Emerson poll out this morning showed Cameron with an edge.
MAGA Inc, the Super PAC supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, is running new ads on YouTube targeting voters in Iowa. One ad, titled “Power Play,” attacks Ron DeSantis for… supporting Puerto Rican statehood.
Week after week, we continue to see the Trump campaign and its allies targeting Iowa with digital advertising despite the former President’s strong lead in the polls there.
…and on Snapchat, political campaigns and organizations in the United States have spent around $2.4 million on advertising in 2023. Here are the top ten spenders YTD:
In Ohio’s Issue 1 ballot-measure fight to protect abortion rights, advocates for reproductive freedom have spent big targeting younger voters on Snapchat. Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights has spent $169,874 in recent weeks on these ads urging Snapchat users in the state to vote:
Your 2024 digital dispatch
FWIW, here’s how much money the 2024 presidential candidates have spent on Facebook + Google ads to date (1/1 - 10/28):
…and here’s how weekly digital ad spending compares between the Trump and Biden campaigns:
Ron DeSantis dropped his first TV ad of the 2024 cycle.
The pressure on non-Trump GOP candidates to drop out and consolidate their support is growing.
From around the internet:
Dan Merica at The Messenger published an interesting read about the Democratic Data Exchange, or DDx, a key tool in the party’s data arsenal.
Spooky season was observed on the Hill this week and costumes abounded. HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge gave a shout-out to her doppelganger and Sen. Mitt Romney emceed the Bipartisan Howl-o-ween Dog Parade.
SCOTUS is weighing in on whether or not elected officials can block people on social media.
POLITICO published details on how certain anti-Trump ads have been ineffective at moving the needle against the former President.
Democrats are thinking about how TikTok should fit into their strategy to reach young people in 2024.
Prominent Democratic digital firm Middle Seat wrote about grassroots fundraising woes heading into 2024.
Secretive pro-Trump Facebook network grows
Nine months ago, we wrote about a dizzying network of over 70 pro-Trump Facebook pages with millions of followers controlled by a handful of individuals. Since March, this network of “Facebook MAGA Mills” has continued to proliferate, greatly expanding its footprint on the social media platform.
FWIW has now mapped out a growing network of 92 different pro-Trump Facebook pages with a total owned audience of 45.6 million followers. These pages post pro-MAGA, anti-Biden content multiple times per day and generally receive a high amount of reactions, shares, and comments.
We found that in the past several months, one 20-something digital marketing expert based in Melbourne, Florida, named Nicholas Pagnotta has created at least 27 new pro-Trump Facebook pages, with 12 of them being created in the past two weeks. These pages, with names like “American Fury,” “Take Back America,” and “Drain the Swamp,” have deployed the exact same growth hacking technique as dozens of others across Facebook.
Typically, they’ll spend a few hundred bucks on ads that use copy/paste language meant to inflame conservatives and acquire page “likes.” With a proven ad format, they can rapidly acquire thousands of new followers at a very low cost-per-acquisition, which is practically unheard of for most political marketers.
Pagnotta, who is publicly affiliated with a marketing firm called Next Level Media Group and a fake news site known as The Raging Patriot, has been involved in other networks of MAGA mills for several years, either as a collaborator, contractor, or consultant. He is listed in Facebook transparency data as the owner of Donald Trump is My President, a long-standing pro-Trump page. These pages typically drive traffic to owned right-wing “news” sites, in addition to hawking political merch to interested buyers.
These types of coordinated efforts to spread pro-Trump, red-meat content on Facebook should be cause for alarm among Democrats. In the past 3 months, just 15 of these small-to-medium-sized pages have received over 7 million likes, shares, and comments, dwarfing the 1.8 million interactions received by Joe Biden’s official campaign account. Additionally, we have seen no comparable network like this on the Left, and many campaigns, consultants, and political organizations have written off Facebook entirely due to the difficulty in reaching audiences organically.
We’ve written many times before about how the social media ecosystem is more fragmented than ever heading into 2024. It is becoming very apparent that many virtually unknown individuals and groups (like these “MAGA Mills”) will have big impacts on our elections next year - either by spreading misinformation or moving supporters on the left or right to take action.
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