Once wanted to ban, TikTok has now become Mr. Trump’s ‘trump’

The period when TikTok was tightened the most was under the Trump administration. However, the former US president aides are now using this same platform to build their campaign strategy.

More than 4 years since Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok in the United States, this video application has become one of the most important tools in the new election campaign.

In just 2 months, the former US president has built a following on TikTok up to nearly 10 million people, far exceeding all other political opponents.

Success on an app that is very popular with Gen Z even surprised his own campaign team. Trump team had previously deliberated on whether he should join a platform that he once called a national security threat.

From threat to opportunity

Under former US President Donald Trump, TikTok has caused many controversies related to the dissemination of information related to internal national security between the US and China.

The period when TikTok was most heavily regulated was under the Trump administration when it limited the app ability to sell to American consumers in 2020 due to its rapid expansion.

With more than a billion global users, TikTok then became a phenomenon. In particular, the latest report by the Pew Research Center also shows that 67% of young people in the US are using social networks to share this video.

The culmination was when Trump demanded that TikTok be removed from Apple and Goôgle app stores if ByteDance did not sell the app to another company in the US.

However, in a competitive new presidential race, with the rise of US Vice President Kamala Harris on social media, Mr. Trump cannot stay out of the trend.

The period when TikTok was tightened the most was under the Trump administration. Photo: Hollywood Reporter.

According to the Washington Post, the former US president has now seen TikTok as a weapon to reach young voters. With less than 100 days to go until the election, Trump team is racing to double down on the strategy of making Donald Trump “the most popular entertainer on the planet,” according to an aide.

According to this source, the aides of the Republican candidate constantly hold strategy meetings in the morning and are trying to arrange celebrities to appear on the platform.

Trump efforts to exploit TikTok for his campaign show that the app he once sought to destroy has become central to political and social debate in the United States.

With more than 170 million accounts, TikTok is one of the most popular online platforms in the US. In a study by the Pew Research Center, more than a third of adults aged 18-29 said they tended to update news through TikTok.

“TikTok is one of the few social media platforms that offers political content to people who don’t follow politicians’ accounts. They have an extremely powerful recommendation and distribution tool. In terms of the online battlefield in American politics, TikTok is the biggest name,” said Kyle Tharp, a former member of the Democratic Party.

Aura TikTok

Campaign aides will follow Trump with their iPhones to record, looking for moments that are easy to go viral. The former president campaign team even hired a young TikTok expert to help make the videos stand out.

Former President Donald Trump started joining the social network TikTok in June with @realdonaldtrump account.

Like Harris’ strategy, Trump TikTok content does not delve into policy issues.

Most of his videos are less than 15 seconds long. According to campaign team members, the main goal is to create fast, engaging video clips that can help personify the former president and amplify his sense of humor and improvised charisma.

In other words, according to a term on TikTok, it is Mr. Trump “aura”. “He was born to do stuff like this,” said a member of the campaign team.

The Washington Post revealed that Trump TikTok team consists of three people and works in tandem with the campaign operations and travel team to exploit moments in the former president schedule.

So far, Mr. Trump team has only posted 9 videos and has reached more than half a billion views. The content is mostly improvised and does not invest too much in the footage.

Trump remains the final say on the videos before they are posted, but much of the work is done by his team. This is in stark contrast to the controversial tweets on his old Twitter account (now X) that he used to type by hand on his phone.

Most videos about Mr. Trump on TikTok are less than 15 seconds long, mainly quick and engaging video clips. Photo: @realdonaldtrump.

Efforts to renew Trump image are proving effective. According to a TikTok leader who shared on condition of anonymity, as of April, the number of posts supporting Donald Trump was twice as many as President Joe Biden.

Attention to the former president spiked after he was assassinated. According to TikTok data tracking company Zelf, earlier this month more than 400,000 videos of Trump appeared within a week of the shooting and attracted billions of views.