Trump’s ‘ Face’ time
Crushes all other Republicans online
WASHINGTON— Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is creating a buzz on social media with his presidential announcement.
Facebook reported Wednesday that 3.4 million people shared information about Trump 6.4 million times in the 24 hours after he tossed his hat in the ring.
That made Trump a hotter candidate on Facebook than any other Republican — and tops among all contenders, except Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had 4.7 million people interacting 10.1 million times after her speech lastweekend on Roosevelt Island.
By comparison, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who announced his campaign this week, had just 493,000 people communicating on Facebook, with 849,000 messages.
Ted Cruz, a firstterm Texas senator who is a Tea Party favorite, had 2.1 million users corresponding 5.5 million times.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio had 695,000 people interacting 1.3 million times.
Trump also cleaned up on another media metric — Google searches, a fact his campaign touted Wednesday.
Trump was the most searched GOPer in every state the day of his announcement, and his “search interest”— percentage of national queries for the hour after he announced— was 87 percent.
“Comparatively, another GOP candidate also launching his campaign this week registered just 13 percent interest the previous day,” his camp noted, in a reference to Bush.
New York was the top state in Trump searches. The most popular questions were: “Is Donald Trump a Republican?” “How old is Donald Trump?” “Is Donald Trump running for president in 2016?” and “What is Donald Trump’s net worth?”
Trump kept the public dangling for months about his plans, then revealed his decision at a splashy announcement from Trump Tower, where he also released a financial statement showing his net worth at $ 8.73 billion.
He drew jabs from latenight comics and even the Chinese government, which disputed Trump’s assessment of job stealing by China, calling twoway trade a “winwin situation.”
The Hollywood Reporter said Wednesday that Trump paid actors $ 50 each to attend the event and applaud his announcement.
Even Trump’s introductory music— screaming guitar chords from Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World”— drew a response.
A rep for Young, Rick Gershon, said Trump was “not authorized” to use the song. “Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for president of the United States of America,” Gershon said, referring to the Vermont candidate for the Democratic nomination.
Even with all the socialmedia action, Trump has some problems to address with the public.
A new Monmouth University poll had Trump’s favorable rating at just 18 percent, compared to 57 percent unfavorable — worst of any GOP candidate.