Is Trump Buying Twitter Followers?

Strange is a word that seems to follow the 45th President of the US wherever he goes. But now his world has taken another bizarre turn as reports come in that he is now buying Twitter followers. It’s long been known as a savvy social media trick that you can boost the popularity of your account by buying followers. But who would have thought that this was a tool that would be used by the President of the United States? If that President just happens to be a perma-tan egocentric named Donald Trump, the notion might be less surprising.

A quick look at Twitter Audit Report, a helpful tool that allows you to test how many followers are actual people as opposed to fakes, show that out of Trump’s 31 million ‘trumpeters’, 49 percent are certified bots.

People have commented on this before, but it seems that in the last month there has been an alarming increase in fake followers. Screenwriter John Niven pointed out that over this weekend there was a sharp spike of 3 million additional faceless accounts.

Has Trump actually become that obsessed with his public persona that he has resorted to paying for his following? It could well be true, as he is no stranger to exaggerating figures… (Note the debate over attendance at his Inauguration ceremony in January). But this could equally just be a consequence of his growing profile since becoming President – only a year ago when he was still a mere candidate in the Republican leadership campaign, he had a following of 7.58 million.

Real or fake, the President need not worry about people reacting to his now infamous 140 character outbursts, which are always sure to serve as fodder for conversations around the globe. “Covfefe” anyone?