LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Republican Presidential Nominee Donald J. Trump’s campaign hosted a pair of Facebook live events on Wednesday that not only yielded big financial dividends, but heavily featured some of Alabama’s own in prominent roles.
Trump’s news-style forum was hosted by Alabamian and Yellowhammer News CEO Cliff Sims, who is currently on leave from the company to work as the Trump campaign’s communications advisor. During both pre and post-debate discussions, Sims interviewed high-profile Trump supporters such as Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Rudy Giuliani and former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.
Even the live-stream’s production had Alabama’s fingerprints all over it. The Facebook broadcast was put together by Auburn-based Right Side Broadcasting, which streams each Trump rally from all over the country.
Throughout the broadcasts, viewers were encouraged to donate $10 to help stop Hillary Clinton from becoming the next President of the United States. In response, more than 150,000 people donated, according to data the GOP nominee’s campaign gave Politico. The total raised by Trump’s campaign on that night alone was $9 million.
“Mr. Trump has said many times that this is not a campaign, it’s a movement. That is evident in the size of the crowds our campaign rallies attract, and also in the unprecedented level of engagement sparked by Mr. Trump’s social media activity,” Brad Parscale, Digital Marketing Director for the Trump Campaign, wrote in a press release. “Our pre-and-post-debate Facebook Live event gave the Trump campaign an opportunity to leverage our candidate’s massive digital footprint to take our message straight to millions of voters, without the filter of the clearly biased media.”
The Facebook video reached an unprecedented numbers of people. According to the Trump Campaign, 24 million people tuned in during the event, which translated into 8.8 million video views, 91 percent of which were unique users. These viewers watched 11.8 million minutes of content, the equivalent to 22 years of view time.
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