A survey by Nexus revealed the increase in the number of followers on social media for the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, in the last eight years, when his first candidacy for the position that he will assume again next Monday (20 ).
According to the research, Trump’s growth on Instagram was 501% between January 20, 2017, the day he took office for the first time, and January 6, 2025, when his victory in the 2024 presidential election was certified by the US Congress. .
On the first date, the Republican had around 5 million followers on this social network. In the second, there were 29.9 million.
If we take into account the day on which the Republican officially ran for President for the first time — July 19, 2016 — the growth was even greater, given that, on that date, he had 9.9 million followers.
On other social networks, Trump had different growth rates. On X (formerly Twitter), for example, the president-elect had 9.9 million followers in July 2016, and, in January 2025, this number reached 97 million.
Despite the growth, Trump is not the most followed American president on social media. Although he is ahead of the current president, Joe Biden, and his competitor in last year’s presidential elections, Kamala Harris, the Republican has fewer followers than Democrat Barack Obama, both on Instagram and on X. See:
Trump’s most significant proportional growth was on YouTube, where he had a 3,540% increase in the number of subscribers between January 2017, when he had 105 thousand, and January of this year, when he reached 3.82 million subscribers.
On Facebook, the increase was 98% – Trump had 9.3 million followers on the social network when he made his first candidacy official, and reached 35.8 million after the certification of his second electoral victory.
TikTok is a separate case, as it did not yet exist under that name in July 2016. Despite this, Trump also accumulates followers on the network, where he has 14.8 million followers.
It was also where the Republican had the biggest growth since his victory against Kamala was confirmed on November 6, 2024.
