The Creator Economy is Here. Here’s How Campaigns Can Adapt.

Campaigns are turning to digital creators and influencers to reach increasingly fragmented audiences. 

Groups backing Donald Trump’s and Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaigns paid influencers to weigh in for the candidates. Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York City dispatched an army of online creators to reach young voters on TikTok and Instagram. 

Campaigns & Elections recently spoke with three consultants working in the creator space: Double Tap Democracy’s Kait Demchuk  and Rachel Irwin , who helped run paid creator programs in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races this year, and Social Currant’s Ashwath Narayanan , who ran Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger’s creator program.

Here are some of their tips:

Get the Campaign’s Buy-in

According to Narayan, any creator or influencer program needs to start by winning over the campaign, from the staffers to the candidate. 

“At a super high level, I think the first step is getting buy-in among the entire campaign to engage with creators,” Narayanan said. “Whether that’s thinking through how you make sure that your paid ads firm knows that you’re working with creators or scheduling knows that you’re working with creators to the candidate themselves being open to filming with creators.”