Bloomberg campaign paying workers $2,500 per month to promote Bloomberg through texts, social media

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is ramping up his spending in California, paying staffers to promote him through social media posts and text messages to friends and family.

Bloomberg’s campaign is hiring more than 500 “deputy digital organizers” in California for this purpose.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that these “deputy digital organizers” will work between 20 and 30 hours a week, making $2,500 a month.

In addition to promoting Bloomberg, the campaign’s job description for the position states that organizers may be asked to do more traditional campaign tasks such as phone banking. Source accounts and documents revealed to the Journal that the undertaking will cost the campaign millions of dollars monthly.

The staffers will be aided by Outvote, an app that allows users to send pre-written texts, post to social media platforms and then send data back to the campaign.

Outvote, which was created by a Democratic political tech incubator, also reportedly allows users to see if their friends are registered to vote by cross-referencing their phone contacts with public data.

“We are meeting voters everywhere on any platform that they consume their news,” Bloomberg’s senior national spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told The Hill.

“One of the most effective ways of reaching voters is by activating their friends and network to encourage them to support Mike for president,” she said.

Bloomberg’s latest outreach tactic comes just weeks before Super Tuesday states are set to vote on March 3. Bloomberg has poured millions of dollars of marketing resources into these states hoping the contests will edge him into top standing among the Democratic candidates.

A late entry into the Democratic primary race, Bloomberg is not on any of the first four primary ballots. The first time Democratic voters will have the chance to vote for him will be in early March. 

California is one of the many states voting on Super Tuesday, and with its 415 possible pledged delegates, doing well in the Golden State is essential for any candidate wanting to stay competitive the race.

Currently, Instagram and its parent company Facebook require users — such as influencers — to note when a post is sponsored.

“Branded content is different from advertising, but in either case we believe it’s important people know when they’re seeing paid content on our platforms,” a Facebook official said.

“After hearing from multiple campaigns, we agree that there’s a place for branded content in political discussion on our platforms. We’re allowing US-based political candidates to work with creators to run this content, provided the political candidates are authorized and the creators disclose any paid partnerships through our branded content tools,” the person added.

Bloomberg’s campaign, however, views the posts from their organizers as personal content, not sponsored content.