WASHINGTON _ The Republican Party is training Trump supporters in the art of spreading the president's message on social media.
The party has trained more than 30,000 volunteers, neighborhood team leaders and paid field organizers to use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Some of the advice is as basic as following Trump staff _ and the president himself _ as well as hashtags and talking points the campaign organizes around big events like rallies and Democratic presidential debates. Other tips are more advanced and include advice on how to stage a well-lit photo.
"A lot of what we preach during these trainings is trying to put their personal story, to highlight it, why they support the president, so they can find other folks on there," said Kevin Cabrera, Trump Victory state director for Florida. "It's a family of sorts on social media."
The program is part of the Trump Victory Leadership Initiative trainings at which the Republican National Committee prepares volunteers to campaign for the president, who has used Twitter to share his personal views more often than any predecessor.
The RNC program is a nod to the prolific role that social media now plays in politics and the way that the internet has eroded geographical restrictions and changed the traditional definition of community.
"It's a crowdsourcing technique, essentially _ how do you take an individual with a single voice and amplify it," said Rick Gorka, communications director for the RNC.
"If each activist is able to add their unique perspective and anecdotes and stories, and share the photos and videos that create powerful content, it's empowering that activist to create that echo chamber, to get information out to their friends and families that we may not be able to communicate to effectively _ we may not know how to reach them," Gorka told McClatchy.
The president's mastery of Twitter, on which he has more than 67 million followers, has proven to be a key messaging weapon to skewer his opponents.
Trump has also developed his own grammatical rules on the platform. But party officials are not advising trainees to emulate him, instead encouraging them to take creative license as they target their own circles of followers.
"How do you find your voice? We train individuals to talk through their personality," said Gorka. "Each one of us has a unique way of using the English language to communicate our points that's true to our brand."
Getting into the holiday spirit, one Florida organizer posted photos from an "ugly Christmas sweater" competition in which the winners sported holiday attire with a partisan twist. One woman affixed a photo of Hillary Clinton to her woven top.
Another participant decorated his sweater with photos of Democratic lawmakers who are unpopular with conservatives like California Rep. Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Now in the holiday season, part of organizing is not always having an ask," Cabrera said. "But let's have some fun, too. So we've encouraged them to do, you know, Christmas parties, potlucks, I guess ugly sweater contests, all that sort of stuff, and to post it."
Plenty of the president's supporters are using their new-found skills to make lighthearted Christmas memes such as gifts covered with "Trump Pence" wrapping paper that the campaign sells in its online store. The Republican Party of Louisiana shared a photo of Trump on a laptop and marked him "safe" after the House of Representatives' impeachment vote.
The RNC training recommends using #LeadRight as a hashtag on Twitter to promote support of Trump and the Republican Party.
Tweets using that hashtag show photos of pets, house parties, and Christmas-themed outfits as backdrops for messages about Trump, impeachment and the 2020 election.
And yet it proved difficult finding trainees to interview. They are instructed not to speak with reporters.
