After former President Donald J. Trump was kicked off Twitter in 2021, conservative entrepreneurs rushed to advertise social media alternate options tailor-made to him and his supporters.

There have been Parler and Gab, Twitter-like websites popular among the many individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Then got here Gettr, a social media app created by one in every of Mr. Trump’s former advisers.

That crowded area has now narrowed, giving an edge to Reality Social, the platform that Mr. Trump’s firm owns and the place he’s the primary attraction.

In March, Truth Social recorded 1.5 million distinctive guests in america as its dad or mum firm began buying and selling on the general public markets, up 130 % from the earlier month, in line with Similarweb, a knowledge agency that tracks net visitors. Whereas the app’s customer rely was minuscule in contrast with mainstream social websites, it was 13 occasions the dimensions of the mixed whole recorded by Parler and Gettr.

Reality Social’s closest competitor was Gab, a hotbed for antisemitic and racist posts, which drew 246,000 distinctive guests in March, in line with Similarweb. (Andrew Torba, Gab’s founder, disputed that determine, saying Gab had about 6.5 million distinctive guests in March, however his numbers couldn’t be independently verified.)

Reality Social’s efficiency has main implications for Mr. Trump’s funds. When the app’s dad or mum firm, Trump Media & Know-how Group, began buying and selling on the Nasdaq final month, it surged to an $8 billion valuation. Mr. Trump, who owns roughly 58 % of the corporate, was instantly billions of {dollars} richer, giving him a monetary lifeline as he faces a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in authorized payments tied to the civil and prison instances in opposition to him.

However simply because Reality Social is extra in style than a few of its rivals doesn’t imply it has a viable enterprise.

Since March, Trump Media’s share worth has plummeted, decreasing Mr. Trump’s stake to about $2 billion. In securities filings this month, the corporate revealed that its 2023 income was $4.1 million, all of it from promoting, with $58 million in losses.

Reality Social has outpaced the competitors principally as a result of its rivals have faltered. Gettr was plunged into uncertainty final 12 months when a key investor was arrested on fraud prices. Gab isn’t obtainable on mainstream app shops, which banned it in 2017 for permitting hate speech. And Parler is attempting to mount a comeback, after it briefly shut down a 12 months in the past amid an possession reshuffle.

Reality Social is “the perfect of a number of unpopular or very area of interest platforms,” mentioned Josephine Lukito, a social media professional on the College of Texas at Austin who has studied Reality Social. “Even with Donald Trump, it doesn’t have the extent of recognition {that a} mainstream platform has.”

Reality Social stays far behind X, previously generally known as Twitter, which has lifted restrictions on fringe political voices since Elon Musk purchased it in 2022. X had practically 115 million distinctive guests in March, greater than 75 occasions the visitors on Mr. Trump’s platform, in line with Similarweb.

In a press release, Shannon Devine, a Trump Media spokeswoman, mentioned Reality Social had a extremely engaged viewers of “thousands and thousands of customers,” with hundreds of latest ones becoming a member of daily. She mentioned the corporate had greater than $200 million within the financial institution and no debt.

Trump Media hasn’t revealed a lot concerning the stage of exercise on Reality Social. In company filings, the corporate omitted knowledge that social media firms usually monitor intently, just like the variety of month-to-month or each day energetic customers. The corporate hasn’t “relied on any explicit key efficiency metric to make enterprise or working choices” as such statistics promote “short-term choice making,” one submitting mentioned.

Nonetheless, Reality Social enjoys one essential benefit over different right-wing apps: Mr. Trump.

After Twitter barred him for posts that incited violence on Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump was approached by two former contestants from his actuality TV present, “The Apprentice.” They supplied to place him on the middle of a brand new platform that wouldn’t censor his posts. Mr. Trump agreed to a take care of Reality Social that gave him a majority stake within the firm.

However Reality Social wasn’t the one platform that needed to construct an viewers round Mr. Trump. In July 2021, Jason Miller, one in every of Mr. Trump’s former marketing campaign advisers, launched Gettr, which additionally had a Twitter-like format.

The competition was fierce. Gettr executives tracked Reality Social’s progress intently, and Mr. Miller as soon as expressed concern that the app had launched a direct-messaging functionality earlier than Gettr did, two former staff mentioned.

However Mr. Miller’s main focus was persuading Mr. Trump to make use of the positioning. On TV, he mentioned he had set aside a Gettr handle for the previous president.

The appeal offensive frightened Reality Social’s executives, in line with paperwork {that a} former worker supplied to The New York Occasions. A each day log that the positioning’s leaders maintained consists of a number of entries mentioning Mr. Miller’s efforts to lure Mr. Trump. (One entry additionally famous that “Melania actually likes the identify Reality Social.”)

In 2021, legal professionals for Trump Media despatched Mr. Miller a cease-and-desist letter, asking him “to stop recruiting President Trump” and citing Mr. Trump’s contract with Reality Social, in line with a filing.

Mr. Trump caught with Reality Social, and Gettr withered. In February 2023, Mr. Miller left the corporate to affix Mr. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign. A month later, federal prosecutors charged one in every of Gettr’s prime traders, Guo Wengui, with cash laundering and fraud stemming from a variety of his enterprise pursuits.

Mr. Miller declined to remark. Gettr didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Parler additionally tried — and failed — to get Mr. Trump to publish on its web site. After the Jan. 6 riot, Apple, Google and Amazon removed the app from their shops, citing points with content material moderation. In 2022, Kanye West agreed to purchase Parler, however the deal fell aside, and the positioning shut down final 12 months.

Parler is scheduled to relaunch subsequent month, mentioned Elise Pierotti, the corporate’s chief advertising officer. In the meanwhile, the app is in a testing part and never meant to attract heavy visitors, she mentioned.

As for Mr. Trump, Ms. Pierotti mentioned, “If he’s all for our platform and desires to hop on, we’d be open and love that.”

For now, Gab stays Reality Social’s closest competitor. However the platform, based in 2016, has confronted issues for years. In 2017, Google and Apple eliminated it from their app shops, citing the proliferation of hate speech.

Gab’s common month-to-month visitors declined practically 40 % from 2022 to 2023, in line with Similarweb. In an electronic mail, Gab’s Mr. Torba mentioned these numbers had been incorrect as a result of Similarweb depends on knowledge from third-party analytics suppliers that his app doesn’t use. Tom Liu, a vice chairman at Similarweb, mentioned that the agency additionally labored with web service suppliers to collect knowledge, and that it utilized a typical methodology throughout the web sites it evaluated.

Earlier than Trump Media’s public debut final month, there have been indicators that Reality Social’s progress was stagnating. The positioning drew about 100,000 new customers within the six months earlier than the general public providing, in line with estimates by the Stanford Web Observatory, in contrast with practically 250,000 customers in the identical interval a 12 months earlier. However in March, the positioning’s consumer rely spiked by greater than 100,000.

As a part of a public firm, Reality Social has different benefits, together with publicly traded shares that it may use to make acquisitions or ramp up hiring. On Tuesday, Trump Media mentioned it was near beginning a video streaming service that may focus partly on “content material that has been canceled.”

The platform has additionally outperformed rivals in attracting different conservative candidates, Dr. Lukito mentioned. Earlier than the 2022 midterm elections, 54 Republican candidates posted on Reality Social, her analysis reveals, in contrast with 37 on Gettr.

These figures remained tiny in contrast with X, which featured posts from 363 Republican candidates.