On Thursday night, we were joined at Pelican House by 80 progressive campaigners and digital strategists to learn from Gabriella Zutrau, Strategy Advisor and the architect of Zohran Mamdani’s social media chatbot infrastructure, contributing to his mayoral victory in New York – a moment that resonated with progressives around the world.
Zutrau’s work with Mamdani wasn’t sparked by abstract curiosity – but by urgency. With the real threat of Andrew Cuomo becoming New York’s mayor in 2025, she set out to use her knowledge of digital organising (and her experience of creating viral content through her hilarious pet account Edna The Runt) to support Mamdani – whose straight-talking, fast-paced videos had already caught her attention online.
Instead of studying traditional campaign playbooks, she encouraged the campaign team to look somewhere else entirely: chatbots and influencers.
Her reasoning was simple: the most effective tactics shaping the internet today aren’t happening in political spaces. They’re being developed by creators and online communities who understand how platforms actually work – so it’s crucial to pay attention.
Here are some of the lessons she shared.
1. If it works for Pilates and keto influencers, it can work for us
Political campaigns often look inwards, borrowing tactics from previous elections or from one another. But the internet evolves quicker than election cycles.
As an extremely online person, Zutrau was paying attention to what was working elsewhere online. One pattern stood out: influencers using a tool called ManyChat.
The mechanic is straightforward. An influencer asks followers to comment with an emoji or tag a friend under a post. In response, they receive an automated series of messages in their direct messages.
For years, influencers had been using the bot to sell their eBooks and digital courses. But Zutrau saw something different – an organising tool. If influencers could use automated messages to sell diet plans, campaigns could use the same infrastructure to recruit volunteers and mobilise supporters.
The Mamdani campaign built a chatbot system around Instagram. When people engaged with the account, the system responded automatically, guiding them toward the next step: signing up to volunteer, attending an event or sharing their email address to stay connected.
What began as an experiment quickly grew into a major organising channel. In just two months, the ManyChat bot sent 77,000 messages, drove 21,000 clicks and collected 10,000 email addresses – all on a budget of $318.
The insight was simple but powerful: tools built for the creator economy can be repurposed to build political movements.
2. Use automation to unlock creator networks
The campaign also used automation to spot creators already engaging with Mamdani’s content.
When someone interacted with the campaign’s Instagram account, the system analysed their profile and flagged users with significant followings. Those creators were invited into a separate engagement journey and encouraged to amplify the campaign.
But the campaign did not script their content. Creators were given full editorial freedom to talk about Mamdani in their own voice.
The results were striking. In the final month of the campaign, creator-generated content produced more than 1.4 billion views. None of those creators were paid.
The strategy worked because it treated creators as collaborators rather than distribution channels
3. Experiment with the platforms themselves
Another lesson was the importance of experimentation.
Through the campaign, Zutrau got creative with Instagram’s tools – discovering a new use for Instagram’s trial reels feature, which allows content to be shown first to people who do not already follow the account.
This created a powerful testing environment. Clips could be reposted multiple times, each time reaching new audiences without overwhelming existing followers.
With a steady supply of video content, the campaign could test ideas quickly, learn what resonated and scale up the formats that worked.
Many platforms already contain powerful growth tools. The challenge is creating the time and confidence within teams to experiment with them.
4. You don’t need huge budgets to get started
The evening closed with a panel discussion featuring Aiyan Maharasingam of Greenpeace UK, Anya Jhoti of Praxis and Dunya Kamal of the TUC.
One message came through clearly: these approaches do not require enormous budgets to begin.
Maharasingam described how some of Greenpeace’s most effective collaborations have been with creators who have relatively small audiences but strong ideas and authentic voices. Reach is not always the most valuable asset. Trust and credibility often matter more.
And as Zutrau noted – while progressive organisations can’t always offer payment, they can offer access, collaboration, visibility or opportunities to build something meaningful together.
Often the most influential voices aren’t professional influencers at all. They’re people with lived experience and a genuine connection to their communities.
5. Organic social needs real investment
Zutrau was passionate about the need for campaigners to take organic social media seriously.
Too often, organic content is treated as something campaigns produce alongside their “real” strategy. In Mamdani’s campaign, it was central.
The social team invested heavily in video production, creating a steady stream of content that could be tested, remixed and repurposed across platforms.
That constant flow made experimentation possible. Clips could be reposted, edited into new formats and pushed into new audiences as the campaign learned what resonated.
Organic social does more than generate views – it’s a long-term investment in engagement and narrative power. Over time, it’s a way to build trust, and a community of supporters who feel connected to the campaign – the people most likely to volunteer, share content and show up when it matters.
Continuing to build digital power
Mamdani’s win was huge – but progressives are still a long way from winning the online war.
The radical right has spent years building powerful digital ecosystems that amplify their narratives across the internet. Their ideas travel fast – spreading through platforms, creators and networks long before many institutions have even begun to respond.
The consequences are already visible. Across the world, hard-won rights are under pressure. In the US, immigration enforcement has intensified. In the UK, the possibility of a Reform government raises serious questions about the country’s political direction.
If progressive movements want to compete, we need to build our own networks – communities of creators, organisers and supporters shaping conversations online.
That’s why Forward Action and Rally started our Building Digital Power events – bringing together campaigners, organisers and charities to share ideas and strengthen the skills needed for this moment.
The challenge ahead is more than messaging. It’s building the digital infrastructure across organic and paid channels that shapes the stories defining our politics – and continuing to come together, online and off, to meet the challenge of the far right.
Stay tuned for the next event.