Zohran Mamdani Built a 200-Strong Influencer Network to Push His NYC Initiatives

(AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration has assembled a sprawling network of more than 200 social media influencers who receive City Hall talking points, video clips, and access to officials as part of an aggressive effort to promote New York programs online.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s effort to utilize influencers online ran into controversy last week when The Washington Post reported that his network was reportedly given official government email addresses, suffixed .civ, and labeled “civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors.”

Mamdani’s list of New York creators are openly independent influencers, and much of their work centers on promoting city services and initiatives.

A forthcoming report from Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism and the Initiative for Policy Dialogue identified 189 influencers with ties to the administration and examined a private Signal group called “NYC Creators Announcements.”

The group, which members say contains more than 200 creators, grew out of Creators4Zohran, an organization that supported Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. It is now administered by Emilia Rowland, City Hall’s director of new media and cultural communications.

The group operated like a press list used by communications teams where members reportedly receive daily updates, official talking points and clips, along with invitations to events and opportunities to interview city officials. They are not paid by City Hall for participating in the group.

Separately, however, the report points out that city agencies do contract influencers for individual campaigns promoting programs including voting, healthcare, immigration and tenants’ rights, participatory budgeting and composting.

City employees told researchers that influencers can separately receive between $5,000 and $20,000 per campaign through marketing and advertising firms contracted by agencies.

Some creators say they participate without payment because they view distributing city information as a public service, like Instagram influencer Jose Vilson.

“The majority of us don’t want to just be associated with Zohran,” Vilson told the outlet. “We want to ask good questions because we care about the city.”

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