• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, November 15, 2016

In one of his first interviews after his upset victory over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump said social media sites including Twitter and Facebook helped propel him to victory by allowing him to get his message out and respond to unfavorable coverage in the press.

Speaking to CBS News’ "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Trump noted that his campaign’s reliance on social media meant it didn’t need to spend as much money on expensive TV ads, thus removing one of the key obstacles to an insurgent campaign: “I think that social media has more power than the money they spent, and I think maybe to a certain extent I proved that.”

Trump later reiterated: “I really believe that the fact that I have such power, in terms of numbers, with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, et cetera, I think it helped me win all of these races where they’re spending much more money than I spent.”

Equally important, social media continues to give Trump a means of neutralizing negative reporting from newspapers and magazines by rebutting critical coverage, in effect always having the last word with his supporters. Trump noted: “When you give me a bad story, or when you give me an inaccurate story, I have a method of fighting back.”

Through October 19, Clinton outspent Trump by $258 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, with most of this going to traditional TV buys. By contrast, Trump and his supporters focused on social media and their success was reflected in higher numbers for social engagement, according to analytics firm 4C, which found Trump generated 57.9 million social media engagements in the final week of the campaign, compared to 47.7 million for Clinton. This activity was largely favorable: also per 4C, mentions of Twitter and Facebook in the first week of November were 58% positive for Trump, compared to just 48% for Clinton.

Some critics have suggested that Trump’s victory resulted in part from false news stories circulating on social media. However, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the notion during an address at a tech conference last week, arguing: “There is a profound lack of empathy in asserting that the only reason someone could have voted the way they did is because they saw fake news... If you believe that then I don't think you have internalized the message Trump supporters are trying to send in this election.”

Nonetheless it’s worth noting that Facebook recently revealed plans to remove sites which publish fake news from the Facebook Audience Network, an audience extension tool that allows advertisers to include off-Facebook publishers in ad campaigns.