In addition to continued gains in key polls and a strong showing in Iowa over the weekend, a key aspect of the insurgent Bernie Sanders campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination appears to be his explosive popularity across the national Internet landscape, especially on social media platforms.

As the New York Daily News reports Monday, data of online trends shows the self-described socialist is “berning up the internet” with more people on Google “searching about Sanders than Clinton since mid-June” and that the overall conversation about him on Facebook has “nearly tripled” in recent weeks—”from 5.5 million unique interactions the week ending Aug. 5 to 14.4 million in the week ending Aug. 12.” According to one impartial online analyst, the trends are impressive.

“They’re doing a fantastic job on the digital side, no question,” Jason Rosenbaum, the technology director of the online platform Action Network, told the Daily News.

And, even as he credited the Sanders technical team, Rosenbaum said the success goes well beyond digital savviness. “You can’t make something out of nothing but talented people are able to harness that excitement in an authentic way. And one of Bernie’s big appeals is that he’s authentic,” he said. “That’s a real key part of online organizing.”

In addition to well-attended weekend rallies Iowa and record-breaking rallies in cities nationwide in recent weeks, the Sanders campaign last month reported that more the 100,000 people participated in an online “house party” forum hosted by his supporters in private homes and public spaces in every state.

Kenneth Pennington, the digital director for the Sanders for President campaign, told the Daily News that online presence is not just spurring social media shares, but is resulting in deeper off-line involvement resulting in a growing army of volunteers and increased donations.

“Part of the pyramid,” explained Pennington, “is at the very base level people taking those easy actions, spreading the word on social media. And graduating up from there… We have more than 120,000 very active volunteers who have taken action that they don’t want to just take the easy social media action, they’ve said they want to host, attend or help coordinate volunteers to do phone calls, canvassing, put up yard signs.”