Ian Lurie, CEO, Portent www.portent.com

@portentint ian@portent.com

THE UNIVERSE PROBLEM Poll results, Facebook, and the 2012 Presidential campaign

Overview

This is the first Presidential election where social media reflects

and affects the outcome for both sides.

Political candidates have brands, just like companies do. Theyre

influenced by many of the same market forces, and social media

is one of those forces.

The team at Portent put together this evaluation of the Romney

and Obama presidential campaigns based on Facebook data

collected since April 2012.

Our analysis shows problems for both sides: A universe problem

for Gov. Romney, and an agility problem for Pres. Obama.

Data sources

We collected our data from:

- Facebooks Open Graph API. We collected daily follower counts, plus up to 200 post datapoints per candidate. We

could not collect 100% of posts, likes and shares for each

candidate due to Facebook API limitations.

- Gallup polling data.

- The Huffington Post poll of polls.

Facebook follower growth

If you compare Facebook follower growth, it looks like Romney

is racing ahead. His best growth rate in Facebook followers was

nearly 4%, in early August 2012.

President Obama never exceeds 0.181%.

In August, Romney grew his Facebook audience more than 20

times faster.

0.181%

3.67%

President Obama Governor Romney

2012 high Facebook follower growth rate

Facebook follower growth

But, President Obama now has more than 29 million Facebook

followers. Thats more people than live in the state of Texas, by

the way.

Gov. Romney now has over 8 million. But that left him with a

huge gap. Unless he sustains a high growth rate, he cant hope

to compete with President Obama online. Every time the

Obama campaign posts to Facebook, it taps an audience 3.5

times larger:

President Obamas Facebook audience

Governor Romneys Facebook audience

0.000%

0.500%

1.000%

1.500%

2.000%

2.500%

3.000%

3.500%

4.000%

Governor Romney's Facebook growth rate: Rolling avg

Romneys universe problem

More important, Governor Romney cant sustain momentum.

After the Republican national convention, his follower growth

rate plunges below his pre-convention 30-day average:

Average pre-convention growth rate

Republican National Convention:

0.000%

0.020%

0.040%

0.060%

0.080%

0.100%

0.120%

0.140%

0.160%

0.180%

0.200%

President Obama's Facebook growth rate: Rolling avg

Romneys universe problem

President Obama, on the other hand, has been able to build

strong, sustained emotional momentum, especially following the

Democratic national convention.

Democratic National Convention:

Pre-convention growth rate

Romneys universe problem

In marketing, a brand has a universe problem if it can no longer

expand its audience.

Universe problems occur because the potential audience is

simply too small. They also occur because a brand simply cant

expand. If a company has no appeal for new audiences and

cant generate that appeal, it stops growing.

The Romney campaign has a universe problem. Our research

shows that Gov. Romney gets a fantastic response from his

existing facebook audience, but cant expand beyond it. Thats a

good hint as to why hes falling behind in battleground states:

He needs to sway 3-5% of voters who are on the margins of his

current brand universe, but hasnt yet.

Obamas agility problem

The Obama campaign faces a different challenge: With their

gigantic following (did I mention more fans than the

population of Texas?) theyre a big, successful brand.

Like any big brand, President Obama has a lot to lose from even

a small gaffe. So hes playing things conservatively, never

making the big statements/moves that might separate him from

Gov. Romney and put the election away.

Thats often smart for a big brand, but it hurts their ability to

maintain strong, rapid growth.

So what?

Ho hum. More social media data from a so-called expert. More

blathering about user engagement and followers. The race is

near a statistical tie. Does this data even matter?

Yes, because this social media data helps clarify the polls.

So what?

The Gallup poll and the 480-poll aggregate assembled by

The Huffington Post show the Romney campaign losing ground.

The longer the Romney campaign fails to broaden their brand

universe, the harder it becomes to close the gap.

So what?

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, is too conservative,

letting the Gov. Romney back into the race time and again. If

this were football, theyd be playing the prevent defense. And

we all know how well that works.

So what?

Obama

Gallup Poll results, 4/15/12 10/3/12

Romney

39

41

43

45

47

49

39

41

43

45

47

49

So what?

Huffington Post poll of polls, 4/12/12 10/3/12

What can they do?

Both campaigns need to understand that this is marketing: Their

candidates have brands. They need to make the moves that

strengthen those brands, and social media particularly

Facebook is a major part of that now.

They both need to do the same thing: They need to go on the

offensive, talking about whats good about them, instead of

whats bad about the other guy.

Negative posts generate a feeble response. Positive posts about

their own strengths and beliefs generate 3-4x more shares. Be

bold about what theyre saying, and how theyre saying it.

WE WILL UPDATE THIS REPORT AS THE ELECTION

PROGRESSES. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG IF

YOUD LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT EACH UPDATE.

@portentint

Quest ions?

ian@portent.com

www.portent.com

http://plus.google.com/+IanLurie