Twitter Trends in 2009 Elections

7/30/2019 Twitter Trends in 2009 Elections

1/23

Twitter Trends in Off-Year Elections:Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts

by Wyeth Ruthven@wyethwire [email protected]


2/23

How Our Study Was Conducted

Indexed all Twitter accounts by theVirginia and New Jersey gubernatorial

campaigns, including accounts by the

candidates and senior campaign staff

Additionally analyzed institutional

accounts used to promote various

campaign messages. For example, the

Deeds campaign created @DeedsCountry

to promote rural outreach, and

@BobsThesis to raise awareness of

McDonnells graduate school thesis.

For Virginia and New Jersey, compiled all

campaign tweets between August 1st

November 3rd, 2009.

For Massachusetts Senate race, compiled

all campaign tweets from the Nov. 3rd

candidate filing deadline until the Jan. 19th

special election.

Using criteria comparable to thePearAnalytics Study, campaign tweets

were classified into categories:

News: Links to External Content: News

Media, Polls, Independent Blogs

Calls to Action: Requests for Donations,

Volunteers, Voter Registration, GOTV Self-Promotion: On-message tweets, Links

to Campaign Website, Campaign Ads,

References to Candidate Schedule

Personal Observations: Off-message

tweets, personal observations not related

to the campaign

Conversation: @Replies to other Twitter

accounts

Pass-Along Information: Retweets, Follow

Friday mentions and other actions that

show familiarity with Twitter as a medium


3/23

Ruthven Study: Top Line Findings

Methodology: Surveyed 3,521 tweets by campaigns over 3-month period.

Findings

Self-Promotion: 55.10% of all tweets

Pass Along Value: 16.70%

News: 9.74%

Calls to Action: 8.01%

Conversational: 8.01%

Personal Observations: 3.15%


4/23

Compare with Pear

Pear Analytics August 2009 Study

Methodology: Randomly sampled 2000

tweets taken from the public timeline at

30 minute intervals over 5 days

Findings

Pointless Babble: 40.55% of all tweets

Conversational: 37.55%

Pass Along Value: 8.70%

Self-Promotion: 5.85%

Spam: 3.75%

News: 3.60%

Source: http://bit.ly/PearStudy


5/23

Findings: Massachusetts

Both Scott Brown and Martha Coakley ran more effective Twitter campaigns than their

counterparts in Virginia and New Jersey. They generated more followers over a shorter

period of time, and both campaigns effectively used Twitter to issue calls to action for

fundraising, volunteers and get-out-the-vote activities.

The Conversational Campaign: Both Scott Brown and Martha Coakley engaged their Twitter

followers in 2-way communication. Approximately one out of every five tweets by the

candidates was a direct communication with individual followers.

Post-Primary Pause: Coakleys overall lack of campaigning immediately following the primary

was also evident online. During the month after winning their respective party primaries,

Scott Brown made 232 tweets. Martha Coakley had only 77.

Twitter mirrored the surge of money, interest and votes for the Brown campaign. Followers

of @ScottBrownMA increased by 235% in the last week of the campaign, and by 604% since

January 1st.

Tweets about health care reform made up less than 5% of Coakleys Twitter feed and less

than 1% of Browns feed. Nevertheless, the candidates used health care tweets to draw very

sharp contrasts on the issue.


6/23

Findings: Virginia & New Jersey

For most Twitter accounts, Self-Promotion accounted for the majority of tweets. The

exception was @CreighDeeds, where Personal Observations constituted a plurality (44.32%)

of tweets. In fact, Deeds devoted more tweets to his musical tastes (39 tweets) than his

transportation plan (1).

Calls to action are an effective way to engage Twitter in an interactive manner. The most

effective campaigns devoted 10-20% of tweets to calls for donations, volunteers, etc.

Multiple accounts led to message dilution. Campaigns that maintained more than one

account found that their messages did not reach a wide audience. For example, although the

Deeds campaign official Twitter feed had more than 3700 followers, only 3% of these also

followed any of the Deeds staff who were tweeting unique information about the campaign.

By contrast, the two campaigns with a single-account Twitter strategy (@JonCorzine and

@bobmcdonnell) had the greatest reach on Twitter as measured by combining number of

tweets and number of followers.

The single-account strategy is not without its drawbacks. As a best practice, @JonCorzine and

@bobmcdonnell would use special tags to distinguish tweets by staff and tweets by the

candidate. This practice, however, leads to a decline in authenticitythe candidates

personal voice is obscured by staff tweets.


7/23

Findings: Virginia & New Jersey (contd)

Twitter remains largely a one-way medium for campaigns. However, staff are beginning to useconversational tweets to reach out to reporters and voters on Twitter. On the Deeds campaign,

conversational tweets accounted for 10% of all tweets on staff feeds, but only 4% of tweets on

candidate and campaign feeds. In New Jersey, 25% of tweets by @studentsforchris were

conversational, compared with only 3% by the Republican ticket overall.

Across multiple Deeds campaign Twitter feeds, tweets about Bob McDonnell's thesis exceeded

tweets about transportation policy by a ratio of 3-to-1. Similarly, the Christie campaign devoted

15% of tweets to the issues of property taxes and political corruption.

In New Jersey, both campaigns relied heavily on social media tools such as TwitPic and Flickr to

share campaign photos via Twitter. Approximately one out of every three tweets by the Corzine

and Christie campaigns was a link to a campaign photo.

Among Democratic candidates, Twitter mirrored campaign strategy with respect to support of

President Obama. @JonCorzine mentioned Obama 57 times on Twitter, compared with only 6

mentions by @CreighDeeds.


8/23

MA-Senate Twitter Statistics

Twitter Followers News Calls to

Action

Self

Promotion

Observ-

ational

Conver-

sational

Pass

Along

Retweets

@ScottBrownMA 15827 5.54% 16.12% 43.32% 0.50% 18.14% 17.38%

@MarthaCoakley 4361 4.35% 13.61% 37.24% 0.76% 18.15% 25.90%


9/23

MA: The Conversational Campaign

Share of Twitter feed devoted toconversations with followers:

Massachusetts

@MarthaCoakley: 18.15%

@ScottBrownMA: 18.14%

Virginia

@CreighDeeds: 5.68%

@bobmcdonnell: 0.35%

New Jersey

@JonCorzine: 0.40%

@ChristieforNJ: 3.45%

Unlike campaigns in Virginia and NewJersey, the Massachusetts Senate

campaign used Twitter as a 2-way,

conversational medium. Both Scott

Brown and Martha Coakley used @

replies to engage their followers in

conversation. Approximately one out ofevery five tweets in the Massachusetts

Senate race was a direct

communication to individual followers

of a candidates Twitter feed.


10/23

MA: The Post-Primary Pause

0

50

100

150

200

250

Coakley

Brown

Primary Election Campaign (11/3-12/8)

@ScottBrownMA: 191 tweets

@MarthaCoakley: 167 tweets

First Month of General Election: (12/9-1/8)

@ScottBrownMA: 232 tweets@MarthaCoakley: 77 tweets

Last 10 Days Before Election Day (1/9-1/19)

@ScottBrownMA: 106 tweets

@MarthaCoakley: 153 tweets

Critics of the Coakley campaign accused thecandidate of fading from sight in the weeks

following the primary election, while Brown

campaigned aggressively with flurry of public

events and paid media. A similar disparity between

the campaigns was found on Twitter. A late push by

Coakley online failed to close the gap.


11/23

MA: Browns Surge of FollowersTwitter mirrored the

surge of money, interest

and votes for the Brown

campaign. Followers

increased 235% during

the last week of the

campaign, and increased604% since January 1st.

Followers ofCoakleys

Twitter feed failed to

match this pace.


12/23

MA Tweets: Health Care

@MarthaCoakley: 19 tweets (4.78%) @ScottBrownMA: 3 tweets (0.57%)

Despite the national attention focused on the impact of

the election on the fate of health care reform legislation,relatively few Tweets by the candidates mentioned the

issue. When health care reform was invoked on Twitter,

however, the candidates drew very strong contrasts.


13/23

MA Tweets: Top Issues

@MarthaCoakley

Health Care: 19 tweets

Financial Reform: 5 tweets

Taxes: 5 tweets

Veterans: 4 tweets

Abortion: 2 tweets

Green technology: 1 tweet

@ScottBrownMA

Taxes/Spending: 13 tweets

Veterans: 8 tweets

Cap and trade: 4 tweets

Health Care: 3 tweets

Abortion: 1 tweet

National Security: 1 tweet

While media attention on the election focused on health care, other issues

played a prominent role in the online campaign. Fiscal policy was the top

issue featured in Scott Browns Twitter feed, while Martha Coakley

highlighted her support of financial services reform.


14/23

VA-GOV Twitter Statistics


Action

Self

Promotion

Observ-

ational

Conver-

sational

Pass Along

Retweets

@bobmcdonnell 7051 7.99% 20.14% 71.18% 0.69% 0.35% 2.43%

@CreighDeeds 3720 4.55% 7.95% 39.77% 44.32% 5.68% 0.00%

@DeedsCountry 351 2.38% 5.95% 65.48% 10.71% 3.57% 11.90%

@BobsThesis 100 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

@Joe_Abbey 675 1.14% 4.00% 55.43% 0.57% 16.00% 20.00%

@MoElleithee 792 28.03% 1.01% 38.89% 3.54% 5.30% 23.23%

@mikegehrke 712 15.26% 0.53% 10.00% 18.95% 12.63% 42.63%


15/23

NJ-GOV Twitter Statistics


Action

Self

Promotion

Observ-

ational

Conver-

sational

Pass Along

Retweets

@JonCorzine 4426 13.84% 4.17% 69.49% 0.00% 0.40% 12.10%

@ChristieforNJ 5008 4.26% 4.46% 81.74% 0.41% 3.45% 5.68%

@sheriffkim 123 4.55% 0.00% 72.73% 1.52% 0.00% 21.21%

@students4chris 252 0.00% 22.92% 37.50% 2.08% 25.00% 12.50%


16/23

VA & NJ: Timing of Tweets

@CreighDeeds @bobmcdonnell

@JonCorzine @ChristieforNJ

Using data compiled byTweetStats.com, tweets

were analyzed by time of

day for the four official

gubernatorial campaign

feeds. The Virginia

campaigns had clear

spikes in tweets duringthe mid-morning hours.

This may indicate that

these campaigns

considered updating the

feed as a regularly

scheduled obligation.Tweets by New Jersey

campaigns more closely

resembled a bell curve,

indicating that tweets

arose organically during

the course of the day.


17/23

Multiple Accounts = Message Dilution

@CreighDeeds+@Joe_Abbey = 117 mutual followers

@CreighDeeds+@MoElleithee = 117 mutual followers

@CreighDeeds+@mikegehrke = 116 mutual followers

@CreighDeeds+@Joe_Abbey+@MoElleithee+@mikegehrke = 82 mutual followers

Our study used the Twitter application www.whofollowswhom.com to sort mutual followers ofmultiple accounts. Although the Deeds campaign official Twitter feed had more than 3700

followers, only 3% of these also followed any of the Deeds senior staff who were tweeting

unique information about the campaign. Unless voters were willing to follow multiple Twitter

accounts, they were missing vital messages that the Deeds campaign wished to communicate

online.

A similar trend was found among the Christie campaign in New Jersey, which created a separate

Twitter account for running mate Kim Guadagno (@sheriffkim). Combined with @students4chris,

the three Christie campaign accounts only shared 27 mutual followers.


18/23

Staff Tags on Tweets

General Staff DisclaimerSpecific Staff Tags

Campaigns relying on a single Twitter account used special tags to distinguish betweenTweets by the candidate and tweets by campaign staff.


19/23

VA Tweets: Thesis vs. Transportation

Twitter Account Thesis Tweets Transportation Tweets

@CreighDeeds 0 1

@Joe_Abbey 18 7

@MoElleithee 57 20

@mikegehrke 12 8

@BobsThesis 24 0

@DeedsCountry 0 0

Total 111 36

The Deeds campaign focused considerable attention on Bob McDonnells 1989 Regent University

thesis. This focus was evident on Twitter as well. The Deeds campaign created a specialized

Twitter account (@BobsThesis) which focused exclusively on the thesis and media coverage of

the controversy. Across the multiple Deeds campaign Twitter feeds, tweets about the thesis

exceeded tweets about transportation by a ratio of 3-to-1.


20/23

NJ Tweets: Taxes vs. Scandal

The Christie campaign focused on the high rates of property taxes in New Jersey. This focus wasevident on Twitter. @ChristieforNJ raised the issue of property taxes in a variety of contexts. The

Christie campaign integrated Twitter into its earned media campaign, tweeting about stops of

overtaxed municipalities during its Countdown to Change Bus Tour. The Christie campaign

placed a similar focus on government ethics, public corruption and a series of political scandals

taking place in New Jersey. Collectively, tweets about taxes and scandal made up 15% of the

Christie campaigns Twitter feed.

46 tweets mentioning taxes

15 tweets mentioning corruption

10 tweets mentioning ethics

4 tweets mentioning local scandals


21/23

NJ: A Tweet is Worth 1000 Pixels

JonCorzine Photo Source ChristieforNJ

176 TwitPic 140

33 Flickr 1

10 yfrog 12

23 Misc. Photo Links 0

242 Total 153

Both the Corzine and Christie campaign used social media tools such as TwitPic and Flickr to sharecampaign photos via Twitter. The use of this technology by both campaigns led to an arms race in

which each side tried to dominate the medium. As a result, photos accounted for a disproportionate

share of the feed. Approximately one out of every three tweets by the Corzine and Christie

campaigns was a link to a campaign photo.


22/23

The Obama Factor

@CreighDeeds : 6 mentions

Many pundits observed that Corzine repeatedly linked himself to President Obama, while

Deeds tried to both distance himself from among swing voters while embracing Obama among

surge voters. This disparity was evident on Twitter. In Massachusetts, President Obama was

deployed late in the campaign: the first Obama reference on @MarthaCoakley was made on

January 13th, just six days before the election.

@JonCorzine: 57 mentions @MarthaCoakley: 17 mentions


23/23

Twitter Campaign Best Practices

One Account per Campaign: Campaigns should resist the temptation to create a new Twitteraccount for each issue or micro-campaign that they are running. Multiple accounts breed

message dilution. Staff should limit their own tweeting on campaign topics. Recurring issues

and themes can be highlighted by creating appropriate hashtags on a unified Twitter feed.

Preserve Authenticity: Campaigns should distinguish between candidate and staff tweets on

the Twitter feed. Twitter is a medium that thrives on authenticity. A staff-driven account will

lack authenticity. However, many candidates focus too much on personal observations and

forfeit the opportunity to communicate campaign messages. Balance is required.

Include Calls to Action: Campaigns should issue at least 3 call-to-action tweets per week, with

a goal of making such tweets 10-20% of the feed. Calls to action should be varied requests for

volunteers, fundraising, voter registration, etc.

Integrate but not overuse other social media: Sharing behind-the-scenes campaign photos

creates authenticity. Posting out-of-focus podium shots from every campaign rally does not.

Campaigns should amplify their Twitter feed with other social media such as photo-sharingsites. But photos should be used sparingly to avoid becoming a distraction.

Links to External Content: Campaigns should link frequently to news media, polls, and

independent blogs as sources of third-party validation. Creating a stream of campaign news

curated by the campaign itself will drive traffic to the Twitter feed and encourage voters to

follow the feed and retweet these links.

Documents

Twitter Trends in 2009 Elections