Social media usage by candidates in the 2011 Irish General Election
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I’m only knee deep in the results, but they are already looking very interesting…
The personality of the presidency candidates
View more presentations from Ciarán Mc Mahon.
Oct 192011
Well, this isn’t as interesting as I might have expected. In fact, it’s a little bit odd, as the shape of the field hasn’t changed much, only in a few minor places
| Candidate | Twitter followers | Increase | Facebook fans | Increase |
| Davis, Mary | 2,512 | 415 (20%) | 2,496 | 109 (5%) |
| Gallagher, Seán | 8,593 | 1,092 (15%) | 27,535 |
3,990 (17%) |
| Higgins, Michael D. | 6,691 | 483 (8%) | 4,017 | 416 (12%) |
| Mitchell, Gay | 1,987 | 147 (8%) | 1,250 | 116 (10%) |
| McGuinness, Martin | 2,890 | 426 (17%) | 8,497 | 894 (12%) |
| Norris, David | 22,156 | 420 (2%) | 25,620 | 71 (0%) |
| Scallon, Dana Rosemary | 546 | 197 (56%) | 709 | 479 (208%) |
Analysis
Gallagher clearly still has plenty of momentum, adding more Twitter followers this week than McGuinness, Norris and Scallon combined, and nearly adding more Facebook fans this week than Higgins has managed to achieve in his entire campaign – and yet, this wasn’t a particularly good week for him. So he might slow down in the next week, but there is only one left…
Oddly enough, Davis improved her Twitter total by 20% on last week’s, suggesting she may shore up her urban vote. McGuinness is still doing reasonably well, but doesn’t look like he can change the state of the field. Higgins slows down, for yet another week. As for Mitchell, if this was a general election, I could safely say that on those numbers he has a 65% chance of getting a seat. I’ll explain more about that later on, but for now, it looks like himself and Scallon are fighting for their expenses.
Thanks to everyone who took pity on my begging for participation in my Presidency and Personality Survey last week – still running and looking for more!
Oct 122011
One of the fascinating thing about making predictions about human behaviour is that as soon as you start to get good at it, it’s inevitable that you will once again get bad at it again before long. The events of the last week have been, for me, a startling reflection of that reality.
| Candidate | Twitter followers | Increase | Facebook fans | Increase |
| Davis, Mary | 2,097 | 222 (12%) | 2,387 | 114 (5%) |
| Gallagher, Seán | 7,501 | 1,103 (17%) | 23,545 |
6,590 (39%) |
| Higgins, Michael D. | 6,136 | 527 (9%) | 3,601 | 518 (17%) |
| Mitchell, Gay | 1,840 | 217 (13%) | 1,134 | 139 (14%) |
| McGuinness, Martin | 2,464 | 424 (21%) | 7,603 | 1,011 (15%) |
| Norris, David | 21,736 | 135 (1%) | 25,531 | -13 (0%) |
| Scallon, Dana Rosemary | 349 | n/a | 230 | n/a |
Analysis
It seems that no sooner had I said that social media users rarely unfollow or unlike accounts, that users began to do so. Admittedly, only 13 of Norris’ 25k Facebook fans clicked on the ‘unlike’ button, but that’s still quite significant: even through the whole General Election campaign, I don’t recall noticing any more than a handful of candidates losing numbers on Facebook, and even then it was only every by one or two fans. Hence, losing thirteen in a week is indicative of wider problems, which can be further seen in his meagre performance on Twitter.
Elsewhere we see that most of the candidates have not really increased their share in the last seven days to the same extent as they did in the previous week. In real terms, this basically means that fewer people have met them, either ‘in real life’ or via their representations online, and wanted to be associated with them in social media. Or, to put in the way that the candidates like to do themselves, fewer people have wanted to ‘joing their campaign’ this week than last week.
Only one candidate has managed to increase his support by the same percentage this week as he did last week; namely Gallagher’s impressive performance on Facebook. On the one hand, this may be something to do with the increased interest in his campagn with the publication of the latest opinion polls, yet on the other, this week’s increase in support for Gallagher is of the same order as last week. Those poll results, which seemed to shock the national media, were of no great surprise to readers of Candidate.ie who will have noted Gallagher’s ‘remarkable performance‘ as long as three months ago. Can he keep this up? I suppose he only increased his Twitter support by 15% which is less than the 25% he added the week before, so he could be slowing up. But that 15% is 1,103 accounts, more than Higgins, Mitchell and McGuinness added together…
Speaking of the other candidates, there isn’t really much to be said. Some second week fatigue may have set in. All of their numbers are rising, even Mitchell’s, and Scallon has opened her account. They can be relatively pleased, as their meagre holdings have survived. On the other hand, the first division players, Higgins and McGuinness, may have some cause for concern. Neither really added a whole hill of beans in either the Facebook or Twitter constituencies, which doesn’t speak much for their momentum, particularly in the light of their numbers last week – though both of these trajectories were to be expected.
What happens next? Scallon will obviously jump, but will always be off the pace. I suspect that Mitchell will eventually marshall his troops past Davis, at least on Twitter. I wouldn’t be surprised if Higgins slows more in this week, saving some fight for the final furlong, and there may be some slowing also for McGuinness, though it won’t be of the order of Norris, which will probably be more profound than this week. I suspect that Gallagher will continue to rise, overtaking Norris on Facebook, though not reaching him on Twitter, yet. Obviously, these will be affected by the release of opinion polls, and to a lesser extent, television debates, but if Gallagher continues to look like a winner, people will be attracted to his social media presence in viral fashion.
PS if you have the time, please participate in my other Áras 11 project: a very quick survey of your impressions of the candidates’ personalities - thank you!
After a full week of campaigning, there have been a number of changes to the state of play – some obvious, and some slightly more subtle. Bowing to immense public pressure, I have removed the controversial Myspace column. To make things a little more interesting, I’ve added columns to illustrate the increases in support since last week for each candidate. Below I explain the movements as best I can. At the outset though, it should be noted that, as we’ve seen from the General Election campaign, these numbers tend to only go up, which is why the column is labelled ‘Increase’ and not ‘Change’. Social media users rarely unfollow or unlike accounts, and hence the aim for the candidate and their team is not just to get a large audience, but to continually keep increasing that audience. In the first week of this campaign, some have been more successful in that regard than others.
| Candidate | Twitter followers | Increase | Facebook fans | Increase |
| Davis, Mary | 1,875 | 501 (36%) | 2,273 | 435 (24%) |
| Gallagher, Seán | 6,398 | 1,290 (25%) | 16,995 |
3,786 (29%) |
| Higgins, Michael D. | 5,609 | 798 (17%) | 3,083 | 584 (23%) |
| Mitchell, Gay | 1,623 | 433 (36%) | 995 | 229 (30%) |
| McGuinness, Martin | 2,040 | 765 (60%) | 6,592 | 2,558 (63%) |
| Norris, David | 21,601 | 890 (4%) | 25,544 | 14,247 (126%) |
| Scallon, Dana Rosemary | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Analysis:
Starting with the front-runner, while it might seem that Norris is having a phenomenal week, the opposite is actually the case. Since nominations closed, it appears that his team have made the sensible decision to join forces with the (previously unofficial?) ‘We Want Norris’ campaign. As I mentioned last week, his official ‘Senator David Norris’ Facebook page had roughly half the number of fans that the ‘We Want Norris’ page did. The former has now been closed, the latter is now labelled ‘official’. Hence the 126% jump in fans is illusory, and should really be viewed alongside the much less impressive 4% increase in Twitter followers. More to the point, though I don’t have any figures, I seem to recall that the ‘We Want Norris’ page had about 21/22k fans last week, so a rise to 25k isn’t great either. Overall, while Norris is still able to reach vastly more social media users than the other candidates, it does seem that his ability to add new supporters is slowing, relative to that of the other candidates.
In comparison, Gallagher is still adding a steady amount of support to his campaign in both social media constituencies. At this rate, while unlikely to reach him on Twitter, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he may reach Norris again on Facebook. It would be surprising if this level of support was not replicated, even to a minor extent, in traditional polling, in the same way that McGuinness’ ability to increase his support in both Twitter and Facebook by a phenomenal 60% is also expected to be in evidence. The latter’s ability to continually add these huge levels of support, in comparison to other, larger parties’ candidates is once again evidence of Sinn Féin’s impressive marshalling of their social media supporters.
In other news, Mitchell appears to have started his campaign, Davis is making moderate progress, and Higgins is possibly showing signs of slowing up. Both Higgins and Mitchell’s support levels are still lopsided, with more support on Twitter than on Facebook. Given that the latter constituency has more of a national base than the former’s more urban appeal, I would be happier with Davis’s social media profile.
Will these levels of support, or even the order of superiority be reflected in tomorrow’s opinion polls? It’s difficult to know – this is a completely different kettle of fish to the general election, and despite the television debates and related coverage, there are still only 40k people on Twitter and 55k on Facebook involved with these campaigns. Each campaign, even purely in terms of social media, regardless of the candidate’s personality, is highly idiosyncratic and difficult to compare. Still though, the one thing which is emerging from these numbers, regardless of total levels of support, is that it may be possible to get a sense of political momentum from them. In that regard, Norris has slowed, Gallagher continues to doing well, McGuinness is at a high and possibly unsustainable speed, Higgins is slowing, and the rest are just about ticking over. Those are the trends I’ll be keeping an eye out for in the coming week.
PS if you have the time, please participate in my other Áras 11 project: a very quick survey of your impressions of the candidates’ personalities - thank you!
Sep 282011
This post leaves my keyboard with me doubly pleased – on the one hand, the race to get into the race is over, thankfully; and on the other, several of the predictions I made last week came to pass. I also got to add a silly Myspace column which pleases me no end. Candidates should not take this as encouragement to begin uploading demo recordings.
| Candidate | Twitter followers | Facebook fans | Myspace friends |
| Davis, Mary | 1,374 | 1,838 | 0 |
| Gallagher, Seán | 5,108 | 13,169 | 0 |
| Higgins, Michael D. | 4,811 | 2,499 | 0 |
| Mitchell, Gay | 1,190 | 766 | 0 |
| McGuinness, Martin | 1,275 | 4,034 | 0 |
| Norris, David | 20,711 | 11,297 | 0 |
| Scallon, Dana Rosemary | 0 | 0 | 88 |
Analysis:
Again, Mitchell continues to tank, though his relative improvement on Twitter suggests that he does still have a reasonable Dublin vote. Davis is continuing to climb, but not by a whole hill of beans. Both of these will need to pick up the pace considerably and quickly if they are going to be in the shakedown. Higgins is holding his own and increasing steadily. However, as predicted, McGuinness’ Facebook tally has already outstripped all but the clear frontrunners, and even his Twitter total has doubled. This is impressive, but he is still a long way off Gallagher, who is still ahead of Norris’ official Facebook page. This is impressive, but it’s curious that it hasn’t translated into polling figures, yet. Norris will pass him out in the next week, and his Twitter support, reflecting his urban base, will remain unassailable til then end of the campaign.
Other than that, what can we expect in the next week? Well, presumably Mitchell’s campaign will start at some stage and the Áras 11 equivalent of the famous ‘Twolicy’ will lead Fine Gael supporters to begin ‘liking’ his page in large numbers. He may reach Davis by next week, but I wouldn’t be betting on it. Davis will continue her slow and steady growth, as will Higgins, but McGuinness will climb a lot faster, though it will be the week after next before he doubles his current total, both on Facebook and Twitter. Gallagher already seems to be slowing down, and it’s likely that his ‘no poster’ policy will bite. Norris’ numbers, in actuality, are struggling, as one of his unofficial pages has twice the Facebook fans as the one linked above. But he will continue to rise, as getting onto the ballot provides a boost.
Hence, the main movers this week will probably be McGuinness and Mitchell, though the debates will have unpredictable effects. Scallon may make an appearance at some stage, though she may be content with her dominance of the Myspace constituency and leave it at that (!) Do stay tuned to this page, I will be launching a new survey very soon!
Sep 212011
As this pre-campaign campaign drags on for another week, and with nomination shenanigans still underway, it feels that this post may be entirely redundant by the time it’s posted. At the same time it’s interesting to see how the latest holder of completed nomination papers matches up with his competitors.
| Candidate | Party | Twitter followers | Facebook fans |
| Davis, Mary | Independent | 1306 | 1639 |
| Gallagher, Seán | Independent | 4691 | 12570 |
| Higgins, Michael D. | Labour | 4395 | 2317 |
| Mitchell, Gay | Fine Gael | 974 | 665 |
| McGuinness, Martin | Sinn Féin | 665 | 1197 |
Analysis:
Again, while he might not be featuring highly in the mainstream polls, Gallagher is still looking good. In the last three weeks he’s managed to add almost as many Facebook fans as his closest rival has to date. He is also still ahead on Twitter followers. While Davis is steadily rising in both social media constituencies, she is still light years away from the lead. Higgins is doing reasonably well, but it’s a toss-up as to whether his position could be described as ‘holding his own’ or ‘treading water’. Having said that, he is doing fantastically compared to the other government candidate, who is languishing at the bottom of the pool. In fact, Mitchell has already been overtaken, and royally so, by the latest entrant to the field, who is picking up social media support at a phenomenal rate. It would not be unreasonable to expect that McGuinness will have made second or third place in the Facebook stakes by the close of nominations, but there are a number of other issues involved, not merely the ostensibly sleeping giant aforementioned, but also the possible re-entry to the race of its previous front-runner, Senator Norris.
What can be predicted of these numbers, before the close of nominations? I expect that on Facebook, Gallagher will still be in the lead, but that McGuinness will have overtaken Davis, and probably Higgins too, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Davis overtakes Higgins eventually. Mitchell will continue to languish and will not pick up support for another fortnight or so. On Twitter, Gallagher will continue to lead, but Higgins will close the gap and may overtake him there in due course. Davis will continue to rise, and Mitchell may make some movement, but not much. Inevitably McGuinness will rise also, but not as dramatically as on Facebook as this is Sinn Féin’s preferred constituency.
Of course, these predictions all assume that Norris won’t get on the ticket by next week, but I have a funny feeling he will….
Sep 012011
Now that we have an election date, it’s time to take a closer look at the field. Fianna Fáil are not fielding a candidate, so that gives the final list more shape, though we will have to wait for another week for Sinn Féin to show their hand. Possibly another independent yet to announce, but we’ll have to do with what we have for the time being.
| Candidate | Party |  |
 |
| Davis, Mary | Independent | 830 followers | 1241 fans |
| Gallagher, Seán | Independent | 4226 followers | 10586 fans |
| Higgins, Michael D. | Labour | 4049 followers | 2097 fans |
| Mitchell, Gay | Fine Gael | 734 followers | 489 fans |
Analysis:
There’s no point in beating about the bush here: with the exit of Norris, on the basis of these numbers, the only candidate who really looks like they are running a Presidential campaign is Gallagher. Higgins is catching up on Twitter, but is miles away on Facebook. As I’ve said before, Twitter support is most important in an urban context, Facebook has a broader appeal and is a much better indicator of actual support. It is also very surprising that Mitchell continues to be superseded in both social networks by Davis. Of course the campaign proper hasn’t begun yet, but by the time it has, about eleven thousand people across the country will be receiving daily updates from Gallagher – a number which is multiples of the other candidates’ Facebook support put together. An interesting campaign awaits…
Jul 262011
I’ve taken a while to come back to this, to allow some of the nominations process to settle. For reasons of expediency, I have decided to remove those independent candidates who have not yet received the nominal support of at least one county council. Furthermore, I have removed those whose parties have not yet declared a candidate. As such, the field is beginning to look very interesting.
| Candidate | Party | |
|
| Davis, Mary | Independent | 553 followers | 889 fans |
| Gallagher, Seán | Independent | 3703 followers | 6971 fans |
| Higgins, Michael D. | Labour | 3402 followers | 1810 fans |
| Mitchell, Gay | Fine Gael | 454 followers | 319 fans |
| Norris, David | Independent | 17523 followers | 9292 fans |
Analysis: on the face of it, this is a remarkable performance from Gallagher. At the last post, it was noted that he had reached the upperbound limit of his regular Facebook friend account (5000 maximum). The fanpage listed above was created on the 4th of July, which means he has managed to convert 5000 friends to fans, and add nearly another two thousand in about three weeks. Norris is clearly streets ahead, with roughly 68% of the Twitter constituency and 48% of Facebook, which to a certain extent corresponds to an urban/ rural divide. In that respect, the low showing on Twitter by the Dublin-based Fine Gael candidate might be some cause for concern, but then he may still be on his holidays…
These links and figures are correct, to the best of my knowledge, as of 6pm, Tuesday, 26th July, 2011. If you have any comments or clarifications to make, please let me know in the form below.
The final furlong…
Take a look for yourselves…
Analysis
This is really something else. Besides the also-rans, about whom it is difficult to say much, the movement of support for the two main competitors according to the traditional polls, is quite astonishing.
In terms of Facebook popularity, Gallagher has had his best week since the campaign began, adding a whopping 13k fans, improving on last week by 46%.
But by the same token, Higgins added more fans this week in any previously. While he only added 2k, this is one of the bigger relative jump than any candidate has had (apart from McGuinness in the first week).
Which is the real momentum? It’s very hard to know, but it certainly looks like Higgins has a much better chance now than he did last week.