Lots of pundits have predicted that the Internet in general and social media in particular is going to be an important battleground in the upcoming US presidential election.
Using
InfluenceMonitor I took at look at how some of the major candidates and issues fare in social media.
All data cover the period from January 1st to March 31st 2007. The media type analysed are all feed-publishing media, including blogs, social networks, forums, new and old media brands.
Figure 1 (below) shows the share of raw buzz or share-of-voice each of the analysed candidates got in social media in period analysed.
When measuring share-of-voice all voices are treated with equal weight.
Share-of-voice does not give a very correct picture as some voices have much more influence on a topic than others. But by calculating the topical influence of each voice and using that as a weighting factor we can transform share-of-voice to share-of-impact.
Figure 2 (below) shows the share-of-impact for each of the analysed candidates.
By comparing each candidates share-of-voice with their share-of-impact we can make a few interesting observations.
Notice how Rudy Giuliani’s share-of-voice is substantially less than his share-of-impact. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has more share-of-impact than share-of-voice.
From this we can conclude that the voices that speak about Mr. Obama have a tendency to have more influence on the topic analysed OR that he is more often mentioned more exclusively.
Mr. Giuliani on the other hand, is more often mentioned by voices with lower influence on the US presidential election.
One potential conclusion to this could be that Mr. Giuliani is more of “the people’s man” and Mr. Obama is more of a media story, since individual bloggers have less influence on this topic than a number of large media properties.
Figures 3 and 4 (below) show how the share-of- voice and the share-of-impact developed over the first 3 months of the year.
(Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson are missing from the legend but they are the two top most properties of each bar. See Table 2 for the colour coding.)
It is clear that Hillary Clinton’s impact has gone down over that period, even more than her share-of-voice would suggest. Also notice how Fred Thompson’s share-of-impact is growing over his share-of-voice reflecting the fact that his initial coverage was in less influential media but that more influential media (read traditional large media outlets) have increased the coverage of him and his efforts.
Figures 5 and 6 (below) show the share-of-voice and share-of-impact for some of the main issues of the presidential campaign so far.
Notice that while Iraq is THE big issue it has substantially more share-of-impact than share-of-voice reflecting the fact that it is more of a media issue than an issue for individual writers.
Religion, Human Rights and Abortion are, on the other hand, issues that command much more coverage in less influential than in very influential media. This could reflect the fact that these issues are important to average voters and somewhat overlooked by big media.
Figures 7 and 8 show how the share-of-voice and share-of-impact for the selected issues developed over the first 3 months of the year.
Iraq seems to be slipping as topic while the topic of Human Rights seems to be increasing. Share-of-voice for Religion is steady but its share-of-impact is growing.
Figures 9 and 10 show the share-of-voice and share-of-impact of the issues for each candidate.
(The leftmost “John” is John McCain and the other “John” is John Edwards)
Notice how abortion is a bigger issue when the talk is about Rudy Giuliani, reflecting the fact that he is a “pro choice” republican.
You can get the real-time version of most of the graphs on our
home page.
