Tracking presidential candidates on Facebook and Twitter

12 Apr

The Iowa Caucuses are eight months away, and we’re still waiting to hear which GOP candidates will officially run for President.

Which makes this an ideal time to start tracking potential candidates on Facebook and Twitter. Do any of the candidates show signs that they are beginning to test the waters by growing their social media followers?

So far, not really. Below is a look at how potential candidates’ social media followers/likes have grown in the past few weeks.

Some notes

  • On Facebook, the candidates from four years ago (Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul) still lead the way.
  • On Twitter, Newt Gingrich has more than twice as many followers as any other candidate, but he hasn’t shown much increase in the past few weeks.
  • Among newcomers, Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump are leading the charge. (Bachmann has two pages that are showing growth. Also, I just added The Donald to the list.)
  • Barack Obama has 19,115,629 Facbeook likes and 7,371,607 Twitter followers.

GOP candidates on Facebook

Candidate Facebook 3/26 Facebook 4/4 Facebook 4/12 # increase % increase
Sarah Palin 2,846,416 2,859,465 2,876,390 29,974 1.05%
Mitt Romney 830,289 836,399 843,763 13,474 1.62%
Mike Huckabee 554,856 558,594 563,822 8,966 1.62%
Ron Paul 314,789 317,046 320,751 5,962 1.89%
Donald Trump     220,985    
Michele Bachmann 1 204,812 210,851 217,033 12,221 5.97%
Newt Gingrich 119,281 120,496 121,140 1,859 1.56%
Michele Bachmann 2 113,901 116,362 119,386 5,485 4.82%
Tim Pawlenty 80,953 81,581 82,311 1,358 1.68%
John Thune 74,923 74,868 74,856 -67 -0.09%
Herman Cain     61,881    
Mike Pence 47,799 47,838 47,965 166 0.35%
Mitch Daniels 45,389 45,988 46,488 1,099 2.42%
Haley Barbour 17,655 17,763 17,815 160 0.91%
Rick Santorum 13,358 13,458 13,527 169 1.27%
Jon Huntsman 1,639 1,659 1,710 71 4.33%

 

GOP candidates on Twitter

Candidate Twitter 3/26 Twitter 4/4 Twitter 4/12 # increase % increase
Newt Gingrich 1,312,588 1,313,996 1,314,261 1,673 0.13%
Donald Trump     486,445    
Sarah Palin 461,276 471,586 479,335 18,059 3.92%
Mike Huckabee 139,369 142,094 144,593 5,224 3.75%
Michele Bachmann 38,952 39,988 41,775 2,823 7.25%
Ron Paul 37,563 38,768 40,181 2,618 6.97%
Mitt Romney 30,858 31,764 34,288 3,430 11.12%
Tim Pawlenty 28,323 29,076 29,918 1,595 5.63%
Mike Pence 20,808 21,158 21,637 829 3.98%
Herman Cain     20,792    
John Thune 15,003 15,203 15,449 446 2.97%
Haley Barbour 13,006 13,448 13,893 887 6.82%
Rick Santorum 5,739 5,870 6,061 322 5.61%
Mitch Daniels 5,610 5,720 5,834 224 3.99%
Jon Huntsman 1,755 1,773 1,811 56 3.19%

 

Trackbacks and Pingbacks

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  2. Tracking the Presidential candidates on Facebook and Twitter | Chris Snider - October 31, 2011

    [...] Mitt Romney is seeing a large growth on Twitter. Romney has not seen huge recent growth on Facebook, but he already had a strong following there (with more than 800,000 followers as far back as March). [...]