Social Media Impact on Election: Analysis on 2015 UK General Election

(Comparison with the US)

Research paper submitted for
World Political Information class

By
Tselmeg Chuluunbaatar
Tsogtbaatar Baatartsogt

Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to analyze through literature review, internet monitoring reports
and research results already available to determine the impact of social media use on election
and whether it successfully predicts election result. In order to answer the questions, this paper
will compare the usage of social media during the election time in both United States and
United Kingdom. More specifically, concentrating on the UK General Election 2015, and
comparing with 2008 and 2012 US presidential election, and 2010 UK and. In comparison of
the election we are hoping to find correlation between the tweet mentions, followers, number
of fans on facebook pages, video uploads, comments etc with the result of the election and
whether it helped to determine the outcome. For this research, most used three social media
platforms with over 1 billion users; Facebook, Youtube and Twitter data were studied in order
to analyze the impact on election campaign, moreover the result. The social media prediction
hypothesis has been not supported but the impact over the election process as engaging younger
citizen, more information is inevitable.

Introduction
Social media has become a ubiquitous part of daily life not simply service that helps connect
people through cyberspace, it has changed the way we communicate, gather and share
information, and given rise to a connected global society even more how politics proceed and
participatory role of people for politics. Traditional mass media idea of the source-messagechannel-receiver (SMCR) model, basically one-way communication where a message is
encoded with a source, transmitted through a given channel, and is decoded and distributed
through the receiver with only limited opportunity for feedback. However, this has changed
with the social media platform and creation of Web 2.0 where exchange of user-generated
content in real time is possible. Social media is monitored, and SNS marketing is shaping the
world, moreover the matter of knowing public opinion and how the mass view the reality is
important. In recent years with its rapid growth, using social media for political discourse is
becoming common practice, especially around election time. Microblogging services such as
Twitter and social network sites (Facebook) are believed to have the potential for increasing
political participation. Even though the internet is still not the only means of winning an
election. The strategic importance of the internet has been widely recognized by both
politicians and the general public thus without a wide range of online activities and being
recognizably present on the most important social media platforms, some decisive votes may
be lost.
Social media are changing the way politicians communicate with their electorate. Their
monologue turned into a dialogue with potential voters. Each social media platform enables a
different way of engaging the audience, which is one of the primary goals of all social media
activities. To recap, the level of users engagement shows whether a politician successes in
provoking a reaction from the part of the audience which may constitute a carrier of viral
content.
In 2008, Barack Obama successfully used the social media platform for the bid of US
Presidential Election through his online strategy that used the new media which made it to be
revolutionary in online campaigning and finance than any other prior politicians who used the
internet. Since the victory of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 presidential election, the
importance of online campaigning has increased and social media has been a high priority for
election analysts.

UK is one of the highest internet penetrated nation with high number of active social media
users. It has been debatable between studies whether the general election in 2005, 2010 or 2015
has been the first social internet elections. Some have considered the 2010 to be the first internet
election, as during the 2005 election, the social media sites were not highly penetrated as the
United States. While some scholars have concluded it to be failure as a media elections.
But when talking about social media election, it is important whether if it is that something
happen online which influenced voters and changed the course of the campaign or the overall
effect the social media campaign has over the result. To see whether the successful online
strategy has been rooted in recent elections in UK, research question and hypotheses has been
developed.
RQ1: Have social media data predicted the election?
Hypothesis1: Social media has predicted the UK General Election 2015 result
Hypothesis2: Social medias impact on election will grow in the future
In order to answer the research question provided above and the hypotheses, this research will
analyze the result of the UK General Election held on 7 May, 2015. Data collected by Sotrender
were used for this study, which analyzed the data from official Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles
and YouTube channels of the parties participating in the UK General Election, which are the
five biggest UK political parties (The Labour Party, Green Party of England and Wales, The
Conservatives, UK Independence Party, Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party).
Analyzing the data in accordance with the final result of the election will determine whether
social media has impact over the votes. Also, the social media impact change since the 2010
general election. We will seek to answer whether UK successfully engage in developing more
sophisticated digital strategies as the US have done?
United States
The United States Presidential Election is held every four years, on Election Day- the Tuesday
between November 2-8 coinciding with the general elections of various other federal, states
and local races. It is an indirect voting in which the citizens cast ballots for a slate of members
of the US Electoral College, where they in turn directly elect the President as well the Vice
President.
US Presidential Election 2008
US elections have always been trend-setters regarding instruments and strategies. The 2008
3

Presidential Election has been a groundbreaking one. Not just for the reason Barack Obama as
the first African American president to be elected but also the first American elections to
effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. Metrics such as his number of fans
on Facebook, his number of followers on Twitter, the number of videos on his YouTube channel
and the number of views for these videos, as well as the large community of bloggers under
the umbrella of his own social network mybarackobama.com, all were interpreted as numbers
which indicated the high level of interaction from volunteers and voters with his political
message, which ultimately contributed to his election
In the general election battle, Obamas campaign has remained deeply active in the social
networking world and has maintained dominance over McCain. McCain has stepped up his
presence in the social networking world, but there is still had a long gap. (Figure 1)
A look at numbers from the day before the general election indicated that the Obama campaign
was more active with social media than the McCain campaign. On Facebook, Obama had
2,379,102 supporters. McCain had 620,359. On Twitter, Obama had 112,474 followers to
McCains 4,603. On YouTube, there were more than 18 million channel views for Obama,
compared to just 2 million channel views for McCain. As some observers have since noted, the
cost of purchasing that kind of air time would have taxed the finances of any campaign, even
one as well-funded as Obamas. In other words, social media can function as a highly relevant
Obamas use of social media including Twitter also allowed him to increase voter
turnout among young people, a voting group notorious for low-turnout. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau an estimated,22 million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in the
2008 presidential election, two million more voters than in the 2004. The youth voter turnout
rose to 51 percent, an increase of two percentage points from 2004.1
The techniques that were most significant to enable the Obama 08 campaign to translate online
activity to on-the-ground activity included: targeted messages facilitated by social media and
Web 2.0 tools, Web-facilitated hosted meetings, the mobilization of the Obama network of
supporters, promoting active civic engagement, enabling peer-to-peer political campaigning,
educating the public on issues and organizational strategies, enabling voters to make informed
decisions, mobilizing the ground game, Web-facilitated canvassing and phoning, and raising

Wortham .J. The Presidential Campaign on Social Media. New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/08/technology/campaign-social-media.html?_r=0

money.
Year

Presidential
Candidate

Party

Electoral Twitter
Facebook
votes
followers supporters

Youtube
views

2008

Barack
Obama

Democratic

365

112,474

2,379,102

18million

John
McCain

Republican

173

4,603

620, 359

2million

Table 1: 2008 US Presidential Election candidates data

Source: Pew Research

US Presidential Election 2012

Obamas 2012 Presidential campaign forged ahead in using all facets of social media including
the social news website Reddit leaving the Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney
badly outmatched Obama campaign posted nearly four times as much content as the Romney
campaign and was active on nearly twice as many platforms. (Figure 2.1; 2.2) . The Obama
campaign spent $47 million on digital campaigning compared to $4.7 million by the Romney
campaign. A New York Times interactive from October of 2012 clearly showed the extent to
the gap between the candidates when it came to digital campaigning. Obama had 20 million
Twitter followers to Romneys 1.2 million, 29 million Facebook Likes to 7.9 million
Facebook Likes for Romney. Barack Obama had a majority win over his opponents in the
presidential election in 2008 and 2012. Without a doubt social media campaigning has played
an important role in the final result.
Obama dominated the social media space because his team got how networks work. The real
power of social media is not in the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured
by content spreadability. For example, Obama logged twice as many Facebook Likes and
nearly 20 times as many re-tweets as Romney.
According to a study conducted by the George Washington University, "The 2012 Social
Media Election Survey: Key Lessons to Inform Decision-Making in Politics & Business,
overall, 29 percent of the respondents have said social media was moderately to extremely
influential in their opinions of the candidates and issues. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) said
the quality of information about the candidates and issues on social media was the same or
better than that from traditional media. Approximately 40 percent participated in a political

discussion with others in their social networks and 28 percent said they displayed their political
affiliation on their networks.
Year

2012

Presidential
Candidate

Party

Electoral
votes

Twitter
followers

Facebook
likes

Barack
Obama

Democratic

332

20million

29million

Mitt
Romney

Republican

206

1.2million 7.9million

Table 2: 2012 US Presidential Election candidates data

Source: Per Research

UK
United Kingdom general elections are held every five years following the Fixed-term
Parliaments Act 2011, or the only way that an early election can be called is in a vote by a
majority of the House. All the Members of Parliament (MPs) forming the House of Commons
of the Parliament of the United Kingdom are elected. The general election was held on 6 May
2010 and 7 May 2015 to elect the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom.
2010 General Election
According to the Internet World Stat, UK had 51.4million active internet users. During the
2010 General Election, there were high hopes that new forms of personal expression through
blogs and social networks would widen participation and the range of democratic voices.
Ironically, the biggest media story of the 2010 election ended up being a television event: a set
piece leadership debate which turned the campaign on its head with the internet seen as
something of a sideshow. Deloitte research says, television debates changed the voting
intentions of a million people, but social media merely "complemented and amplified".

For

the sceptics, this was proof that old media still called the shots and that the claims of the digital
evangelists were overblown. In all, TV was still a crucial technology for the 2010 campaign.
In 2010, the election had much attention focused on how politicians, commentators and voters
would respond to ground-breaking digital campaigns. More than 60 percent of all UK residents
are participating in the media world, creating an instant platform for observation and debate.
The average age of Facebook users was 38 and Twitter users was 39.
A YouGov poll commission by Orange found that 57% had found out information about the

The 2012 Social Media Election Survey: Key Lessons to Inform Decision-Making in Politics & Business, The
George Washington University-The Graduate School of Political Management, January 2014.

election through online means. A particular finding was how many young people interacted
with that material stating at least 24% of the 18-24 year old group had left comments on
social media sites about the election3
The national parties have set up a website dedicated to members/supporters emails and social
network sites to organize local campaigns, raise money and recruit volunteers. Possibly
inspired by the hugely successful MyBarackObama.com. Barack Obama understood that you
could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection
and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow
people to self-organize to do the work.4
Restrictions to political advertising on polling day do not apply online as they do in TV, radio
or print. According to Experian Hitwise, which tracks online traffic, the Conservative
Party was the most successful in driving traffic to its core political website. (Figure 3)
In total, 200,000 people signed up to the combined Facebook fan pages for David Cameron
and the Conservative Party, where there were links to official party videos or information on
the main website. Labour party was able to attract over 65,564 fans while Liberal with more
97,759 fans on their Facebook page.
According to the survey, Facebook dominated the media behavior of the 18-24 age group, with
an emphatic 97% saying they used the site during the election. The same age group used the
web more than any other source of news 89%, compared with 81% for TV and 59% for
newspapers.
According to the Democracy UK on Facebook, on 5th of May-with a day left to the election;
Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats was the winner of a mock election held on Facebook,
with 42 percent of the vote. David Cameron of the Conservative Party came second with 31
percent, while Gordon Brown of the Labour Party finished in third with 27 percent. 5 The
Democracy UK page was launched in order to let people engage in debate, having more than
160,000 people connected to it. Report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/quarter-of-18-24-year-olds-discuss-election-via-social-networks/3013083.article

New York Times, 9 November, 2008

https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook/democracy-in-the-uk-results-of-the-social-mediaelection/387348402130

Journalism illustrates just how much impact social media had on the election, and particularly
how the engagement of younger voters may have influenced the outcome.
According to Echo Research, has found that almost half of the population has gone online to
get information about the parties and politicians concluding that the role of internet in politics
is growing as it has become the leading source of information about election.
Parties

Facebook
page fans

Twitter
followers

Tweets

Youtube
channel
views

Market
Seats
share of the
visits
to
main party
websites

Conservatives

114,658

39,321

3,000

590,396

36%

307

Labour

65,564

21,152

2,374

297,923

33%

258

Liberal Democrat 97,759

23,379

1,500

142,851

31%

57

Table 3: Social media use during the GE 2010 UK.

Source: Lessons from election 2010: local politics and social media

Despite the large numbers and the steady growth of social and personal media in the UK, most
people continued to receive their news in this election through mainstream media organizations.
The TV debates were watched by up to 10 million people, while newspaper and broadcaster
websites reported record usage. In total, over 40 million adults accessed the BBCs election
news and information each week on TV, radio and online.
However, the biggest turnaround of the 2010 election was not through social media campaign
effort but a leadership debate aired on television changed the voting intention of more than
million people according to a survey report by the consultancy firm Deloitte, and the internet
was only seen as a complementary something of a sideshow even though there has been more
than 1million tweets after the debate. The report confirms the indications that social media had
a limited impact on the overall outcome, despite the campaign being hyped as the digital
election which the debate altering the voting behavior of more than 4 per cent of the voting
population.
UK General Election 2015
UK has ranked higher than most part of the world, specifically the USA and global average in
terms of internet usage penetration and social media usage.
According to the Wearesocialsg 6 media agency research conducted in early 2015, Digital,

Wearesocial is a global media agency which combines an innate understanding of social media with
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social & Mobile in 2015, UK ranked fourth with 89% much higher than the global average of
42% internet usage by national penetration and surpassing USA with 87%. This translates into
roughly 57.3million active users in the UK.
For social media use, UK scored 59% on active accounts on the top social network compared
to the population, while the global average is 29%. The social media use has grown 6% from
the previous year same time. The 38 million UK social media users spend average of 2.2 hours
using social media each day. However, the average daily television viewing time among
internet users is 3hours 05minutes surpassing the average of the social media usage.
With the steady growth of internet user and social media users, it is obvious that people are
consuming more information and affecting the decision.
Political advertising on television and radio is banned in the UK. But during the 2015 general
election campaign, parties are placing paid-for political adverts and campaign videos on social
media to attract a potential audience of millions. According to Sotrender7, the most intense
campaign is conducted by the Labour Party, the main opposition party in the Parliament.
Sotrender analyzed the data collected from official Facebook Pages, Twitter profiles and
YouTube channels of the parties participating in the UK General Election 2015.
The Conservatives have over 400 thousand fans and their Facebook site is the biggest among
all United Kingdom political parties. Liberal Democrats with 109 thousand fans place 6th and
have the smallest Facebook Page in our ranking. Her Majestys Loyal Opposition - Labour
Party - ranks 3rd in biggest Facebook Pages with 241 thousand fans. Labour party has been the
most active party on Facebook. Within the analyzed period from March 1 to April 20, they
have had over 434 posts which is twice as more than The Conservatives and while Liberal
Democrats only had 77 posts.
Video communication has become one of the important tool to promote and influence the voters
for politicians and parties. UKIP had the most followers on YouTube with over 22 thousand
subscribers, but in the analyzed period their videos had the smallest number of views. SNP had
the number of subscribers hidden. Conservatives had over 479 thousand views to its 45 video
uploads, while the Labour party had 422 views to its 35 videos.

digital, PR, and marketing skills.

7

Sotrender is a social media analytics tool, which enables optimization of marketing activities carried
out on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as fast reporting on their results.
9

Liberal Democrat have been the most active on Twitter with over 24hundred tweets and 200
thousand followers to its official twitter accounts. Between April 4 and May 4 Labour party
managed to get over 109 thousand mentions according to Twitter data. Much of the
Conservative's success comes from David Cameron's 998,000 Twitter followers.
Parties

Facebook Facebook Most

Youtube
Youtube Youtube Twitter
Tweets Activities Seats
page fan posts
engaged channel
video
video
account
or
'fans'subscribers upload
views
followers
parties'
average
twitter
like per
account
post

Conservatives 401,857

189

2500

13,091

45

479,856

150,143

323

142,683

331

Labour

241,040

434

1200

10,251

35

422,503

200,946

1,422

276,386

232

Liberal
Democrat

109,457

77

250

4,275

32

373,958

91,292

2,424

107,783

UKIP

382,025

155

7000

22,874

61,369

95,780

1,019

221,460

SNP

193,843

205

2000

20

64,399

87,038

976

215,555

56

Table 4: Social media use among national parties during GE 2015 (March1-April20)
Source: Sotrender, PA

Limitation
This research includes election from 2008 to 2015 including two nations. Due to this fact, data
has been collected from several different sources. For the credibility, research has been chiefly
reliant on data retrieved from Pew Research, Sotrender, Wearesocial, and statistics from official
Youtube, Twitter and Facebook data centers. As the main subject of our study, the 2015 UK
General Election is relatively a recent event which lack academic opinion where mostly relied
on newspaper commentaries and analysis.
Both election systems in two countries are different in nature and system, thus mentioned
features has not been taken into account for the analysis. Only the number of fans on Facebook,
likes, number of followers on Twitter, the number of videos on YouTube channel and the
number of views for the uploaded videos for a given time has been analyzed. Moreover, the
tone of the message and feedback, internet user behavior also has been taken out. Further
research may study extensively.
Analysis has been conducted only on national parties official social media accounts whereas
US election analysis has been done on politicians social media accounts. US presidential
election has been selected for comparison for its success for this research. Further research may
include more similar cases of US congressional election with UK General Election. However,
identical case with similar condition is unlikely as two countries have its differences.
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Findings
The data provided for the US presidential election has high correlation as the winner (Barack
Obama) had significantly higher social media engagement than his opponent in both elections
since 2008 (see Table 1&2). However, the data for UK General Election has been different
depending on the social network platform. Overall Conservatives and Labour party have been
most engaging during the election campaign period, but UKIP has been doing better in
Facebook than the other gaining more than 7 thousand likes per post with second highest
number of fans on its page, while Labour leading the Twitter. Compared to the data and the
seats won through the 2015 election we can conclude that the Hypothesis1 Social media has
predicted the UK General Election 2015 result has been nullified partially. Conservatives
growth over the past five years has been slower than the other parties, while the fast growth of
the online fans and supporters for the other parties did not secure more seats for the election.
Steady growth of the social media metrics over the years have proved to have more impact on
the election supporting the hypothesis 2 Social medias impact on election will grow in the
future. However this does not mean particularly turning the voting behaviors of people but
drawing more information, process and voting for the election.
Conclusion
Social media metrics for the national parties has not predicted the outcome of the election result
for 2015 UK General Election, whereas television remained to be the mainstream information
source and influence for the audience in terms of voting intentions and its shifts in both election
in 2010 and 2015. Social media impact election in both election in two countries can be
analyzed as engaging more people by providing open source information for more younger
population, rather than turning the voting significantly.
The use of social media toolstext messaging, e-mail, photo sharing, social networking, and
the likedoes not have a single preordained outcome. Therefore, attempts to outline their
effects on political action are too often reduced to dueling anecdotes. There is no settled
consensus on what strategies work online and what does not, as there is with other political
tools such as polling and focus groups. The spending on the campaign or the fine details of
party social media strategy are still hard to come by and hard to measure. It is hard to say
whether it has been a social media election or not without a solid proof as we may never know
how influential social media was in shifting the outcome of elections. Elections are one-time
event where we cannot take out social media and rerun it.

11

Growing influence and ubiquity, specifically among younger voters, cannot be ignored.
Newman cites one of the more modest estimates, by Mori, that the voting turnout of 18- to 24year-olds increased by 7%, above the national average of 5%. Political parties know today
more and more voters especially in the apathetic 18-25-year-olds consume media
exclusively online. Much of this media is filtered through websites like Twitter, the microblogging platform, Facebook, the social network, or YouTube, the video site.
Online campaigning is undoubtedly becoming major impact on elections throughout the world.
Particularly, social media campaigns that uses social network services such as Twitter and
Facebook is now being used by most of the world in politics. It cannot be denied, but it also
isnt the most important aspect of election. However comparing the usage of SNS in politics
between United Kingdom and United States of America differs and interesting results can be
seen.
In case of UK, it has a long tradition of aristocracy in governing the nation, therefore using the
new media or technological advancement is less likely to highly impact the election results, as
the UK citizens and most people of European nations do not perceive new media on highly
dependent basis, in terms of political election.
On the other hand, the USA uses the new media strategically in elections to take advantage
because of the diversity in culture, ethnicity, and the age group of online users. In the 60s when
mass media was reaching to a new level, President J.F. Kennedy is the first one to successfully
use television campaign, which was the new media of its time. Same goes for 2008 election for
Barrack Obama, when the Internet marketing campaign was undeniably used. These new media
at its earlier life cycle shows that the successful leaders of Americans all used it as a tool to win
the vote of thousands. The citizens of the USA are much more adoptable in newer technology.

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Appendix

Figure 1: The Social Networking sites usage

among candidates during the 2008 Presidential
Elections
Source: Pew Research

Figure 2.1: Social Media Response among candidates

during 2012 US Presidential Election
Source: Pew Research

Figure

2.2:

Digital

Activity

among

candidates during 2012 US Presidential

Election
Source: Pew Research

13

Figure 3: Downstream referrals

from Google UK to three political
party websites 10 April15
May. Left axis shows percentage of
overall UK internet reach.

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News articles:
BBC News. What makes a social media election? By: Mike Wendling. 6 May 2015
(http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32590917)
The Guardian. 2010: The first social media election. By Charles Arthur. 04 May 2010.
(http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/30/social-media-election-2010)
The Guardian. How the internet really affected the election. By: Jemima Kiss. 12 July 2010.
(http://www.theguardian.com/media/organgrinder/2010/jul/12/reuters-social-media-report)
The Guardian. Welcome to the social media election that never was. By David Fletcher. 27
April 2015.
(http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/apr/27/social-media-general-electionpolitical-parties)
The Telegraph. Election 2015: Which party won the social media war?. By: James Rothwell.
6 May 2015
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11585233/Election-2015-Whichparty-has-won-the-social-media-war.html)

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