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

@wyethwire wruthven@qorvis.com

How Our Study Was Conducted

Indexed all Twitter accounts by the Virginia 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 the PearAnalytics 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

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%

Compare with Pear Pear Analytics August 2009 Study

Source: http://bit.ly/PearStudy
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%

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.

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 authenticity the candidates personal voice is obscured by staff tweets.

Findings: Virginia & New Jersey (contd)

Twitter remains largely a one-way medium for campaigns. However, staff are beginning to use conversational 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.

MA-Senate Twitter Statistics

Twitter Followers News Calls to Action 16.12% 13.61% Self Promotion 43.32% 37.24% Observational 0.50% 0.76% Conversational 18.14% 18.15% Pass Along Retweets 17.38% 25.90% @ScottBrownMA @MarthaCoakley 15827 4361 5.54% 4.35%

MA: The Conversational Campaign

Unlike campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey, 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 of every five tweets in the Massachusetts Senate race was a direct communication to individual followers of a candidates Twitter feed.
Share of Twitter feed devoted to conversations with followers: Massachusetts @MarthaCoakley: @ScottBrownMA: Virginia @CreighDeeds: @bobmcdonnell: New Jersey @JonCorzine: @ChristieforNJ: 18.15% 18.14%

5.68% 0.35%

0.40% 3.45%

MA: The Post-Primary Pause

Critics of the Coakley campaign accused the candidate 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. 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

250 200 150 100 50 0 Coakley Brown

MA: Browns Surge of Followers

Twitter mirrored the surge of money, interest and votes for the Brown campaign. Followers increased 235% during the last week of the campaign, and increased 604% since January 1st. Followers of Coakleys Twitter feed failed to match this pace.

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.

MA Tweets: Top Issues

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.

@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

VA-GOV Twitter Statistics

Twitter Followers News Calls to Action 20.14% 7.95% 5.95% 0.00% 4.00% 1.01% 0.53% Self ObservPromotion ational 71.18% 39.77% 65.48% 100.00% 55.43% 38.89% 10.00% 0.69% 44.32% 10.71% 0.00% 0.57% 3.54% 18.95% Conversational 0.35% 5.68% 3.57% 0.00% 16.00% 5.30% 12.63% Pass Along Retweets 2.43% 0.00% 11.90% 0.00% 20.00% 23.23% 42.63% @bobmcdonnell @CreighDeeds @DeedsCountry @BobsThesis @Joe_Abbey @MoElleithee @mikegehrke 7051 3720 351 100 675 792 712 7.99% 4.55% 2.38% 0.00% 1.14% 28.03% 15.26%

NJ-GOV Twitter Statistics

Twitter Followers News Calls to Action 4.17% 4.46% Self ObservPromotion ational 69.49% 81.74% 0.00% 0.41% Conversational 0.40% 3.45% Pass Along Retweets 12.10% 5.68% @JonCorzine @ChristieforNJ 4426 5008 13.84% 4.26%

@sheriffkim
@students4chris

123
252

4.55%
0.00%

0.00%
22.92%

72.73%
37.50%

1.52%
2.08%

0.00%
25.00%

21.21%
12.50%

VA & NJ: Timing of Tweets

Using data compiled by TweetStats.com, tweets were analyzed by time of day for the four official gubernatorial campaign feeds. The Virginia campaigns had clear spikes in tweets during the 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.

@CreighDeeds

@bobmcdonnell

@JonCorzine

@ChristieforNJ

Multiple Accounts = Message Dilution

Our study used the Twitter application www.whofollowswhom.com to sort mutual followers of multiple 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.

@CreighDeeds+@Joe_Abbey = 117 mutual followers @CreighDeeds+@MoElleithee = 117 mutual followers @CreighDeeds+@mikegehrke = 116 mutual followers @CreighDeeds+@Joe_Abbey+@MoElleithee+@mikegehrke = 82 mutual followers
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.

Staff Tags on Tweets

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

Specific Staff Tags

General Staff Disclaimer

VA Tweets: Thesis vs. Transportation

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.

Twitter Account

Thesis Tweets

Transportation Tweets

@CreighDeeds @Joe_Abbey @MoElleithee @mikegehrke @BobsThesis @DeedsCountry Total

0 18 57 12 24 0 111

1 7 20 8 0 0 36

NJ Tweets: Taxes vs. Scandal

The Christie campaign focused on the high rates of property taxes in New Jersey. This focus was evident 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.

@ChristieforNJ

46 tweets mentioning taxes 15 tweets mentioning corruption 10 tweets mentioning ethics 4 tweets mentioning local scandals

NJ: A Tweet is Worth 1000 Pixels

Both the Corzine and Christie campaign used social media tools such as TwitPic and Flickr to share campaign 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.

JonCorzine 176

Photo Source TwitPic

ChristieforNJ 140

33
10 23 242

Flickr
yfrog Misc. Photo Links Total

1
12 0 153

The Obama Factor

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

@CreighDeeds : 6 mentions

Twitter Campaign Best Practices

One Account per Campaign: Campaigns should resist the temptation to create a new Twitter account 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-sharing sites. 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.