If there was ever an example of how far social media has come – and a demonstration of just how important it can be when used correctly – it was the US Presidential Election 2012.
This year we witnessed the US Presidential Election race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It was an exciting time of the year, but what we maybe didn’t see is the amazing use of social media that was used by both candidates. Take a moment to check out these truly remarkable top ten statistics from this years US Presidential Election.
- The 2012 campaigns saw 7 times as much money spent on online advertising! Rising from $22 million to $159 million.
- Romney’s Engagement rate was 18 times higher on Facebook than on Twitter!
- Romney’s most tweeted word was @BarackObama and his most used phrase on Facebook was ‘President Obama’.
- After President Obama’s speech at the National Convention, there were nearly 53,000 tweets about him per minute, as opposed to only 14,289 for Mitt Romney after his speech.
- During and after the first Presidential debate, 47,141 tweets mentioned Romney and the word ‘win’ or ‘winner’.
- After Mitt Romneys infamous ‘binders full of women’ comment, a Facebook page was created entitled ‘Binders Full of Women’ – and it gained a crazy 281,000 likes overnight!
- 6 in 10 people expect presidential candidates to have a social media presence.
- Some sources are suggesting that Romney’s campaign spent $100,000 on Twitter with promoted trends.
- As of June 2012, Obama’s campaign had spent $31 million on digital ads.
- With 11.1 million comments, the first 2012 Presidential debate was the 4th most tweeted telecast of any kind – behind the Grammys, MTV VMA’s and the Super Bowl.
We think what this shows us is that the importance of social media in regards to advertising is now at an all time high. It is quickly becoming one of the best ways to communicate with your audience, arguably it already is the best way.
All the statistics in this post come from the brilliant article on Socialnomics, which can be found here.
