One of the biggest stories to come out of the 2008 Presidential election was President Barack Obama’s use of social media. Some political pundits said that social media, particularly Twitter was a key factor in Obama’s win.
Four years later and candidates are reaching out again on social media. And it seems as if Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates were in line with how well the candidates were doing on social media. In case you haven’t heard, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won by just eight votes over former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum with Texas lawmaker Ron Paul coming in a close third. Newt Gingrich, who just a couple of weeks ago seemed to be the front-runner, came in fourth.
In a study by Washington, D.C.’s Qorvis Communications outlined in a press release on Tuesday, numbers showed that Romney, Santorum, and Paul had seen double digit increases in their number of Twitter followers in December. Paul gained the most momentum of the three. Gingrich saw his campaign lose momentum with a single digit growth in his number of followers. But he still has more followers than any of the other candidates with 1.3 million followers. None of the other candidates have a million followers with Romney coming closest with 218,120 followers.
These increases in the amount of Twitter followers were reflected in the outcome of Tuesday night’s caucuses. Paul’s surge over the past month in social media was reflected by his strong third place finish and Santorum, who was once not on anyone’s radar, showed a strong increase with a nearly 24 percent gain in followers.
Obama, who is not expected to have any opposition for the Democratic nomination, only grew his Twitter account by 2.83 percent but still leads all of the Republican candidates with more than 11 million followers. Republican candidates have another chance to tweet or post to their followers on Facebook before the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10.
Do you follow a candidate on social media? Does it influence your vote?
