US presidential election statistics: 2024 social media information
Right here at Hootsuite, we’re specialists on social media developments and conversations. And proper now, probably the most prevalent conversations in each nook of the web (and at nearly each dinner desk) is the upcoming 2024 US presidential election.
In the present day, we’re pulling again the curtain. With the assistance of Hootsuite Listening powered by Talkwalker, we’re taking an in depth take a look at how the 2 candidates, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, are acting on social media — and what companies can study from their campaigns.
Key phrases
- In social listening, sentiment is the measurement of what number of explicitly constructive or unfavourable key phrases seem alongside a selected search time period. The search phrases we used for this evaluation have been Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, Kamala, Donald Trump, President Trump, and Trump.
- Web sentiment is the distinction between constructive and unfavourable sentiment. For instance, if 50% of posts on a subject are constructive and 75% are unfavourable, the online sentiment is -25%. A unfavourable internet sentiment rating signifies that unfavourable sentiment outweighs constructive sentiment.
- Outcomes refers back to the variety of particular person social media posts that point out a selected key phrase. It isn’t a measure of what number of occasions a key phrase was used (e.g., a publish that mentions “Harris” 5 occasions remains to be equal to 1 outcome).
How key marketing campaign moments formed public sentiment
Sentiment has shifted all through the presidential race (though, within the social media sphere, neither candidate managed to interrupt into internet constructive sentiment). Posts have gone viral, meme-able moments have occurred (time and again), and the phrase “unprecedented” has change into a key half of the present cultural discourse.
Under is a take a look at every candidate’s internet sentiment all through 2024. The adjustments in sentiment mirror every marketing campaign’s pivotal moments:
- July 13: Tried assassination of Donald Trump
- July 15-18: 2024 Republican Nationwide Conference
- July 21: Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race
- August 2: The announcement of Kamala Harris as the brand new Democratic nominee
- August 6: The announcement of Tim Walz as Harris’ operating mate
- August 12: Trump joins Elon Musk for a digital chat hosted on X (previously Twitter)
- August 19-22: 2024 Democratic Nationwide Conference
- September 10: The primary presidential debate between Harris and Trump hosted by ABC Information
- October 1: The vice presidential debate between Walz and Vance hosted by CBS Information
- October 5: Elon Musk joins Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, PA (the situation of the tried assassination of July 13, 2024)
Click on to broaden
Who was extra talked about, Harris or Trump?
In response to our evaluation, key phrases associated to Donald Trump generated practically 50% extra outcomes than these associated to Kamala Harris. To visualise, that’s nearly 3 posts mentioning Trump for each 2 posts mentioning Harris.
However not all outcomes are constructive. An evaluation of sentiment over the previous 3 months exhibits that almost all of social media posts referencing both candidate are unfavourable:
When utilizing social listening, politicians and types alike must be conscious that a person metric (e.g., the variety of outcomes) with out context (e.g., sentiment) can’t be used to precisely measure success.
Every marketing campaign is resonating extra with completely different demographics
Hootsuite’s social listening instrument can observe information at a really granular degree. You may embrace a breakdown by age, gender, and even location (right down to the state degree) in your evaluation.
For instance, are Gen Z voters extra excited a couple of sure candidate in Georgia vs. Nevada? Are female-identifying voters posting extra a couple of sure marketing campaign in Arizona vs. Michigan? What’s every candidate’s sentiment in key swing states?
Under, you’ll be able to see Hootsuite’s social listening evaluation of sentiment and mentions separated by age group over the previous 3 months:
Harris has extra constructive sentiment within the 65+ age group, whereas Trump has extra constructive sentiment amongst all different age teams.
When slicing sentiment information by gender, the candidates’ scores don’t differ wildly over the previous 3 months:
Whereas Trump has extra constructive sentiment amongst male-identifying social media customers, the 2 candidates are nearly even when it comes to internet sentiment (which is unfavourable) amongst feminine social media customers.
American popular culture and the 2024 election
Whether or not presidential candidates prefer it or not, having the world’s eyes on you 24/7 offers the web loads of meme fodder.
Right here, we’re looking at how popular culture has been interacting with the at the moment ongoing presidential campaigns — and vice versa.
Taylor Swift vs. Elon Musk
Each campaigns have loved quite a few endorsements from massive names in politics, arts, sports activities, enterprise, and extra.
Dick and Liz Cheney, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Obamas, and quite a few members of the Senate, have all publicly proven assist for his or her chosen candidate.
The assist expressed by popular culture figures has additionally created an inflow of dialog on social media. When Taylor Swift and Elon Musk endorsed Harris and Trump, respectively, the web went wild.
We thought it will be enjoyable to see which celeb’s endorsement generated an even bigger speedy bump in on-line mentions:
The above chart exhibits outcomes that point out key phrases associated to each Trump and Musk, and Harris and Swift throughout the similar publish. We filtered for the day of every endorsement (July thirteenth for Musk, September tenth for Swift), to get a snapshot in time.
Our information exhibits that Elon Musk had an even bigger pull than Taylor Swift on social media. Musk and Trump generated 229.9k outcomes on July thirteenth, whereas Swift and Harris generated 176.5k outcomes.
Each endorsements adopted massive marketing campaign moments (the assassination try on Trump and the presidential debate), fueling social media momentum.
Kamala is BRAT
The Harris marketing campaign jumped on a viral development the second it launched by embracing the pop-culture influence of Charli XCX’s 2024 album BRAT. @KamalaHQ, the Harris Marketing campaign’s official account on X, rapidly created a banner that mimicked BRAT’s styling:
Supply: Kamala HQ on X
Charli XCX then chimed in herself, stating that “Kamala IS brat.” From there, Kamala x BRAT remixes went viral throughout nearly each nook of social media.
Whereas there are over 60k outcomes on social media for posts mentioning each Kamala Harris and Brat, Charli XCX was (as soon as once more) eclipsed by Taylor Swift, who greater than doubled Charli’s numbers together with her endorsement of Harris.
Viral moments: Canine and coconuts
One of the viral moments of this 12 months’s presidential race, based on social listening information, was Trump’s assertion in the course of the September tenth Presidential Debate:
“They’re consuming the canine, they’re consuming the cats.”
The Trump quote rapidly went viral on social media, inspiring remixes, TikTok audios, and memes.
Equally, the Harris Marketing campaign was seemingly kicked off by a clip from a speech the Vice President gave in 2023 on the White Home, during which she states “You assume you simply fell out of a coconut tree? You exist within the context of all during which you reside and which got here earlier than you.”
Listening information exhibits, curiously, that the clip’s viral surge started earlier than Harris turned the official nominee. It began gaining traction on social media following the presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and solely grew extra common as her marketing campaign for President formally kicked off.
So, whose quote went probably the most viral over the previous 3 months? The info doesn’t lie:
“They’re consuming the canine” generated nearly 10 occasions extra outcomes than Harris’ coconut tree soundbite, regardless that Harris’ quote is far older. Totals come to 839.7k outcomes for Trump’s soundbite and “solely” 87.8k outcomes for Harris’.
What does this imply for you, and what can your model study from Harris vs. Trump?
As you’ll be able to see, social listening uncovers a wealth of knowledge about on-line audiences. With the fitting instruments, you’ll be able to study what they’re saying, how they’re feeling, and the place they’re most energetic. This, in fact, goes nicely past the evaluation of political campaigns.
Whether or not you’re a small enterprise or an enterprise-level group, you should utilize information factors much like those offered on this weblog to form your social media technique. Buyer sentiment is already affecting the ROI of your social campaigns — however you may have to pay attention to it to make the fitting strategic choices.
Think about how you can goal your social advertisements should you knew that prospects in North Carolina talked extra about your product than in New York? Or how you can uncover your key demographics, such because the age of your ultimate buyer, and construct content material that spoke to their particular wants, preferences, and ache factors?
So, what are you ready for? With Hootsuite, you may have model mentions, trending subjects, and sentiment information at your fingertips. Begin enhancing your social technique with the insights that matter right now.
Disclaimers
- The aim of this weblog is to share social listening information. It’s a illustration of how folks discuss presidential candidates on-line — not a prediction of who will win on Election Day.
- Not all social media customers speaking concerning the election are Americans who’re eligible to vote within the U.S. election.
- Viewers demographics — right down to political desire — differ from platform to platform.
- Whereas main social networks have guardrails towards misinformation, bots and faux information are a part of most trendy political campaigns.
- Some social platforms restrict the distribution of political content material, which naturally impacts impressions and engagement.
