US Presidential Race – as seen in Social Media by GolinHarris Bucharest

Cristina Blanaru Case Studies, Comm & Politics, PR, Social Media

US Presidential race, that ended with Barack Obama claiming victory and a second term at the White House, was followed also by GolinHarris Bucharest. An analysis made by Bridge team at GolinHarris Bucharest during the last week of  October shows a 6.5% interaction rate for Obama’s Facebook page, while Romney’s had a 14.4% rate.

The electoral race in US was a dynamic fight, with interesting reactions in social media. GolinHarris’ analysis shows how the US race was visible in social media, how the online voters look alike and who won the elections on Facebook and Twitter.

Before making a comparison between the 2 candidates’ interaction in social media, we must consider the context and specific factors that are influencing the presence dynamics on each platform. First of all, Facebook and Twitter accounts owned by president Barack Obama experienced before an electoral campaign, therefor they had higher promotional budget, and this thing is obvious in the total number of fans (Facebook: >31.8M, Twitter: > 21.7M). On the other hand, Mitt Romney’s accounts (Facebook: > 12M, Twitter: > 1.7M) seem to have a higher support budget or an increased viralisation. For example, during the last week of October, Romney’s Facebook page had 568,159 more likes than Obama’s

Valeriu Ispir,

Digital Manager, GolinHarris.

Although Romney had a higher engagement, recent data from Facebook conversation monitoring platform, developed by the social network together with CNN, shows that, for the last 7 days, Obama had, on average, 74% more unique users that mentioned him than Romney. Today, the balance favored Obama, that had 2.5 times more people generating buzz around him.

Another interesting and innovative platform used during this year’s campaign was built by Foursquare (www.ivotedmap.com) and counted check-ins made by voters at the polling stations. Unfortunately, this platform didn’t had such a big success among voters, with the most active state being New York, with only 20,353 check-ins (0.1% of US population).

On Twitter, the candidate that users mentioned the most during Elections Day was Obama – most mentions and replies going to him and less towards Romney. Topsy index, that analyses the preferences expressed by voters present on Twitter for one of the candidates registered yesterday 74 points for Obama and 59 for Romney, on a scale of 100 points. Practically, the number of mentions on Twitter that included Obama’s name topped the ones that mentioned Romney.

During the last week of October, Romney had a daily average of 1,504 retweets and 457 favorites that, reported to the total number of followers, show an interaction rate of 0.08% through retweets and 0.02% through favorites. During the same period, Obama had daily averages of 1,605 retweets and 707 favorites, meaning interaction of 0.01% and 0.003%

Raluca Duta

Digital Associate, GolinHarris.

On Facebook, with a fan base 3 times bigger, Obama had daily average numbers similar to Romney. During the last week of October, the Republican candidate gathered daily 117,915 likes, 4,714 shares and 10,098 comments, while the US president had 162,962 likes, 14,397 shares and 11,315 comments.

The Bridge is a multimedia communication hub from GolinHarris, an unique platform in global PR industry for which GolinHarris received the title PR Innovation of the Year.

Launched in 2006 as Lowe PR, GolinHarris Bucharest is affiliated, starting 2011, to one of the most valuable international PR networks, GolinHarris Worldwide. The Bucharest office is the 1st the American company owns in Central and Eastern Europe. In total, GolinHarris has 38 offices in America, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Middle East.

This year, GolinHarris Bucharest announced a major change in its business model, by creating a new agency structure, based on own innovative models and instruments that answer more efficient to more and more specific needs of its clients. g4 model was created globally last year and implemented already in GolinHarris offices in US, UK, Sweden and Romania. g4 is based on aptitudes and performance and is built around 4 specialists communities: strategists, creators, connectors and catalysts.

GolinHarris Bucharest has in portfolio clients such as: Altex Romania, CBRE, Century 21, Colgate-Palmolive (Romania), Romanian Red Cross, Electrolux, Ferrero, Franklin Templeton Investments, Gaya Health Services, Johnson&Johnson, Kludi, Mercedes-Benz Romania, Nuance Communications, Orange Romania, Praktiker, PepsiCo/Lipton, RBS – Royal Bank of Scotland, Schneider Electric Romania, SIF Muntenia, SofMedica, TeamNet, International, Transavia, Unilever (Algida, Knorr), URBB – United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, VEKA Romania and X-Trade Brokers.

GolinHarris Bucharest is member of the group of companies that also includes Lowe&Partners, Initiative, Brand Programming Network, HyperActive, Mobile Works and Medic One and is multiple awarded and finalist in local and international festivals such as PR Award Romania, European Excellence Awards, Sabre Awards and IPRA Awards.