Political Campaigns:

• Opposition Research
• Voter Sentiment
• Grassroots issue tracking

Although it's likely that having someone become your fan on Facebook means they will vote for you, it is not a given that more fans equals more voters.

We observed many of the November election races and saw how the simple number of Fans did not correlate to victory in all cases, however, the trend of voter sentiment was a clear indicator as election day came.

Social Media offers a good magnifying glass into the issues on voters' minds: it gives clues about what is actually important to those in your district/state vs. National issues and allows an informal test of theories to be performed.

The chart below shows real data from a Congressional District race showing the "following" of the Incumbent vs. Challenger in the weeks leading up to the election. Although the incumbent was behind even at the conclusion of the campaign, the rate of change of alignment in the immediate days prior to November 2nd was significantly greater than for the challenger. Despite local (automated) polls indicating that the challenger would win by a sizeable margin, the actual result was a clear victory for the incumbent (which we predicted).

Facebook was only one of dozens of social media outlets that were analyzed during this campaign, but it provides a useful illustration.

If you would like further information please contact Darryl Beecham at: darryl.beecham@socialintell.com