Twitter, Search, and the Presidential Race
Friday, October 17th, 2008Social media has a thing or two to say about politics and the two major presidential candidates’ stake in the race. Putting aside Facebook, MySpace, and other indicators of who is winning the internet war, Twitter has proven to be an interesting gauge of this race.
Obviously Obama’s staff stays far more up-to-date on his Twitter profile. Not only that, but take a look at the difference in followers. Needless to say, I think this proves a fundamental difference between Democrats, Republicans, and their web use (or maybe just Twitter use).
Nevertheless, a cool tool called twInfluence shows exactly how much influence a Twitterer (or is it Tweeter?) has on fellow Twits/Tweetees (sorry, getting carried away with all of the names I can make). BarackObama is #1 on this list, while JohnMcCain doesn’t show up in the top 50.
At first, this doesn’t seem all that fantastic or interesting. You may be thinking: “So what, Obama supporters like Twitter more. Big deal.” The interesting part comes in when Googling both of their names (and by the way, I turned off my personalized settings when I made these searches).
Barack’s profile turns up #10:
McCain’s profile took a little longer to find, down on the 5th page, #58:
Oh wait a second. That’s not John McCain’s official Twitter account. Guess I have to keep looking…oh here it is! 8th page, #82:
Whether Twitter has a significant role in this race, I highly doubt it. However, search may very well have a large part in it:
