Social media popularity boost for leaders following election announcement
PM Kevin Rudd appears to be outperforming Tony Abbott on social media as the election nears, research suggests.
According to the ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation, the Labor leader’s Twitter handle is being cited far more often than Abbott’s.
During July Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) was mentioned on Twitter almost twice the amount Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) was mentioned. Their research notes this is due to the power of incumbency and most-likely the PM’s easier username.
Dr Axel Bruns, Associate Professor, Media & Communication at ARC Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation told Mumbrella: “I think a lot of it has to do with the power of incumbancy. For one thing he has a much larger number of followers on Twitter, that in itself may easily explain why more people are mentioning him because more people are following him.
“The data is all from the 1st of July through to now, and before the election was called there was a lot of discussion about when the election would be called and a lot of that referenced Rudd rather than Abbott. ”
Meanwhile, Google also released data on the election today. In the last 30 days, the ALP’s cut to the fringe benefit tax around cars has been a popular policy Google search for both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott – with it being the number two and number one policy searches respectively. Mr Rudd’s apology to the stolen generation in 2008 managed to edge out Labor FBT searches.
For Rudd and Abbott, it’s their family that voters are interested in with “Tony Abbott daughters” being the number one personal-Abbott search, and “Kevin Rudd wife” taking out the top spot for the Prime Minister’s personal search terms. Mr Rudd’s daughter, Jessica Rudd, was also another popular search item.
For both the leaders, religion is a popular search query however for Mr Abbott this tracks into policy search choices. Policy-related searches for Tony Abbott focused on social issues like divorce, religion and abortion while policy-related searches for Kevin Rudd focused on Labor’s new asylum seeker policy.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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