Divining consumer preferences from social media
Now that Bernie Sanders is out of contention as the next US President, will his supporters vote Clinton or Trump? Brodie Evans examines the data from both official and public social media accounts to tell us more.
Well that’s that. Bernie Sanders has all but conceded the Democratic Nomination to Hillary Clinton, vowing to work alongside her to defeat Donald Trump.
Compared with the apathy of Australian voters around our own election, the U.S. election is proving to be an outspoken and unpredictable one. With three big players echoing battle cries across Twitter, and legions of loyalists running away with social campaigns and twisting them into digitally-led movements.
Bernie’s bowing out of the race leaves a large portion of his passionate following (known colloquially as Bernie Bros) disenfranchised. Conflicted by their cult-like love for him and unadulterated hatred of Hillary Clinton.
Interesting analysis and insights Brodie.
Far from being apathetic – the #auspol Twitter community has for sometime been the third largest and most active Twitter # globally and the largest political # globally.
You also only need look at the comments section of political articles on sites such as The Guardian – and on various Facebook pages to see Australians are becoming increasingly engaged despite much of the commentary saying the opposite.
Would be fascinating to see you apply your analysis to the Australian election?
I would love to conduct such a study.
One of the benefits of working with social analytics through the Crimson Hexagon lens is I can test my own beliefs, hypothesis and biases. Often the assumptions I hold about how engaged or passionate a community feels about a certain topic is tested.
My comments about the apathy I’ve encountered in the Australian community compared the U.S was not formed by looking at the numbers, but rather my own anecdotal experience of being an Australian.
It seems hard to excite the average Aussie about the Federal Elections, but I could be very wrong. I’d be interested to see if the ABC’s Vote Compass gets more traffic than the “Snag the Vote” sausage sizzle map this year!
Thanks for your great feedback 🙂
The tweet would more accurately reflect the feelings of Bernie supporters if it read: “Since Bernie didn’t win the nomination, I’m gonna vote for Trump. Sooner than vote for the Hildabeast, I’d rather drink bleach.”
If they can’t have one outsider, they’ll have the other. The main thing is, they don’t want another insider.