For the first time whilst doing these charts the same party has made the most gains on Twitter as well as Facebook and that is UKIP. It will be interesting to see if this cyber following will convert into a vote following.
Labour have out done the Conservatives on Twitter but The Conservatives had their best month to date on Facebook and look to retain their lead, but another month for UKIP as they did last month and they could surge pass both.
The Green Party had a very good month on Facebook and if it wasn't for the surge of UKIP they would have been biggest gainers on any other month.
The LibDems are struggling on both platforms. With all the major parties and even the likes of the NHAPARTY out performing them. It will be interesting to see what the future holds
Down the charts the fledgling Patriotic Socialist Party took its first scalp as they over took the Respect party, the same as the TUSC over took Sinn Fein on facebook
as of May 10th 9.32am
PARTY / MAYS FOLLOWERS / APRILS FOLLOWERS / DIFFERENCE +/-
@Official_MRLP 185 / na
BIGGEST GAINERS
UKIP 6,563
NHA PARTY 4,227
Labour 4,016
Greens 2,343
Conservatives 2,005
Liberal Democrats 1,540
SNP 1,062
FACEBOOK LIKES (when over 100,000 it is stated in thousands 1k)
PARTY MAYS' LIKES /APRILS' LIKES / DIFFERENCE +/-
CONSERVATIVES 172K / 168K / 4K
LABOUR 166K / 163K / 3K
LIB DEMS 94,203 / 93,235 / 968
UKIP 120K / 78,864 / 41K
SNP 43,839 / 40,355 / 3,484
THE GREEN PARTY 34,637 / 28,734 / 5,903
LOONY PARTY 11,891 / 11,896 / 5
NHA PARTY 10,800 / 9,742 / 1,058
PIRATE PARTY UK 8,934 / 8,817 / 127
PLAID CYMRU 8,493 / 8,351 / 142
PATRIOTIC SOCIALIST PARTY 1,392 / 1,167 / 225
RESPECT PARTY 1,299 / 1,293 / 6
MEBYON KERNOW 957 / 869 / 88
THE BLUE PARTY 862 / 1,196 / -234
BIGGEST GAINERS
UKIP 41K
GREEN PARTY 5,903
CONSERVATIVES 4K
SNP 3,484
LABOUR 3K
NHA PARTY 1,058
LIBDEMS 968
You can see past political charts by following the link
http://ukgeneralelection2015.blogspot.co.uk/p/political-pop-chart.html
Equating twitter followers to winning a cyber war or something is a bit daft. Just because I follow someone on twitter doesn't mean I agree with their views - only that I want to able to see what they tweet. There are still people only just getting round to signing up for platforms like twitter in the real world, so any change in followers could easily be down to that as twitter continues to grow in popularity. Facebook likes are easily generated and I wouldn't be surprised at all if political parties were actually paying for these likes especially with an election in less than two weeks. With social media it is very easy to create the illusion that everything you do is popular with high engagement if you know what you are doing.
ReplyDeleteI take on board what you say, and in the first few postings I have made of these charts over the past year, I said exactly the same concerning that followers may be just viewers not supporters. But there must be a fine line between the increase in support and actuall followers. I think this has been proved by the amount trends they are on Twitter for the likes of UKIP and the Greens. Natalie Bennett the Green leader trended in the top 10 when Farage and Clegg debated and she wasn't even there but had used social media to get her message out. So at present to gain 41k followers who have all effectively signed into receive your message is significant. It will be interesting to see if there is a surge of unfollowing or unliking.
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