Clinton and Sanders Continue to Lead the Social Media Polls Following the First Democratic Presidential Debate

Engagement Labs Ranks How U.S. Presidential Candidates Performed on Social Media Before and After the First Democratic Debate

TORONTO, Ontario – October 14, 2015 – Technology and data company, Engagement Labs, creator of the eValue™ score, today released rankings of the top performing U.S. Democratic presidential candidates on Facebook and Twitter, before and after the first debate which took place on October 13, 2015.

Leading up to the debate, Hillary Clinton was ranked number one on Facebook and Bernie Sanders led the pack on Twitter, according to Engagement Labs’ eValue score.

Pre and Post Debate eValue Rankings for the Democratic Candidates on Facebook and Twitter:

Source: Engagement Labs eValueTM U.S. 2015 rankings of Democratic Candidates on social media

Among the five candidates that participated in the first Democratic debate, Clinton has been the frontrunner, but that hasn’t stopped candidates like Bernie Sanders from closing in on her, both in the polls and on social media. Following the first Democratic debate, the two candidates still remain neck and neck on social media.

Clinton remained in the top spot on Facebook with an increase in Engagement and the highest number of likes and comments on her page. She also saw the biggest increase in followers. Clinton’s Facebook post that garnered the most likes and comments was about her stance on gun violence and the NRA, a topic that was widely discussed during the Democratic debate. Sanders came in second place with the highest active user base. However, it was Jim Webb who achieved the highest Engagement subscore and the highest number of likes per 1000 fans on Facebook. Martin O’Malley remained in third place with the highest Responsiveness subscore of all the candidates at 43.96.

“Social media continues to play a major role in the 2016 presidential election. Not only are people tuning in to watch the debate live, they are also using their social channels to share their real-time thoughts with others during the debate,” said Bryan Segal, CEO at Engagement Labs. “With an active and engaged audience, candidates should be taking advantage of the opportunity by leveraging their social channels to amplify their message and reach among voters.”  

On Twitter, Sanders and Clinton remained in the top two spots. Sanders saw the highest number of new followers, almost doubling that of Clinton. Additionally, Sanders has the highest Engagement subscore of 78.12 along with the largest active user base. Clinton received the most retweets, likes and mentions.

Webb was able to increase his eValue score by almost 25 points moving from fourth place to third. Webb increased his Engagement subscore by more than 25 points and maintained the highest Responsiveness subscore. During the debate, O’Malley saw his eValue ranking on Twitter slip into fourth place.

Lincoln Chafee remained in the last spot on both social channels. Despite increasing his eValue score on Twitter by more than 10 points, he had the fewest number of tweets, less than half, compared to the other candidates. “As the 2016 election has been touted the ‘social media election,’ candidates who do not leverage these mediums to connect with voters and emphasize their positions on the important issues that are shaping this election will see themselves left behind, online and possibly in the polls,” noted Segal.

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSXV:EL) offers intelligent ‘Total Social’ data, analytics and insights for marketers and organizations enabling them to track, measure and benchmark the conversations happening around their brand or industry both online and offline. These conversations are proven to drive critical business outcomes, including sales, while Engagement Labs’ tools provide data and actionable insight to help guide business decisions and power marketing effectiveness.

Engagement Labs’ eValue™ Analytics tool is the global benchmark for social media scoring. eValue’s proprietary data technology offers real-time analysis to measure a brand’s social media and digital marketing efforts, distilling it down to a single meaningful number between 0 and 100 - an eValue score. Composed of a series of metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), an eValue score measures social media Engagement, Impact and Responsiveness which is benchmarked against 100,000+ handpicked and verified brands. The Keller Fay Group, an Engagement Labs company, is the only firm to regularly measure offline conversation, which independent research finds is a significant driver of sales with twice the impact of online conversation.

Engagement Labs maintains offices in Toronto, London and New Brunswick, NJ. www.engagementlabs.com / www.kellerfay.com

For media inquiries please contact:

Kate Tumino / Kenneth Cousins
KCSA Strategic Communications
ktumino@kcsa.com / kcousins@kcsa.com
212-896-1252 / 212-896-1252