With the new version of the digital campaigning ebook out the door, Epolitics.com is back on a regular publishing schedule. Enjoy.
Check out last week’s top 10 over-performing Facebook posts from the 2016 presidential campaigns! The data is via our friends at CrowdTangle, and remember that these aren’t the top-performing posts in ABSOLUTE terms, since that would almost always be dominated by the pages with the biggest followings. Instead, these are posts that beat the average for that particular page — posts that reset the bar for success for that campaign on Facebook. If you like this list, check our our weekly Top Ten Facebook Advocacy Posts, also compiled with CrowdTangle data.
A special note to our readers-via-email: be sure to click through to the online version of this article to see the embedded posts. It’s well worth your time.
1. Rand Paul (47.7x)
Posted by Rand Paul on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
2. Rand Paul (27.7x)
[Post deleted; featured Rand at a shooting range, aiming a rifle, with the text of the Second Amendment as an overlay.]
3. Jeb Bush (14.3x)
Happy 71st Anniversary, Mom and Dad! Your love and commitment has always been an example to all of us.
Posted by Jeb Bush on Wednesday, January 6, 2016
4. Martin O’Malley (11.5x)
Donald Trump has said: “Wages are too high.” American wages, too high. I’ll tell you what’s too high…College tuition,…
Posted by Martin O'Malley on Wednesday, January 6, 2016
5. Dr. Ben Carson (9.0x)
Any executive order President Obama signs that regulates firearms transactions will merely regulate the behavior of law…
Posted by Dr. Ben Carson on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
6. Marco Rubio (8.4x)
Hillary attacks my record because she knows if I am the nominee, we are going to beat her.
Posted by Marco Rubio on Thursday, January 7, 2016
7. Marco Rubio (7.8x)
America needs a real commander-in-chief and a president who will keep us safe.
Posted by Marco Rubio on Wednesday, January 6, 2016
8. Hillary Clinton (7.2x)
Thank you, President Obama, for taking a crucial step forward on gun violence. Our next president has to build on that progress—not rip it away. -H
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, January 5, 2016
9. Carly Fiorina (6.5x)
Of course North Korea would conduct a nuclear test after watching Iran willfully violate an agreement they just made…
Posted by Carly Fiorina on Wednesday, January 6, 2016
10. Hillary Clinton (6.0x)
We’ve got to get back to a place where people listen to each other, respect one another, and find common ground to work together.
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Monday, January 4, 2016
Explanation of the Scoring
These posts don’t represent the most-viewed pieces of content on Facebook (since that would almost entirely end up being dominated by the same small handful of large-audience Pages over and over). Instead, we list the posts that performed the best (using shares as the primary metric) against the organization Page’s OWN average (hence the word “over-performing”). To build the list, we CrowdTangle’s tracking system, which generates an average rate of growth for Pages over time (with at least 50 data points before a Page is scored). So, the "x" numbers listed above specifically represent how many more multiples of shares each post received compared with what the Page’s posts normally get. Note that we set a minimum bar of total engagement of around 500 shares or so.
About CrowdTangle
CrowdTangle is a new tool that helps organizations easily keep track of what’s being shared on Facebook. Organizations can use it to find shareable content around their own issue area or to keep track of what affiliated Pages are posting on a regular basis. Launched in late January, the beta version of the tool is already being used by dozens of leading organizations across the country. If you want to see how it works, watch this short video: http://www.screenr.com/Iv1H
– cpd
White House photo by Daniel Schwen, via Wikimedia Commons.
