Predicting election results using Twitter & Facebook statistics is an intriguing idea, but possibly not too accurate. Politwitter trys to look at more than just the leader or party follower totals, but a range of criteria including growth rates and sentiment. Even before the election started the Liberals were ahead on Twitter & Facebook, not much has changed. The NDP growth rates have greatly increased the past 2 weeks but wont catch the Liberals in most measures. The so called "NDP surge" in traditional polls has potentially thrown these numbers out the window. So more than being a predictor of who will win the election, these numbers reflect who won the social media game.

It's also possible that tradional phone polling doesn't take the youth vote into account or those with mobile-phones. Social media might be scewed towards younger voters whereas the opposite for polls.

There are 25 items below, 5 points are given to the winner and partial points given to the runners-up.

100 POSSIBLE POINTS

Liberal 85/100
NDP 63/100
Conservative 58/100
Green 44/100

item

conservative

liberal

ndp

green

winner

1) Total Followers

total number of Twitter followers as of April 27th of all candidates & MPs for each party

236,678

322,190

158,079

40,898

2) Follower Increase

Increase in followers over the previous 3 weeks

22,460

50,697

23,021

12,035

3) Follower Increase Percentage

10%

16%

15%

29%

4) Leader Followers

Twitter followers of the party leaders

132,964

97,209

92,746

23,432

5) Leader Follower Increase

increase in leaders Twitter followers over the past 3 weeks

10,416

11,081

16,575

4,498

6) Leader Follower Increase Percent

11%

18%

19%

7) Party Positive Sentiment

Overall percent of tweets that are positive compared to negative. Tweets mentioning MPs & candidates from each party

79.1%

83.6%

84.5%

83.9%

8) Leader Positive Sentiment

percentage of positive tweets mentioning a leader

77%

80%

86%

9) Partisan Hashtag Usage

Some hashtags like #ndp or #roft are partisan. Which partisan hashtags had the most usage. View a list of hashtags.

42,995

35,550

31,098

10,981

10) Leader Mentions

How many times a leader is @mentioned in tweets

106,183

37,050

33,428

9,353

11) Total Retweets

Retweets of tweets by party candidates and MPs.

11,950

27,185

11,391

8,811

12) Total Replies

Replies to candidates and MPs.

14,369

19,721

5,684

3,856

13) Facebook Likes

Combined total of Facebook likes of all candidates

85,480

203,498

117,473

18,705

14) Leader Facebook Likes

53,823

69,151

62,948

10,783

15) Facebook Likes Increase

Increase in Facebook likes in the past 3 weeks

11,710

42,728

40,875

6,716

16) Facebook Likes Increase Percentage

14%

21%

35%

36%

17) Party Platform Sentiment

Overall sentiment towards each parties platform on Twitter

party	date	promise	total tweets	pos sentiment	neg sentiment	adjusted	retweets	mps	news	facebook
lib	Apr 2	Liberal Platform link	1805	580	60	0.91	1122	118	45	116
ndp	Apr 10	NDP Platform link	1104	220	55	0.8	705	44	16	39
con	Apr 8	Conservative Platform link	806	134	122	0.52	680	32	14	32
gre	Apr 7	Green Platform link	106	22	10	0.69	51	0	0	5

50%

90%

74%

75%

18) Average Promise Sentiment

Politwitter tracked the Tweeters and sentiment for election promisers made by each party. This is the average sentiment of all promises. view Twitter reaction to election promises

50%

69%

72%

75%

19) Total Promise Popularity

Volume of tweets mentioning a parties promises

3,174

6,741

1,963

124

20) Leading Swing Ridings

Politwitter ran stats on 33 swing ridings, using Twitter to predict the outcome. How many of these ridings is each party leading. view swing riding page

21) Leading Swing Riding Growth

Most growth in Twitter followers in the swing ridings

10%

22) Most Engaged Candidates

Politwitter has a stats page ranking the most engaged canidates on Twitter. How many candidates does each party have in the top 10 most engaged list.

23) Most Popular Candidates

Number of candidates in the top 10 most popular list.

24) Candidates on Twitter

total number of canidates and MPs on Twitter

189

230

182

131

25) MPs in News

number of mentions of MPs in the news.

5,110

3,415

2,174