Election night 2012 by the social media numbers

Election 2012 proves that social media has become one of the most important tools in a political campaign's arsenal – and a great way for citizens to interact with their elected leaders. Here are the key numbers from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for election day.

President Barack Obama may have won a right to the White House for another four years, but it was the Web that made this election historic. For the first time ever, social media served as a critical tool both campaigns. And Obama even took to social news website Reddit for a second time, late on election day, in a last ditch effort to get Reddit users out to the polls. Below, we’ve collected the stats and figures that show why social media will remain a key political tool in the election years to come.

Facebook

Obama dominated Facebook’s social media charts throughout election day, according to the CNN-Facebook Election Insights tool, which tracked the Facebook buzz around the presidential candidates. Light blue in the chart above represents President Obama, while the bright red line under that represents Facebook mentions of Mitt Romney. Facebook disclosed that mentions of “Obama” in the six hours between 3 p.m. EST and 9 p.m. EST were 43 percent higher than mentions of “Romney.”

After being projected to win a second term in the White House, Obama’s social media team published a celebratory post of an image with President Obama and the First Lady in embrace. That post generated over 1.1 million “Likes,” and over 160,000 shares, in a span of less than one hour.

Facebook made additional social metrics available leading up to the re-election confirmation, which it collected between the hours of 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. EST on November 6. Here, we have the terms that dominated Facebook on election day.

Election Day overall Facebook mention count in the United States

[November 7, 1:00 a.m. EST]

1. Obama
2. Vote / Voted
3. Romney
4. Election
5. President
6. Country
7. Win / Wins
8. Line
9. Four More Years / 4 More Years
10. Ohio
11. Election Day
12. Results
13. Polls
14. Ballots
15. Proud
16. Close
17. Florida
18. Electoral
19. Lost
20. Colorado

Most-shared terms on Facebook

[November 7, 1:00 a.m. EST]

1. Obama
2. 4 more years / 4 years
3. President / President Obama
4. Thank God
5. Won / Wins
6. America
7. Country / My Country / This Country
8. Yes
9. Ohio
10. Florida
11. My President
12. Elected
13. Congrats / Congratulations
14. Reelected
15. Did it / They did it / We did it
16. Another 4
17. Colorado
18. Our president
19. Warren / Elizabeth Warren
20. Akin

[November 6, 11:30 p.m. EST]

1. Obama Wins
2. Romney
3. President
4. Four More Years
5. Come On

[November 6, 3 p.m. – 9 p.m. EST]

1. Vote / Voted / Votes
2. Obama
3. Romney
4. Win / Wins / Winning / Win the election
5. Results / Election Results
6. Close
7. Electoral / Electoral Map / Electoral Votes
8. Won
9. If Romney Wins
10. CNN
11. Coverage / Election Coverage
12. Map
13. Election Night
14. 2012 Election
15. Senate
16. Nervous
17. If Obama Wins
18. Virginia
19. Polls Close
20. Indiana

Facebook mention spikes 

[November 6, 3 p.m. - 9 p.m. EST]

1. Ohio – up 2175 percent
2. Virginia – up 1870 percent
3. Electoral – up 662 percent
4. Nervous – up 581 percent
5. North Carolina – up 684 percent
6. Pennsylvania – up 674 percent
7. Florida – up 537 percent
8. Close – up 268 percent
9. Romney – up 223 percent
10. Obama – up 190 percent

Twitter

Election 2012 made Twitter history last night, as well, becoming the most-tweeted event of any U.S. political contest. The social network saw over 20 million election-related tweets at 10:01 p.m. EST on November 6. That number climbed to 31.7 million total tweets by the night’s end, according to Twitter, smashing the previous record of 10 million tweets during the last presidential election.

Tweets peeked to 66,019 tweets per minute (TPM) before 11 p.m. EST. But following the announcement of President Obama’s reelection by the networks and cable news stations, the number of tweets sky rocketed to 327,452 tweets per minute at 11:19 p.m. EST. President Obama’s social media team may have helped boost those numbers with a tweet of the President hugging Michelle Obama, and the words “Four more years.” That tweet  broke Twitter’s record in less than one hour as the most retweeted post of all-time, with over 350,000 retweets, and over 122,000 favorites, by election day’s end. By 7 a.m. EST, the post has been retweeted 585,000 times.

Other notable stats from the night include:

• 85,273 TPM -11:12pm ET – IA presidential race called
• 69,031 TPM – 9:33pm ET – PA and WI presidential races called
• 65,106 TPM – 8:03pm ET – Polls close in various states; AP calls races for IL, CT, ME, DC, DE, RI, MD, MA

Instagram

Voters were encouraged to document their voting process on Instagram, and Instagram users have been whole heartedly embracing the platform for showing their support for the presidential candidates. Some have been taking pictures of their patriotic accessories, while many others have even taken photos of their ballots in the voting booth. Unbeknownst to these users, some states have outlawed recording inside polling locations.

During the election day, Instagram shared more than 680,000 photos labeled with the term “vote.” Photos tagged with the words “election” or its variations saw 250,000 photos. Instagram photos tagged with the #obama hashtag clock in at 1.27 million, while users posted the #romney hashtag just 260,700 times.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Social media election reactions that made us laugh, cry, and proud to be Americans

Social media played a huge role in garnering raw reactions from American citizens, and here's how you guys made us feel after an eventful 24 hours.

Decision 2012 is officially made and President Barack Obama will serve four more years as our nation’s leader. If you were like any of us here at Digital Trends, you were probably glued to Twitter, apps, and various news sources for the latest election updates. And like most current events as told by social media, there was a lot of information to sift through that made us laugh, cry, and even proud to be Americans — and for taking the opportunity to exercise our freedom of speech.

Laugh

Fools clinging to relevance

The amount of incoherent tweets from absent-minded people could not have made our office laugh any louder. The superstar troll this season, and maybe every political season, easily goes  to Donald Trump, who tweeted: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” Wait, is that supposed to be radical? Global warming isn’t a scientific issue, and Hurricane Sandy was just a random and devastating fart from the clouds?

Then, after Barack Obama was declared re-elected, good ol’ Don had the nerve to call the poll results BS and say America is not a democracy… even though the president won by a significant popular vote as well. Try harder, Mr. Trump.

Sarah Palin’s hair disaster

Via citylightsanddrunkhighfives

We swear this isn’t a way to be sexist because we’d absolutely point out if John McCain appeared on television with a horrible toupee, but our jaws dropped when Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News last night looking… well, different. During the 2008 campaigns, we remembered her as a relatively put-together woman with her hair neatly held back and a possible Bumpit hidden under that volumized poof. Last night, Palin proved that the recently released photo of her in big 80s hair, off-shoulder cropped top, and wedge heels while shopping at Kmart in Los Angeles isn’t just a phase. She’s officially lost it.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s patriotism

This was a hard call — does this gem belong under the Laugh or the Proud sections? We’re pretty happy for Arnold Schwarzenegger on his road to citizenship, but we don’t think we’ve ever seen anyone go this all out when they first received their United States passport. It’s adorable, sweet, personable, but let’s face it: It’s also hilarious. Were you inspired to go out and vote after this photo? And for the green card holders, are you aspiring for the same kind of celebration one day? Oh, sweet, sweet Arnold.

Proud 

Inventive ways to follow the elections

Back in the day (and by that we mean two elections ago) people used to sit around and actually watch television to keep up with state tallies and news analytics. These days, we have apps, widgets, even an HTML5-infused comic strip to help illustrate the journey of how we got to Election Day 2012. Following the elections has never been so interactive, creative, and dare we say, fun, to keep up with … in an effortless manner, no less. We are continually stunned by how app developers, Web designers, and graphic artists manage to find ways to make all this information digestible and approachable depending on your personal interests and styles.

Obama hits Reddit one last time

In the late afternoon of Election Day 2012, the POTUS decided that since he already had an account on Reddit, he might as well put it to good use to garner some last-minute Internet followers’ votes. “Think of it as upvoting,” he writes in a completely relevant and connected way to target his Reddit audience. He even referenced the viral Not Bad rage face. If there’s anything we learned this political season, it’s that the Web should also be considered a campaign stop, and probably the most cost-efficient one as well.

Amazing political discourse on Quora

Quora is a great place to hit up when you’ve got questions you’re dying to find a logical, reasonable answer to, and the open-minded discussions on that site made us truly proud of our fellow American Netizens. Especially when the question was as simple as “What is President Barack Obama like in person?” It’s hard to envision any politician as a regular guy, but Peter Marquez, a former White House director for Space Policy (who’s also a republican), managed to do it in a completely unbiased manner. The discussion adds a sense of familiarity and a new personable level that reveals a different side to the president. Whether or not this had to do with your voting decision is another story, but we’re proud of the Internet nonetheless for using resources in a respectful and insightful way.

Social media trends soar

Twitter is one of the biggest go-to sources for real-time reactions to current events, from the Super Bowl to Hurricane Sandy updates. Decision 2012 was no different. Members of the social media world took to Twitter and Facebook to encourage friends to vote and make their voices heard, noting that you can’t complain about losing if you don’t vote. According to the latest Twitter update, about 31 million tweets were shared yesterday, hitting a peak of 327,452 Tweets per minute – right around when the president was declared re-elected.

Pepsi commercials and celebrity endorsements might be cool for most social issues, but Twitter takes the cake on spreading the word this election season (on top of the president himself on Reddit). It was also nice to see politicians offer congratulatory remarks to the president, and thanking voters for their support.

But of course, social media’s power did not come without hiccups, which brings us to our next segment…

Cry 

Instagramming your ballots

We get it, Instagram is everywhere. It’s in your local restaurant, bus stop, park, airport, and it’s an overall visual way to chronicle your life. But do explain to us what is so awesome about a piece of paper that shows you’ve voted? Are we going to start encouraging high school students to Instagram their SAT scores now? We know you mean well by proving your civic engagement, but we’re pretty sure no one would lie about taking part in democracy at a crucial time. Consider your voice heard, and keep those ballot photos to yourself. After all, it actually is illegal to photograph your voting booth in several states.

Google searches for “Who’s running for president” spike

Really, America? You waited until the last possible moment to figure out who the presidential nominees are this year or when election day is? It’s one thing to be undecided till the last minute, but completely clueless is unforgivable. This misguided, uninformed, careless inactiveness is everything that’s wrong with America. If you had to search on the day of the elections, we have to cry over the fact that people like you have the power to vote.

#VoteBlack and #VoteWhite hashtags remind us racism still exists

Let’s just get one thing straight in America: Barack Obama is not the first African American man to ever run for president. Turning this election into a race-based decision is as good as Donald Trump’s repeated taunts and challenges to bully Obama for his birth certificate and college transcript: Degrading, tasteless, and offensive. Worse, some of the offending tweets with the hashtag offered completely inappropriate remarks, showing just how vile people can be.

We had to blur out some horrible vernacular, but you can use your imagination as to what these words might have been. Thankfully, plenty of other tweets with the same hashtags shared our sense of disgust. Guess what, haters?

 

Technology is the clear loser in the elections

We obviously love, live, and breathe technology here at Digital Trends, but we have to admit: Real world instances of tech did not fare well during the elections whatsoever. A touchscreen voting machine in Pennsylvania seems to have spazzed out and auto-changed Obama votes to Romney. New Jersey’s email voting option backfired on residents because county email inboxes couldn’t handle the requests. Even if we can vote online, the opportunity opens e-voters to fraud and will make it that much harder to accurately tally the polls. Although we’re in this to help society advance, it seems the ol’ paper ballot is still the trustworthy method.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

U.S. smartphone owners pay 3-10 times more for 4G LTE data, says study

According to a recent study, Americans pay three times as much for their LTE network service than most Europeans -- and nearly ten times more than what Swedish citizens pay.

We can now add 4G LTE service to the list of things Americans pay significantly more to have than the rest of the world — right next to education and health care. According to a GSM Association study reported by the New York Times, Americans pay three times more per gigabyte of data than the average European consumers — and ten times more than Sweden. But at least we can get a large pizza for just $5, right America?

The study revealed that America’s leading LTE provider, Verizon Wireless, charges its subscribers $7.50 for every gigabyte of data downloaded over its network. In comparison, the average cost of a gig in Europe is $2.50. Sweden leads the way in inexpensive service, with data only ringing up at $0.63 per gigabyte.

Verizon spokeswomen Brenda Raney did counter this information by pointing out the Verizon plan that is being compared is from its Share Everything plan, which includes unlimited call and text minutes and allows data to be shared among ten devices. If a person was to purchase a data only plan, similar to how the European providers offer service, they would only pay over twice the European average with a cost of $5.50 per gigabyte. Of course, Europeans separate talk and data plans, though. Verizon, on the other hand, is forcing all new users to sign up for Share Everything plans. And though you can connect up to 10 devices to an account, there is a monthly fee per device, which ranges from $10 to $40. 

Verizon was the first company to roll out 4G LTE in the United States, followed by AT&T. Verizon still owns the market with 11.6 million LTE subscribers (AT&T reports just short of a million), or about 43 percent of the world’s 27 million LTE users. The lone country to beat Verizon to market just happens to be the cheapest: Sweden. The cost gap seems to have everything to do with competition, though. Europe has 38 of the world’s 88 LTE providers fighting for subscribers. Austria and Finland have three within their borders alone. Meanwhile, the world’s largest market for mobile, the United States, is still playing catch up in this regard.

This has actually been a trend with phone service in the United States. The average cost of a 3G contract runs an American citizen $115 a month. In comparison, citizens of the Netherlands pay $51 and those in Britain pay $59. The higher costs keep the adoption rate at a slow climb, which in turn keeps the cost up on those that have jumped on board because the provider has to recoup costs from building  the network. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that is very American: Pay more, consume more, and get less.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com