Hi folks, our friends at CrowdTangle have opened a new door into the online campaign for president. Inspired by the weekly Top Ten Facebook Advocacy Posts, they’re now letting Epolitics.com publish a list of the top-performing Facebook stories published by the 2016 presidential campaigns. Nice!
We’ll be building the list weekly, usually on Fridays, so be sure to swing by regularly to see who’s topping the heap. Remember, 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 specific campaign on Facebook.
The inaugural (hah!) post below covers the last five days, and future lists will include a full week’s posts. Of note this time? See what’s working for whom: attacking Planned Parenthood, playing with the family, or simply being Trump. No Dems this time around, but that can happen sometimes when you have 15+ Republican candidates. Enjoy!
1. Rand Paul (21.5x)
Like most Americans, the thought of Planned Parenthood officials killing these babies, dismembering them and selling…
Posted by Rand Paul on Monday, July 27, 2015
2. Rick Santorum (16.8x)
Enough is enough! Congress must defund Planned Parenthood now! #ProLife
Posted by Rick Santorum on Thursday, July 30, 2015
3. Jeb Bush (15.8x)
Glad to see dad's doing better
Posted by Jeb Bush on Thursday, July 30, 2015
4. Donald J. Trump (12.9x)
I truly LOVE all of the millions of people who are sticking with me despite so many media lies. There is a great SILENT MAJORITY looming!
Posted by Donald J. Trump on Wednesday, July 29, 2015
5. Donald J. Trump (11.4x)
We must protect our veterans. #MakeAmericaGreatAgain
Posted by Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, July 28, 2015
6. Rick Santorum (10.7x)
Home for the afternoon with Bella & the family! We made sandwiches for lunch & are going to check our peach trees!
Posted by Rick Santorum on Wednesday, July 29, 2015
7. Rand Paul (10.2x)
Thanks to your continued pressure, this morning I'm pleased to announce that I've secured a commitment to have a vote on…
Posted by Rand Paul on Tuesday, July 28, 2015
8. Mike Huckabee (10.1x)
As you know, my comments referencing Iran's threats to invoke a holocaust against Israel have caused Hillary Clinton and…
Posted by Mike Huckabee on Wednesday, July 29, 2015
9. Mike Huckabee (8.1x)
I'm telling Congress NOT to go on summer vacation until they kill the Iran deal. Will you click below and join me? ⬇️
Posted by Mike Huckabee on Tuesday, July 28, 2015
10. Marco Rubio (7.6x)
Defund Planned Parenthood NOW. Click here if you agree!
Posted by Marco Rubio on Wednesday, July 29, 2015
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.
