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 (48.3x)
America can have another Clinton. We can have another Bush. We can have any one of the other Big Government candidates…
Posted by Rand Paul on Thursday, September 17, 2015
2. Rand Paul (30.0x)
### Please read below for a special message from Justin Amash ###Last night I saw something remarkable on the debate…
Posted by Rand Paul on Thursday, September 17, 2015
3. Jeb Bush (22.6x)
My wife is a Mexican American. American by choice. She loves America & wants a secure border & wants to embrace the American values.
Posted by Jeb Bush on Wednesday, September 16, 2015
4. Hillary Clinton (19.7x)
Trump: “Are you writing all this down?"Hillary: "Let me grab my pen…"
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Thursday, September 17, 2015
5. Bernie Sanders (17.7x)
Let me tell you something about our country that the billionaire class doesn’t want you to know…
Posted by Bernie Sanders on Monday, September 14, 2015
6. Ted Cruz (13.3x)
This is what I'll do if elected President. Help make it a reality: https://www.tedcruz.org/donate/?cid=FO0160
Posted by Ted Cruz on Thursday, September 17, 2015
7. Carly Fiorina (12.3x)
Career politicians won't defend the character of our nation–which is why we, the American people, must step in and say…
Posted by Carly Fiorina on Wednesday, September 16, 2015
8. Donald J. Trump (11.6x)
Unbelievable crowd in Dallas!
Posted by Donald J. Trump on Monday, September 14, 2015
9. Ted Cruz (11.2x)
If I'm elected President, it’s real simple — we’ll kill the terrorists, we’ll repeal Obamacare, and we will defend the Constitution, every single word of it! #CNNDebate
Posted by Ted Cruz on Wednesday, September 16, 2015
10. Bernie Sanders (11.1x)
The evening was really pretty sad. This country and our planet face enormous problems. And the Republican candidates…
Posted by Bernie Sanders on Wednesday, September 16, 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.
