Hey gang, apologies for the sparse publishing lately — I got thrown for a loop by a case of bronchitis plus some emergency dental surgery, yum. We should be back on track now, though.
Also, with so many candidates dropping out, I’ve been needing to update this list to remove the losers. That’s now done, but it won’t take effect until next week’s edition. For now, I’m just leaving out posts by folks who’ve dropped out of the race, though note how many of THEM (Christie, Huckabee, Paul) are seeing better engagement than candidates still running.
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. John Kasich (9.3x)
The adult in the room that's ready to lead. America needs John Kasich. #GOPDebate
Posted by John Kasich on Thursday, February 25, 2016
2. Hillary Clinton (8.3x)
A quiet moment before taking the stage in Nevada.
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Sunday, February 21, 2016
3. Hillary Clinton (8.2x)
It has a nice ring to it.
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, February 23, 2016
4. [A Dropout’s Post]
5. Marco Rubio (7.1x)
Glad to have Donnie Wahlberg's support in this campaign! Welcome to the team!
Posted by Marco Rubio on Sunday, February 21, 2016
6. [Another LOSER post, as Trump would say]
7. Marco Rubio (5.9x)
The time for games is over. Vote for me, so we can stop Trump, unite the party, and win in November:
Posted by Marco Rubio on Thursday, February 25, 2016
8. [Loooooooser]
9. [Last one…until someone else drops out]
10. John Kasich (4.8x)
"You've got the goods. You balanced the budget. You led the State of Ohio to greatness."
Posted by John Kasich on Sunday, February 21, 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.
