Sentiment towards the Conservative Party across Twitter and Facebook has fallen level with UKIP following the televised debate on BBC One last night, according to new research.
Analysis by data science and media technology company, 4C Insights, has revealed:
- Amber Rudd, the Conservative Party average sentiment of just 41% over the course of the debate, in line with political outsiders UKIP.
- Jeremey Corbyn, the Labour Party average sentiment of 54%, placing them 13% ahead of their main Conservative rivals
- Green Party scored the best sentiment with 71%,
- Liberal Democrats came third with a sentiment of 59%
Represented by Amber Rudd, the Conservative Party and delegate speaker held on to an average sentiment of just 41% over the course of the debate, in line with political outsiders UKIP. Rudd drove over 171,808 social engagements from 7pm to 10pm.
Among the hardest hit casualties from the debate was UKIP leader Phil Nutall, who only managed to generate little over 27,000 engagements for his time in the political arena.
Lambasting retorts from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn drove the most engagements with over 223,000 tweets, retweets, replies, comments and likes – a significant payout for his decision to enter the debate. Corbyn held an average sentiment for himself and the party of 54%, placing them 13% ahead of their main Conservative rivals out of the debate with less than a week to go.
In terms of overall sentiment however, it is the Green Party represented in the debate by Caroline Lucas, who have stormed into the lead, scoring a combined average of 71%. This places them a whole 30% ahead of the Conservatives. While only driving 42,000 engagements, Lucas’ managed to keep negative engagements to her and the Green Party down to just 16% and 19% respectively.
Similarly, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron had a productive evening maintaining the third highest average sentiment score of 59%. While the party seems dormant on Facebook, where fewer than 9,000 engagements took place, Twitter has contributed to a respectable 81,000 engagements.
Meanwhile the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru appear to have remained very much on the periphery of social debate, only generating 35,576 and 7,033 engagements respectively. However, Leanne Wood and Plaid Cymru can take some solace in the fact they maintained the second highest average sentiment of 62%.
Commenting on the findings, Andy Nobbs, SVP, Sales, EMEA at 4C Insights comments, “The relationship between TV and social is a symbiotic one. With the BBC being streamed through Twitter, we’re seeing an increasing awareness of this relationship at the highest levels. While it remains to be seen how the debate will impact real votes, the data we can collect around real-time events is a treasure trove few can continue to ignore. Campaigns can be enhanced, swapped and dialled-up based on real sentiment, delivering more relevant results to the audiences most invested in them.”
Methodology
During this first live Twitter debate 4C looked into social engagements and sentiments for the debate period from 19:00-22:00 across Facebook and Twitter. Social media engagements include mentions, retweets, comments, and post likes from candidate and party Facebook pages and Twitter handles, as well as related keywords and hashtags. Sentiment is a percent of engagements which are positive and not negative.
Source: www.4Cinsights.com