How Donald Trump Bested Jeb Bush on Social Media
By Karen Hawkinson
Donald Trump is our President-Elect. But two years ago political pundits thought Jeb Bush would be the eventual Republican nominee. In what ways did Donald Trump’s reception on social media differ from Bush’s to help an unconventional candidate win the nomination — and the fascination of the public — over a mainstream candidate?
It is well documented that Trump has more followers than any other candidate. But it’s important to establish just how large of a lead Trump had over Bush on social media during the surfacing stages of the campaign. Far more of the public was interacting with Trump’s messages than Bush’s. On Twitter, his messages were retweeted and favorited at a rate far higher than Bush’s. On Facebook, people also commented, replied, and shared Trump’s posts more than Bush’s.
Illuminating 2016, a website developed at Syracuse University with support from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, collects social media data from politicians and tracks engagement on Twitter and Facebook posts. The messages examined here are Facebook and Twitter messages posted by the Bush and Trump campaigns on Facebook and Twitter from September 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016. This time period is regarded as the surfacing stage, where the candidates establish their policy positions and are actively campaigning, but before the voting process.
During the surfacing stage, Trump’s Facebook posts were shared 34 times as many as Bush’s, received 60 times more likes, and received 28 times more comments overall. His success on Twitter followed a similar pattern. Trump’s reach and reaction on social media was substantially greater than that for Bush.
What was it about Trump’s posts that resonated with social media users? Using machine learning, Illuminating 2016 assigns every candidate’s social media messages a main focus: call-to-action, ceremonial, conversational, endorsement, informative, and strategic. The most notable differences between Bush and Trump’s social media messages involved messages with a call-to-action and strategic message focus. Calls to action made up 24 percent of Bush’s posts, and only 6 percent of Trump’s.
Donald Trump solicited donations to his campaign on social media just three times during the surfacing period according to data from Illuminating 2016. This isn’t surprising, since Trump has made a point of self-funding his campaign. Jeb Bush, like the majority of politicians, actively solicited donations from the public to fund his campaign. However, these donation posts were only a tiny percentage of Bush’s messages overall on social media.
Despite Bush’s high number of call-to-action messages, only seven percent of his call-to-action messages urge people to vote. By contrast, 25 percent of Trump’s call to action messages urged people to vote.
Trump’s call-to-action messages increased in the months before the early states voted in the primary elections. Jeb Bush, despite having more call-to-action messages on social media overall, does not significantly increase his requests for votes as the primary neared. Donald Trump called for his followers to vote 22 times in January 2016, a sharp rise from the earlier months. Jeb Bush requested votes 9 times in January 2016, only once more than the previous month.
Both campaigns produced more strategic messages than any other type of message. Illuminating 2016 classifies strategic messages as advocacy or attack. Within those classifications, a message is further classified as issue if it discusses the candidate or opponent’s policy or politics in general. A message is classified as image if it discusses the candidate’s character, personality, style, values, or ability to lead.
Trump sent out the largest number of issue messages in October 2015, which then decreased. Issue messages included his advocating that the United States build a wall on our border with Mexico and advocating for Second Amendment rights, for example.
Jeb Bush tended to discuss the issues more than Trump, especially towards the end of the surfacing stage, when Bush discusses the issues (both attacking and advocating) about twice as much as Trump.
Given that both candidates sent out thousands of messages on Twitter and Facebook each during the surfacing stage, it’s surprising that so few of the posts discuss the issues that are typically at the forefront of an election.
Though social media is a popular source for learning about elections and news in general, the small amount of talk about the issues suggests that the public is unlikely to be able to learn much by way of the candidate’s issue positions from their social media messages.
Self-promotion and attacks are expected in a political campaign. Trump heavily advocated for himself and others on social media during the surfacing stage and posted a greater number of messages on social media attacking image than Bush. Despite a slight increase in image messages in January 2016, Jeb discussed image on social media less than Trump.
Bush and Trump have a complicated relationship, both on and off social media. In recent months, Jeb Bush has refused to endorse Trump for president. The mutual dislike was evident at debates and through campaign ads. Early in the surfacing stage of the campaign, contentious back and forth between Bush and Trump developed on social media.
These attack messages fuel public and media conversation — but do not receive many more replies, likes, or shares by social media users than advocacy posts. Our analysis of likes and retweets on Twitter and shares on Facebook suggests that attack messages are engaged with more, but not significantly more than advocacy messages.
Attack messages do not get significantly more engagement in terms of likes and retweets. However, these messages do seem to get more media attention. Donald Trump’s use of Twitter has fascinated the mainstream media as well as the general public. His messages insulting other politicians, news sources, and politicians gained (not always positive) media attention. In a testament to the media’s fascination with attack messages, the New York Times compiled a list of The 250 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List. There is no equivalent list of people, places, and things Donald Trump has advocated for from the New York Times — or list of insults from Jeb Bush.
Finally, against all odds, Bush had the most liked and retweeted tweet out of the two politicians. After admitting to trying marijuana during a primary debate, the Bush campaign delivered a short tweet: “Sorry Mom.”
If Bush’s social media campaign had a moment, this was it. Bush’s social media campaign tended to feel traditional. As I read through all of the messages Bush wrote during the surfacing stage, many were about campaign events and did little to reveal an authentic, genuine person who was willing to let his personality and opinions come through. Bush failed to fully embrace the new way of communicating in these digital platforms.
Indeed, Trump’s social media strategy was unconventional for a politician. Trump tended to focus on image over issue, and sent out strongly worded attacks. His messages were more entertaining to read than Bush’s, but did not have the issue focus or sources cited that were provided by the Bush campaign.
Karen Hawkinson is a research assistant on the Illuminating 2016 project at Syracuse.
