Social media study: Conservatives were top tweeters in 2010 elections

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The results of a study on candidates' use of Twitter in the 2010 midterm elections suggest that Republicans and Tea Party members used the social medium more effectively than their Democratic rivals. The University of Michigan study, among the first to examine the Tea Party's social media strategies, also showed that analyzing Twitter activity can lead to good predictions of election winners. Various social media tools have become a key part of campaign strategies in recent years. In 2010, nearly a quarter of online adults used social networks including Twitter to engage with the election. In this study, researchers from the U-M School of Information and the College of Engineering looked at more than 460,000 tweets—three years' worth from 687 candidates running for national House, Senate and gubernatorial seats. "The conservative candidates—Republicans and Tea Party members—definitely used Twitter more visibly and showed a more coherent set of messages and topics," said Eytan Adar, assistant professor in the School of Information and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "They also followed each other much more closely.