Social Media Analysis Of The 2015 Presidential Election

The upcoming presidential election is no doubt the current trending topic in Nigeria today and Impact Social, a company that specialises in analysis of social media and its impact on politics and policy has, over a four-day period, employed the use of a social media tool, which tracks every conversation, live. All Twitter, Facebook, blogs, 50 million websites, forums etc can be read by them.

Information is subsequently graded into Positive, Negative and Neutral to estimate the social media electorate’s view on the most mentioned candidates.

Find below the findings of the company’s recent research highlighting social media’s sentiments on the candidates representing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC),

Goodluck Ebele Jonathan/PDP: Positivity towards Jonathan personally remains a key driver of the PDP campaign (70 per cent positive/30 per cent negative). There are still some negative issues weighing down the GEJ camp (Buhari, Chibok, postponement of the election). But again these are “compound” with no single issue driving significant levels of negativity. There is work to do on some of the key issues (infrastructure, education) but in this period messaging on the economy has taken up (6 percent) of the conversation and is seen as a key GEJ/PDP strength.

There is positive sentiment towards the PDP itself with a consistent message around support for GEJ. This period might be characterised as one of good control from the PDP/GEJ camp and shows good potential to keep pressing home the big issues Nigerians care about. This analysis was conducted using random, representative samples of over 40,000 tweets, facebook posts, blogs, forums and news sites in Nigeria, which mention PDP or GEJ. Our analysis methodology is proven to be at least 95 per cent accurate.

General Muhammadu Buhari: The conversation is dominated by a general discussion of politics, which is neither positive or negative. There are lots of “noisy” side issues being discussed, but these are not being used as a campaign platform to gain traction. Indeed, there has been some frustration voiced that APC is not focusing on important issues. It might be said that the campaign lacks consistency and content. Interestingly, momentum around endorsement and vocal support has not carried through despite being prominent on the campaign trail the week before. If anything, the lack of message penetration by APC will give encouragement to the GEJ campaign teams to keep its focus on key drivers (economy, infrastructure, agriculture and education), as it appears that APC has little impact on these issues.

This analysis was conducted using random, representative samples of over 32,000 tweets, facebook posts, blogs, forums and news sites in Nigeria which mention APC/ Buhari. Our analysis methodology is proved to be at least 95 per cent accurate.

By Zika Ajuluchukwu