#GE16 Social Tracker – 20th Feb week in review

PR360’s #GE16Social is tracking the Irish General Election Twitter conversation on a daily basis for the duration of the campaign. PR360’s #GE16Social analyses the approximately 400,000 Twitter accounts registered to Ireland, specifically focusing on the Twitter activity generated by General Election 2016.

Within this, PR360’s #GE16Social categorises the activity of Ireland’s key commentators, influencers, parties and politicians, using the analysis tools to monitor, gather and analyse social data. PR360’s #GE16Social commenced on Wednesday 3 February and will conclude when polls close on 26 February.

Today’s edition looks back on trends over the past week, starting from midnight on Saturday, 13 February, and ending at 6pm on Friday, 19 February.

The main findings include:

– 114,968 mentions of #GE16/#GE2016 — up 39% on last week;
– 77,258 mentions of #leadersdebate — 34,768 unique accounts contributed to this total;
– Gerry Adams was the most mentioned party leader, with 18,429 tweets; followed by Enda Kenny (14,070) and Joan Burton (10,560).
– Padraig Belton’s humorous tweet on a talkative (but non-voting) Derry man received the most retweets (491), followed by Lucinda Creighton’s repsonse to the Labour One Direction ad (361).