2016 announcements create unique Facebook maps

When South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham launched his campaign for the presidency at a Monday event in his tiny hometown of Central, S.C., the biggest burst of Facebook activity about him came from — you guessed it — South Carolina. Other top locales for Facebook chatter about Graham on Monday were North Carolina, D.C., New Hampshire and, for some reason, Maine.

As the aspirants for the 2016 presidential nominations announce their candidacies, they have left a unique digital footprint on the nation's Facebook conversation, according to data assembled by the giant social media platform.

For example,when former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican, announced he was seeking the party's nomination, his statements had the biggest impact in Facebook conversations in his home state, as well as the nearby states of Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Which candidate dominated Facebook conversations most in Illinois, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.? Hillary Clinton, the Democratic former first lady of Arkansas and the nation, as well as a native of Illinois.

This data are provided by Facebook as a part of the social media platform's analysis of the conversation in the 24 hours surrounding each candidate's presidential announcement. The results reflect the top five states for engagement per capita for each candidate on the day they announced. Republican Carly Fiorina's total engagement — likes, shares, comments — was higher in Arkansas than in Texas, but this is not a comparison of her results in Arkansas to Huckabee or Clinton, both of whom are likely to have higher Arkansas profiles.

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Part of the challenge of comparing Facebook data is that candidates like Clinton and presumably Jeb Bush, the Republican former governor of Florida, begin the season with a much larger national footprint than, say, Republican surgeon and activist Ben Carson or Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.. They are bigger, better known "brands." When Clinton launched her campaign April 12, Facebook reported that 4.7 million people on Facebook "generated 10.1 million interactions (likes, posts, comments, shares) related to Hillary Clinton and her announcement."

By comparison, Rand Paul generated 1.9 million engagements from 865,000 people on the day of his announcement. Former New York governor George Pataki generated 81,000 engagements from 59,000 people the day he declared a long-shot White House bid.

So instead of a straight numeric comparison, the Day One maps attempt to gauge where each candidate made the biggest relative impact on their coming out day. The information is interesting, but of limited use — it perhaps demonstrates where a candidate begins the campaign season with the most receptive audience.

"It's pretty logical where these conversations are clustered," said Julia Smekalina with the digital consulting firm IMGE. The maps represent "home states or states where they held office … states where they are very prominent." But Smekalina notes that the Day One impact fades in relevance very quickly. "The goal should be long-term engagement with your key audiences." She suggests the more important goal for this period of the presidential campaign is building a strong social media presence in key battleground states and early primary states.

But there are also some oddities worth noting. With lots of political conversation centered in Washington, it is perhaps not surprising it is one of the top five places for most of the entrants thus far. But Huckabee, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Carson did not dominate the conversation in the nation's capital — perhaps because they are not seen as top contenders by folks inside the Beltway.

Oregon, which is not home to any presidential candidate, provided a burst of interest for Fiorina, Sanders, former Pennsylvania Republican senator Rick Santorum and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

The data are not sorted by sentiment, said Kelli Matthews, an instructor at the University of Oregon, so it is not clear whether all of the chatter about the candidates is favorable. But she notes that Fiorina's former company, Hewlett-Packard, has a major facility in Corvallis, Ore., which may explain why her entry into the race would generate conversation there.

The Day One data does not provide the "complete picture," but Facebook can work like a real-time focus group, said Jay Natoli, director of digital and social media at Gallatin Public Affairs in Portland. "In places where your messages are resonating on Day One, you will learn something about what is resonating" and what messaging is most effective, Natoli said. Campaigns can dig into those Facebook discussions to hone their messaging for later use, he said.