Brown Drowns out Cameron in Online Conversations
PM consistently outscores Tory rival by almost 5:1 across the web so far this year.
London, 31 January 2008
Are our leading politicians missing a major opportunity to connect?
New data reveals that David Cameron is struggling to make his voice heard online.
Analysis of more than 2 million new pages posted each day on the web in news sites, blogs, forums and other social media shows that from the start of January, for all his success in recent polls*, David Cameron simply cannot compete with Gordon Brown in the increasingly important and influential online debate.
According to social media analytics tool http://www.brandwatch.net/brandwatch, which tracks and analyses millions of online conversations taking place daily across a wide range of brands and issues, Brown on average registers nearly five times more online mentions than Cameron.
Brandwatch data shows that since January 1 Gordon Brown has registered a total of 5,634 hits (a hit being where he is mentioned at least once in an online article, blog or forum), compared to Cameron’s 1,155. Daily this averages to 194 for Brown compared to 39 for Cameron.
When the corresponding web content is analysed for sentiment – eg positive, negative or neutral – the story is even more discouraging for Cameron. Positive mentions for Cameron so far this year total a meagre 102, as against his 650 negative mentions – a ratio of 6.4 to 1.
While the comment for Brown, as for Cameron, is still overwhelmingly negative, the PM fares noticeably better, with 663 positives as against 2,575 negatives – a ratio of 3.9 to 1.
“While the recent polls suggest that Cameron is consolidating a substantial lead over his rival, we’re seeing that online Cameron is generating far less coverage than Brown,” says Giles Palmer, CEO, Magpie, the technology company behind Brandwatch.
“More importantly, what Brandwatch flags up by measuring not only mentions of a given brand but also attributing positive, negative or neutral sentiment to every relevant mention is that neither Brown nor Cameron is doing enough inspiring a positive buzz about their issues. For either of these guys, connecting more positively with influential online media, bloggers and others who care enough to get involved in the conversation, is a real opportunity.”
It is also interesting to see how the rivals score on different topics or issues amongst bloggers and others engaging in online political debate. For example, in the case of immigration, in discussions involving Gordon Brown, 7% were positive, 34% neutral and 59% negative. For Cameron, 4% were positive, 39% neutral and 57% negative. However, Brandwatch data for debates on climate change shows a very different story, with Brown at 10% positive, 52% neutral and 38% negative. Cameron seems to struggle more with 12% positive, 30% neutral and 58% negative.
As for Nick Clegg, on any given day the new Liberal Democrat leader typically scrapes together barely half Cameron’s number of mentions and less than 1 mention in 12 of Brown’s.
Notes to editors:
CONTACT Nancy Prendergast, Tannissan Mae
"mailto:nancy@tannissanmae.com" nancy@tannissanmae.com +44 (0) 20 7243 4440
Charts and graphs from Brandwatch are available on request
*A Daily Telegraph/YouGov survey, January 26, 2008, showed 31% of adults believe that Cameron will be the best leader for Britain, compared to 27% backing Brown. An ICM poll published January 13, 2007 gave the Conservatives a seven-point lead over Labour.
About Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a social media analytics tool built to track, measure and analyse brand mentions on the web. It is used primarily by brand owners and marketers to understand their online brand strength, competitive position and topics being discussed, in order to decide how to best spread their message among influential online audiences.
Brandwatch software crawls the web 24/7 to find conversations taking place in blogs, news sites, forums and other social media. It uses a combination of highly advanced search technology and unique natural language processing to cut through the chaos of the millions of online conversations taking place every day. Extracting key topics, Brandwatch categorises them by influence and sentiment, and delivers relevant, timely, accurate information to the brand owner’s desktop via a powerful dashboard.
Brandwatch’s customers are leading brands including Alliance and Leicester, Sony and the Post Office. Brandwatch is developed by engineers and scientists at Magpie, a VC-funded technology company based in Brighton, UK.
If you would like to know more about Brandwatch, then please do contact us or book an online demo. You can also take advantage of our free weekly update on any brand.
