Trump, girls And ISIS: What entrepreneurs Can examine From The Social Language Of The 2016 Election

until you’ve been dwelling underneath a social media rock, it’s clear that the presidential election season is fully upon us. Between issues, debates, new polling knowledge and building momentum towards the upcoming primaries, headlines and social posts are brimming with political rhetoric, facts and figures and predictions.

Candidates and political groups are proving to be more social than ever this year, with social channels growing in affect, changing the foundations and shifting how candidates take into accounts advertising and marketing.

right here in the Spredfast research & Insights department, we’ve been collecting data about candidates and their messages over the last few months. We’ve been specifically interested in the language utilized by every candidate and the way audiences are responding to various talking factors, subject matters and calls to motion.

the overall takeaway is that language issues for entrepreneurs, political or not. We waded through the political social language to figure out:

• Which phrases and phrases are being used the most by way of presidential candidates for the 2016 election, and which of these result in their target audience to share and interact with the content?
• Which subject matters will have to each and every candidate be bringing up with elevated frequency — and which speaking factors will have to be put out to pasture?

Let’s dive into the information and in finding out.

the info

From a knowledge viewpoint, we grabbed each and every present candidate’s contemporary Twitter history to create a database of greater than 40,000 tweets from 2015, disposing of all retweets and replies.

We then used a course of called natural language processing to sift throughout the phrases utilized by each candidate. Our analysis removed some in style phrases like “the” and “of” — referred to as “stopwords” — that we weren’t concerned with for this find out about.

As we sifted through the data, we eager about the top continuously talked about terms across all candidates. We weren’t inquisitive about words mentioned once right here or there — we needed to look at consistent performance for terms — so terms talked about by way of a candidate fewer than five instances weren’t integrated in outcomes. See a full checklist of essentially the most regularly mentioned phrases at the backside of this post.*

For candidates’ tweets, including Bernie Sanders’ (proven here), Spredfast analyzed high frequently mentioned terms and their engagement rate as compared to a benchmark rate.

along with frequency counts, we accumulated information on the engagement (the retweets and likes) for every piece of content. We used engagement as a measure of effectiveness — the more retweets and likes a tweet received, the more it resonated with each candidate’s target audience.

widespread Social Language

We started with the aid of pooling the entire social data together and checking for essentially the most often used terms across your entire box of presidential hopefuls.

What subject matters and phrases are candidates the use of the most?

• “the united states”: This term straddles the aisle, seeing mentions in seven percent of tweets throughout both Republican and Democratic candidates. As you’ll see below, most candidates should believe swapping this out with “america.”
• “sign up for”: This name to action is steadily used in five % of tweets by way of candidates, and it used to be the top time period used by Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina. will have to it be used this so much? We’ll get to that in a minute.
• “Hillary”: Hillary Clinton is the highest candidate being mentioned by means of her personal campaign and others, showing in four percent of tweets from the sphere. (The term “Clinton” additionally appears in +1.5 % of all candidate tweets.)
• “Obama”: steadily utilized by Republicans (in more than three % of tweets) in an try to rally their base. Mentions are used with the best frequency through candidates Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.

focusing on Effectiveness, no longer simply Frequency

high-stage views throughout all candidates supply us some guidance toward absolute best practices, but each marketer knows that their particular person target market is different from the industry as a whole. with a purpose to offer strategic course on a social content material strategy, we want to get all the way down to the candidate stage.

So let’s take a look at a number of candidates’ posting patterns– now not simplest which phrases are being smartly-acquired through their audience, but in addition how frequently each candidate is mentioning those themes.

to do that, we’ll map terms on a graph for each and every candidate in line with two axes: how smartly the audience answered to the language (retweets + likes) versus how frequently the candidate used each and every term. Don’t worry, it’ll make extra sense in a minute.

With the graphs beneath, we created three main sections:

• must mention more (blue): the highest left facet of the graph represents phrases which might be taking part in above-moderate engagement but aren’t used continuously; candidates could be clever to tweet these terms more.
• continue bringing up (inexperienced): the guts component to the graph presentations a healthy stability between terms being used continuously and high engagement from the target market. Presidential hopefuls with tweets right here must maintain doing what they’re doing.
• should mention much less (purple): the underside component to the graph displays phrases receiving low engagement, no matter how continuously they’re being used in social posts. Social groups for the politicos within the race may want to believe reducing the mentions of these terms.

Language diagnosis: Donald Trump

• What will have to Donald Trump tweet about extra? Any mentions of “Islam” exhibit prime efficiency for Trump, and the identical goes for name-checking Bernie Sanders.
• What will have to Donald Trump proceed to do on Twitter? A recent push of tweets citing ladies’s rights got a favorable reaction from his audience, as do phrases like “ISIS” and “Muslim.” Calling out President Obama and Hillary Clinton — some of his most-used terms — yields constantly stable retweet and Like rates from his followers.
• What will have to Donald Trump tweet about much less? Trump will have to avoid mentions of himself — “Trump” is the time period used most (in almost 18 % of his posts), but it receives under-reasonable engagement. He must also avoid pushing his ebook and asking others to “subscribe to” in his marketing campaign.

As mentioned above, Trump’s recent volley of content citing “girls” has now not simplest received a good response from his audience, it’s essentially the most positive engagement on that topic we’ve viewed over the last few months.

Hillary, whilst you whinge about “a penchant for sexism,” who are you referring to. i’ve nice respect for women. watch out!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2015

before a up to date assortment of five tweets on the topic, “ladies” used to be certainly one of Trump’s worst-performing social phrases. however with the fresh push from his campaign, the tide has grew to become.

we will observe mentions of “ladies” in opposition to the Twitter response over time to look the pattern of growing engagement from his followers for the term.

Let’s move on to every other high-polling Republican candidate, Dr. Ben Carson.

Language diagnosis: Ben Carson

• What will have to Ben Carson tweet about more? Calling out Hillary Clinton sees the best response from his target market, and mentions of “Syria” and “refugee” are top-performing phrases that aren’t used very frequently.
• What will have to Ben Carson proceed to do on Twitter? talk about “ISIS,” “liberty” and “women” receives strong social engagement for Carson. He will have to also continue to say “God” (but now not “faith”).
• What must Ben Carson tweet about less? Mentions of his own title, as well as his e-book, should not strong performers. also, marketing campaign-heavy phrases like “pledge,” “city hall” and “subscribe to” don’t urged engagement from his followers.

Now on to Florida’s Marco Rubio.

Language prognosis: Marco Rubio

• What should Marco Rubio tweet about extra? Rubio’s target market responds smartly to his talk around “deliberate Parenthood” and any mentions of the “usa” (but no longer necessarily “the us”).
• What will have to Marco Rubio proceed to do on Twitter? Mentions of the “middle East” and “ISIS” are seeing a just right response, and so are any name tests of “Hillary,” which his followers respond to raised than mentions of “Clinton.”
• What will have to Marco Rubio tweet about less? “Obamacare” mentions don’t drive engagement from his target market, and mentions of his slogan, “the subsequent American Century,” don’t do smartly, either. “Iowa,” “marketing campaign” and “sign up for,” so much as we’ve seen throughout most candidates, receive a poor response.

Let’s now not disregard the Democrats. Will we discover the same patterns on the other aspect of the aisle? Let’s begin with Hillary Clinton.

Language prognosis: Hillary Clinton

• What should Hillary Clinton tweet about more? “Muslim” and “religion” see one of the crucial best retweets and likes of any phrases from her Twitter feed. Mentions of “freedom” convey the perfect engagement of any time period, but she doesn’t tweet the time period that ceaselessly.
• What should Hillary Clinton proceed to do on Twitter? When Hillary calls out Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, it drives stable engagement. As we’ve viewed with different candidates, use of the time period “america” is very favored by means of the audience over “the usa.” in addition, Clinton is one of the few candidates seeing sure engagement on education-associated issues (together with Bernie Sanders).
• What will have to Hillary Clinton tweet about less? Her tweets check with herself within the 1/3 particular person in excessive volumes, and mentions of “Hillary” exhibit one of the worst efficiency of any term. economic terms, like “working domestic/ies” and “economic system” aren’t resonating with the audience, both. “New Hampshire” mentions, while clearly targeted at the native target audience in that state, fail to force engagement across her wider follower base.

And now let’s maintain moving on to Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

Language diagnosis: Bernie Sanders

• What must Bernie Sanders tweet about more? Mentions of “Trump” express his perfect engagement of any term, and discussion round “deliberate Parenthood” also sees a favorable response from his audience.
• What will have to Bernie Sanders proceed to do on Twitter? Senator Sanders must keep discussing the subject of “school” and affordability and stay all in favour of girls’s concerns.
• What will have to Bernie Sanders tweet about less? marketing campaign-heavy terms like “sign up for,” “marketing campaign,” “Iowa” and “town hall” are seeing low engagement.

more than just words

As we’ve seen, through getting good about language patterns, campaigns and entrepreneurs can take a look at completely different tactics to take a look at an target audience’s response. It’s vital to note that these findings aren’t set in stone: we know that the effectiveness of these phrases will ebb and glide with present situations and matter saturation.

however having a wise solution to a social crew’s communication technique can most effective raise a candidate’s — or your — performance.

understand that to choose your social language correctly along with your target market in thoughts, take a look at the competitors to see what’s working for them, and experiment with new content material strategies often.

And, after all, don’t overlook to vote.

*phrases and phrases found across all candidates’ social feeds included the following language: “trump,” “rubio,””hillary,” “clinton,” “carson,” “jeb,” “obama,” “bernie,” “immigration,” “borders,” “refugee,” “syria,” “isis,” “isil,” “iraq,” “islam,” “center east,” “muslim,” “international coverage,” “putin,” “north korea,” “college,” “school,” “training,” “women,” “planned parenthood,” “economic system,” “tax,” “job,” “middle class,” “working household/families,” “minimum wage,” “medicaid,” “social security,” “gun violence,” “equal pay,” “well being care,” “obamacare,” “wall boulevard,” “human rights,” “balloting rights,” “local weather exchange,” “global warming,” “conservative,” “liberal,” “progressive,” “faith/non secular,” “god,” “revolution,” “the united states,” “united states,” “freedom,” “liberty,” “safety,” “nuclear,” “nsa,” “patriot act,” “join,” “struggle,” “help,” “hope,” “promise,” “looking forward,” “pledge,” “town hall,” “bumper sticker,” “new hampshire,” “iowa,” “washington,” “truth test,” “remaining night,” “ballot,” “campaign,” “century,” “ebook.”

Some opinions expressed in this article could also be these of a guest author and no longer necessarily advertising and marketing Land. personnel authors are listed here.

concerning the writer

Chris Kerns

Chris Kerns has spent more than a decade defining digital technique and sits on the forefront of extracting insights from digital knowledge. he is the VP of analysis & Insights at Spredfast, a social instrument platform that empowers enterprise companies to connect with customers in an an increasing number of social world. His research has regarded in the ny occasions, Forbes, u.s. these days and the The Wall street Journal, amongst different publications. he’s also the writer of Trendology, the primary e book to dive into the benefit brands can build the use of an information-driven strategy to real-time marketing.

(Some images used below license from Shutterstock.com.)