Sanders Has an Army of Die-Hard Facebook Fans, While Clinton's Campaign Is Trying to Buy Popularity
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/sanders-has-army-die-hard-facebook-fans-while-clintons-campaign-trying-buy-popularity?akid=13528.227380.OrDPHe&rd=1&src=newsletter1043186&t=6
Bernie Sanders might still be trailing Hillary in all the national polls, but late last month he took the lead in a more newfangled — if possibly meaningless — measure of political strength: Facebook love. According to data obtained by Quintly, a social media analytics firm, Sanders’ presidential campaign page began the day of Saturday, August 22 with 1,197,290 likes to Clinton’s 1,199,797. By the end of the day, he had 1,218,879 to her 1,205,437. His lead has only increased since then.
Sanders’ success comes despite some suggestions that the Clinton campaign has been padding its totals on Facebook with purchased likes. Back in April, Vocative, a data mining media site, reported that Clinton’s presidential campaign page was more popular among Facebook users in Baghdad than any American city. And a further side-by-side comparison of both candidates’ page data shows that, over the last month, 95% of Sanders’ growth came from within the United States, while for Clinton that number is only 74%.
Oftentimes, so-called “click farms” are based out of developing countries and employ legions of low-paid workers to create fake Facebook profiles and then like the pages of clients. Clinton has seen strong growth over the last several weeks in followers in developing countries. To cite a single example, her followers in Myanmar tripled, to 18,150. (By contrast, Sanders’ share of foreign followers is much smaller and comes mostly from Western Europe.) This doesn’t necessarily mean Clinton’s campaign was paying click-farms directly — sometimes customers buy ads from Facebook, which promises to generate a certain number of likes, and those end up coming from click farms — but that didn’t stop some Reddit users from accusing her of buying likes to stave off Sanders.
Todd Haupman is the public relations director for Wishbond, an online marketing platform, and previously worked as the social media director for two members of Canada’s parliament. According to Haupman, when politicians purchase likes on Facebook, it comes from a general ignorance and lack of understanding of social media...
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