Social Engagement Boost for Candidates Continues During Democratic Convention

by Jack Weinstein

The most-engaged social media content last week related to the Democratic National Convention didn’t have anything to do with Hillary Clinton’s historic nomination as the first woman to be chosen by a major party for president. Like the Republican National Convention the week before, another speaker other than their party’s candidate stole the social spotlight, but for different reasons.

President Barack Obama’s tweet congratulating First Lady Michelle Obama on her speech, which helped kick off the convention in Philadelphia on Monday, July 25, generated nearly 725,000 total actions. It was also the most-engaged tweet of the week overall.



Tweets about the similarities between Melania Trump’s speech and the one Michelle Obama delivered at the 2008 Democratic convention generated the most engagement during the GOP convention.

Dems Generate More Engagement for Top Media

A social post about Michelle Obama’s speech was also the most-engaged social post by the media during the convention. CNN’s video that includes a more than 1-minute clip from Obama’s speech generated more than 425,000 actions and 13 million views.

That post helped CNN land No. 2 in the ranking of Democratic Convention media behind top-ranked FOX News, which also generated the most engagement during the GOP convention. ABC News checked in at third and The Huffington Post was No. 4, the same Top 4 as the week before. But the New York Times displaced NBC News in the fifth spot.



Four of the five top publishers generated engagement increases compared with the week of the GOP convention.

Clinton Gets Larger Social Boost

Donald Trump with 11.3 million actions generated more engagement than Hillary Clinton last week during the convention. However, Clinton generated more engagement growth than her average weekly output this year than Trump did during the week of the GOP convention.

Clinton generated nearly 10 million actions last week, 357% more than her average weekly engagement this year. By comparison, Trump generated just 65% more actions two weeks ago during the GOP convention than his average weekly engagement.

Clinton’s engagement increase was driven by an aggressive posting strategy. She published 143% more posts last week than she averages, including 265% more tweets.

Unlike Trump, who generated much of his convention week engagement growth from video content, Clinton’s video engagement remained near her weekly average.

Clinton’s most engaged post was a photo on Facebook of her hugging President Obama. The two hugged after Obama endorsed Clinton for his job during a convention speech on Wednesday.



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