An Empirical Identification of Social Media Key Performance Indicators from the 2014 General Elections

The necessity for a politician to actively engage via social media increases with each passing election. The come-from-behind primary victory and the ultimate election of President Obama in 2008 are often partially attributed to the campaign’s social media prowess. Anecdotal evidence abounds regarding the negative effects of politician’s usage of social media, for example congressman Anthony Weiner in 2011. However, contemporary recommendations towards successful campaigning via social media are generally limited to anecdotal success stories and top ten lists. This research addresses this gap by capturing over 6 million social media messages and weekly statistics from over 1,300 official campaign accounts from September through November during the 2014 U.S. general election. Non-parametric analyses empirically establish many key performance indicators related to social network size, churn and various messaging activities. Although this exploratory investigation does not address causality, we contribute by producing empirically validated KPIs and their associations with election outcomes