OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter #socialgrade By Alex Patton of Ozean Media @alex_patton Copyright © 2013 Ozean Media. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Contents Florida Elected Officials’ Social Media Report Card 3 Executive summary 4 Answers to our Initial Questions 6 Recommendations 9 Twitter Accounts by Florida Elected Officials 10 Twitter usage by Florida politicians 11 Partisanship of Twitter users 12 Social media analytic scores 15 Twitter Superstars in Florida 28 Potential areas for further study 31 Methodology 32 Data set 34 About the author 40 #socialgrade page 2 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Florida Elected Officials’ Social Media Report Card #socialgrade page 3 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Executive summary Conclusions: When it comes to Twitter, Florida’s elected officials are making an effort, but falling short of realizing Twit- ter’s full potential as a social media platform. If we grade on a curve, Florida’s Republican elected officials are doing far better than Florida’s Democrat elected officials. However, overall, we give Florida’s Republicans a C and Democrats an F in their use of Twitter. The Bottom line: Florida politicians are forgetting the “social” in social media. The vast majority of Flor- ida’s elected officials appear to be misunderstanding or misusing Twitter by using it as only a broadcast media channel. For Florida’s elected officials to truly realize the power of Twitter and social media, they must embrace the social part by talking with people, not only talking to people. Florida’s elected officials use of Twitter needs dramatic improvement; hence the hash tag #socialgrade. Genesis of Study: Out of curiosity, we started with these basic questions surrounding the use of Twitter by Florida’s elected officials: • Are Florida’s elected officials using Twitter? • Is there a digital divide that separates Republican and Democrat elected officials in Florida? • How are Florida’s elected officials using Twitter? • Which of Florida’s elected officials could be considered to be embracing Twitter? • Are there recommendations to be made to Florida’s elected officials in their use of Twitter? • Findings of Study: • As a whole, Florida’s elected officials are using Twitter in greater percentages than the general pub- lic. • Florida’s elected Republican officials are using social media more than Florida’s elected Democrat officials - 57% of Republican elected officials are active users (defined as at least 1 status update in past 7 days) to 34% of Democrat elected officials. • Republican elected officials are doing significantly better than Democrat elected officials using Twit- ter. • If not for Florida’s Democratic Congressional Delegation -- more specifically @DWStweets who alone accounts for 85% of the number of followers for Democrat elected officials -- Florida’s Demo- crat elected officials would have little social media reach. #socialgrade page 4 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter A handful of Florida’s elected officials are embracing Twitter. They are: category Twitter name name district party USREP RepDennisRoss Dennis Ross 15 Republican USREP DWStweets D Wasserman Schultz 23 Democrat USREP treyradel Trey Radel 19 Republican STSEN Rob_Bradley Rob Bradley 7 Republican STSEN DwightBullard Dwight Bullard 39 Democrat STREP sethmckeel Seth McKeel 40 Republican STREP repclayingram Clay Ingram 1 Republican STREP JimmyPatronis Jimmy Patronis 6 Republican STREP mattgaetz Matt Gaetz 4 Republican STREP jasonbrodeur Jason Brodeur 28 Republican Florida’s elected officials score well on influence, on authority; however, Florida’s elected officials score very low on outreach. “So far, Twitter is like hanging out in the speakers’ lounge. Meaningless chatter from smart people.” - Alan Stevens netcave.org #socialgrade page 5 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Answers to our Initial Questions Are Florida’s elected official using Twitter? A: Yes, elected officials have Twitter accounts in greater proportion when compared to Internet users as a whole. However, approximately half of the State House and State Senate Members who have accounts are not posting regularly. When compared with the population as a whole, Florida’s elected officials are far above the percentage of Internet users who use Twitter (16%). However, when the active user standard (a status update in past 7 days) is applied, we find the usage of Twitter drop off rapidly, albeit still above the 16%. Is there a digital divide that separates Republican and Democrat elected officials in Florida? A: Yes, the common perception that Democrats are dominating the social media scene over Republicans is a bust in Florida. Republican elected officials have more accounts and more active accounts when looked at as a percent- age of the party’s elected officials. Republicans elected officials also score better than Democrats against any noted social media analytics scoring system. However, neither Democrats or Republicans are excelling at using Twitter. How are Florida’s elected officials using Twitter? A: Some officials are doing a lot of tweeting, but most are interacting with others little. Essentially, elected officials are using Twitter as a broadcast channel. On the whole, they follow few people, have low outreach scores, and with a few exceptions, rarely interact with other Twitter users - including constituents. Which of Florida’s elected officials could be considered to be em- bracing Twitter? [See above] #socialgrade page 6 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Are there recommendations to be made to Florida’s elected officials in the use of Twitter? To begin our comparisons, we’ll use @UFlorida, the official Twitter account of the University of Florida, as the ‘gold standard’ of a Twitter account in Florida: @UFlorida Tweets 7,353 Followers 42,840 Following 118 % of tweets are Replies 31.81% % of tweets are Retweets 35.81% Klout 92 Peer Index 58 Peer Index Activity - Peer Index Audience 70 Peer Index Authority - Kred (i) 873 Kred (o) 7 #socialgrade page 7 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter We will also use two additional Twitter profiles as a comparison point: @barackobama Tweets 8,624 Followers 27,464,955 Following 665,537 % of tweets are Replies 0.03% % of tweets are Retweets 22.52% Klout 99 Peer Index 90 Peer Index Activity 91 Peer Index Audience 91 Peer Index Authority -- Kred (i) 1000 Kred (o) 9 @justinbieber Tweets 20,989 Followers 34,781,583 Following 123,584 % of tweets are Replies 11.71% % of tweets are Retweets 51.49% Klout 93 Peer Index 92 Peer Index Activity - Peer Index Audience 94 Peer Index Authority - Kred (i) 1000 Kred (o) 8 #socialgrade page 8 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Recommendations: • Remember or Realize: It is SOCIAL media. • Stop: treating Twitter as a broadcast channel only. • Remember: followers are interested in what you have to say, but followers want to have a conversa- tion, not be talked to all the time. • Stop using Twitter like the President: The scale that the President has in using Twitter is unprece- dented in politics. Until an account reaches a scale closer to the President, elected officials should not just “copy Twitter” the President. • Start Replying, especially to constituents: • The University of Florida has tweeted 7,353 times with 31% of those tweets responses to someone; surely, elected officials can do better. • Justin Bieber has tweeted 20,989 times with 11% of those tweets responses to someone; sure- ly, elected officials can do better. “To utilize social media tools effectively and properly, you must absolutely generate spontaneous communications in direct response to what others are saying or to what is happening in that moment. Be your- self. Be conversational. Be engaged.” - Aliza Sherman Co-owner of social marketing firm Conversify #socialgrade page 9 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Twitter Accounts by Florida Elected Officials Elected Officials with a Twitter Presence Office Elected # of % Total # of Twitter Total # of Twitter followers tweets Accounts USSEN 2 2 100% 330,040 1,605 USREP 29 22* 76% (74% of members) 297,905 33,414 EXEC 5 5 100% 51,091 6,371 STSEN 40 28 70% 22,386 12,619 STREP 120 75 63% 44,960 35,811 TOTAL 196 132 67% 746,745 89,820 *NOTE: DeSantis & Murphy are using two Twitter accounts. As a baseline for comparison, we used the most recent Pew Research Study on social media use. Source: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-media-users.aspx #socialgrade page 10 of 42 OMG! Don’t Forget: It’s SOCIAL Media A Report Card of Florida’s Elected Officials Use of Twitter Twitter usage by Florida politicians Elected officials who actively use Twitter We defined an active user as an account that had issued at least one status update in the previous 7 days. Office Total Elected # of ACTIVE Twitter Accounts % USSEN 2 2 100% USREP 29 21* 72% EXEC 5 4 80% STSEN 40 14 35% STREP 120 38 32% TOTAL 196 79 40% *NOTE: DeSantis & Murphy using two Twitter accounts, both included.