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Online Political Advertising, 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]
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Technographics Of Romney & Obama Supporters, By Generation [CHART]
President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney show varying audience patterns when comparing the composition of their website and social media visitors, finds comScore [download page] in an April 2012 report. President Obama’s website visitors skew older in general than his social media site visitors, with 57% of the former group aged 45 and over, compared to 22% of the latter. This might be expected, given social networking sites’ higher penetration among younger age groups. Surprisingly, though, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s website audience skews younger than his social media audience, with 46% of the former aged under 35, compared to 41% of the latter.
According to March 2012 figures from Nielsen, 52% of visitors to BarackObama.com during January were either aged 50-65 (34.6%) or over 65 (17.4%), the highest proportion of the 5 candidates studied. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
Demographics Of Local News Consumers [CHART]
As a group, local news enthusiasts differ demographically from others in important ways, in their use of technology, the information that is of particular interest to them, and their local news habits. Demographically, local news enthusiasts are more likely than other adults to be female, age 65 or older, retired, and African-American. Politically, they tend to be conservative in their outlook (although they do not differ from others in party identification) and they also attend religious services more frequently than others. They do not differ from other adults in terms of household income, but are less likely to be college graduates. Read the rest at Pew Internet & American Life.
Partisan Filtering On Social Media [CHART]
Pew reported that 38% of US social network users discovered via a post on Facebook or a similar site that they had a serious political disagreement with a friend.
That disagreement, surprising or not, caused nearly one in five (18%) social network users overall to take some action, whether it was blocking, unfriending or otherwise ignoring future posts from the offending contact. Among self-identified liberals, that share rose to 28%, while it was somewhat lower for self-identified conservatives and moderates (16% and 14%, respectively). Among liberals, the most common reason to take action was that someone posted something they disagreed with, while moderates and conservatives cared somewhat more about others simply posting too frequently about politics. Read the rest at eMarketer.
Political Social Posts [CHART]
Pew Internet & American Life Project’s February 2012 survey of US social network users found, unsurprisingly, that people on social sites don’t always agree with their friends, and that friendship is hardly a proxy for shared opinions or interests. While nine in 10 respondents said they agreed with the content of their friends’ political posts at least sometimes, the same number disagreed with friends’ posts equally often. Read the rest at eMarketer.
Social DC [CHART]
The major social networks see relatively high usage rates among workers in Washington DC, according to results from a National Journal survey released in March 2012. Facebook is the most popular among Capitol Hill workers (84%), followed by LinkedIn (60%) and Twitter (49%). Within the executive branch, Facebook also leads, used by 63% of respondents, trailed by LinkedIn (52%) and Twitter (24%). In the private sector, though, LinkedIn is most popular, used by three-quarters of respondents, ahead of Facebook (64%) and Twitter (43%).
According to the National Journal report, federal executives, when given a choice of descriptors for Twitter, called it “pointless babble.” These respondents’ attitudes may not be as far away from users’ attitudes as one might think: according to research released in January 2012 by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), which looked at data gleaned from December 2010 to January 2011, Twitter users rated only 36% of the tweets they received as worth reading, while they expressed ambivalence about 39%, and said 25% were not worth reading. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
Online Political Ad Spending To Soar...But Still Tinsey-Weensy Compared To TV [CHART]
Online political ad spending for this year’s elections is forecast at about $160 million, representing a huge increase from an estimated $22.2 million spent online for the 2008 elections, according to a Borrell Associates report released in March 2012. Even so, online is forecast to account for only 1.5% share of total political spending this year, with broadcast TV accounting for easily the largest share of total spending, at more than 57 cents of every dollar spent.
Overall, spending on political ads is forecast to rise over 40% from an estimated $7 billion in 2008 to $9.8 billion this year. According to data from the Sunlight Foundation, as reported by Slate Magazine, spending may contribute to a more divisive political climate. According to the report, as of March 5, 2012, 54% of all Super PAC spending has been on opposition, mostly for attack ads against other candidates. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
Partisanship Of Radio Listeners [CHART]
Overall, 38% of radio listeners aged 18 and older identified themselves as Democrats (28% identified themselves as Democrats and 10% identified themselves as Independents who lean Democrat). 35% self-identified as Republicans (25% identified themselves as Republicans and 10% identified themselves as Independents who lean Republican). 10% of adults identified themselves as Independent without leaning either Republican or Democrat and 18% did not identify themselves as Democrat, Republican or Independent. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
Voter Influences [CHART]
32% of registered voters say that what they hear or see on TV has the greatest influence on their decision to vote for a specific candidate and/or issue, beating out what they read in newspapers/magazines (23%), word-of-mouth, neighbors, family, and friends (18%), and town hall/public meetings (17%)according to [pdf] a report released in February 2012 by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB). Just 3% say that comments on social media have the greatest influence on their voting decisions, although that proportion rises to 7% among 18-34-year-olds.
Overall, when voting for or about national political candidates and issues, 64% of survey respondents said that TV influences their final decision, putting the medium ahead of the internet (40%), newspaper (37%), word-of-mouth (27%), and radio (19%). 14% says social media plays a part, while less than 1 in 10 said the same about direct mail. TV’s dominance is consistent across age levels, race and ethnicities, and gender. Read the rest at Marketing Charts.
