All Eyes On Nevada: Angle Leads On Twitter and Dominates Reid On Facebook

The Senate’s most powerful man, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), is mired in what many perceive as a fight for his political life. Pitted against surprise Republican nominee Sharron Angle (R-NV), this matchup has quickly turned into one of the dirtiest and most publicized Senate races of 2010.

Today, I examine the social media efforts of both the Reid and Angle campaigns.  My analysis is restricted to the candidates’ efforts on Twitter and Facebook, as these are the leading social media platforms in this election cycle.

If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please leave a comment and I will update my analysis.

Twitter

Analysis:

On Twitter, these two Senate candidates don’t have any glaring weaknesses.

Both Angle and Reid expend a great deal of their tweets attacking one another (12 of Reid’s last 22 tweets contain the word “Angle”).  However, both also mix in other content, including links about their campaign and national issues.  Both tweet multiple times a day and use a lot of national and local hashtags to amplify their message.

Angle pulls ahead of Reid because she includes tweets about what she is doing offline, “Tune in on FOX now to see me on the Neil Cavuto show #nvsen#gop #tcot #teaparty” While it is easy to dismiss tweets about offline activities, I think they add value, especially when they involve being a guest on a major broadcast network like Fox News.

Winner: Angle

Facebook

*Anything outside of the standard Wall, Info, Photos, Discussion.

**Reid has a SMS Signup box on the left side of his page.

Analysis:

Angle dominates Reid on Facebook, due in large part to his campaign’s laziness.  The first thing that stands out is the lack of creative titles placed on the majority of Reid’s posts.  Every one of Reid’s posts is from www.HarryReid.com (also a problem) and contains the verbatim title lifted from his campaign website.  Facebook allows users to attach two titles to each post to make it more appealing for visitors.  Angle takes advantage of this feature on nearly every post, while Reid does not.

Angle’s posts also contain better content.  She includes articles, videos, charts and several calls to action.  Recently, Angle encouraged her supporters to suggest her page in an attempt to reach 15,000 likes. While this may not seem like much, it has helped her gain almost 5,000 more likes than Reid.

Winner: Angle

Conclusion:

If Angle can transfer her online success to her offline campaign, she has a fighting chance to defeat Reid and the Nevada machine.