New research from Ipsos MORI indicates that during the 2015 General Election, politics has (mostly) won the social media battle against entertainment news stories.

1. Ipsos MORI
#GE2015 – Social Media
Dave and Ed vs Zayn and Kim…
who are the social media winners?

2. Introduction
1. Election Unspun is a project run by Media Standards Trust: http://electionunspun.net/election-unspun-faqs/
MENTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA OVER THE SHORT CAMPAIGN
 Over the course of the General Election campaign, Ipsos MORI has been
measuring the volume of discussion on social media that mentions either David
Cameron or Ed Miliband.
 To put the political social media conversation in context, Ipsos MORI has also
been measuring the volume of discussion that mentions prominent
entertainment celebrities, and specific events from 20-26th April.
 Data has been collected through the social media analytics platform Crimson
Hexagon. To allow for comparison with UK online news stories collected through
Election Unspun1, the data has been filtered to include only those mentions that
are known to be inside the UK.
 Moreover, the Twitter handles of the relevant account holders have not been
included in the search terms in order to reduce the risk of data being biased by
content generated by the author.
 For each search query, as much as 90-95% of the data identified was generated
on Twitter.

3. A social media election? At first look, the politicians
gradually pull ahead of One Direction…
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platform
MENTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA OVER THE SHORT CAMPAIGN
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
Week 1
30/04/15 -
05/04/15
Week 2
06/04/15 -
12/04/15
Week 3
13/04/15 -
19/04/15
Week 4
20/04/15 -
26/04/15
Week 5
27/04/15 -
03/05/15
445k mentions
459k mentions
504k mentions
Mentions identified in the UK

4. But, Zayn leaving 1D dwarfs one of the biggest political
events in the campaign…
MENTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA OVER THE SHORT CAMPAIGN
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
450000
500000
Week -1
16/03/15 -
22/03/15
Week 0
23/03/15 -
29/03/15
Week 1
30/04/15 -
05/04/15
Week 2
06/04/15 -
12/04/15
Week 3
13/04/15 -
19/04/15
Week 4
20/04/15 -
26/04/15
Week 5
27/04/15 -
- 03/05/15
25 March – Zayn Malik Leaves
One Direction
30 March – Dissolution
of Parliament
2 April – ITV 7-way
Leaders’ debate
16 April – BBC
challengers’ debate
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK

5. Only Jeremy Clarkson’s sacking matches the political
leaders from other big celebrity stories
MENTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA OVER THE SHORT CAMPAIGN
0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
Week -1
16/03/15 -
22/03/15
Week 0
23/03/15 -
29/03/15
Week 1
30/04/15 -
05/04/15
Week 2
06/04/15 -
12/04/15
Week 3
13/04/15 -
19/04/15
Week 4
20/04/15 -
26/04/15
Week 5
26/04/15 -
04/05/15
2 April – ITV 7-way
Leaders’ debate
16 April – BBC
challengers’ debate
Clarkson
sacked
Raheem Sterling
BBC interview
Brand interviews
Miliband
Miliband 556,171
Cameron 566,999
Jeremy
Clarkson
152,736
Katie
Hopkins
138,651
Russell
Brand
83,145
Raheem
Sterling
64,212
Katie Hopkins ‘doesn’t
care if migrants die’
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK

6. Comparison of UK newspaper coverage from Election Unspun suggests
that events from the GE2015 campaign struggle to keep pace with
events from world of entertainment in traditional media…
UK online national news coverage – 20-26th April Source: Election Unspun, Media Standards Trust
NUMBER OF UK ONLINE NATIONAL NEWS ARTICLES COVERING COVERAGE EACH STORY 6
68 73
23 37
152
287
35 42
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
SNP manifesto vs
Avengers movie
premier
John Major speech vs
Kim Kardashian
Cameron's Villa mix up
vs Rober Downey Jr
Storms out of interview
Shapps' Wikipedia
rofile edits vs
Clarkson's boss quits
top gear
Politics
Entertainment

7. BUT the reaction on social media was very different -
politics had a much greater share of discussion
COMPARISON OF COVERAGE OF EVENTS 20 – 26TH APRIL 2015 7
9% 11%
10%
19%3%
6%
5%
25%
21%
7%
40%
10%
5%
11%
6% 10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Election Unspun - UK online
media stories
Ipsos MORI - social media
monitoring
Clarkson's boss quits Top Gear
Rober Downey Jr Storms out of
interview
Kim Kardashian
Avengers movie premier
Shapps' Wikipedia profile edits
Cameron's Aston Villa mix-up
John Major speech on LAB/SNP
deal
SNP manifesto launch
Entertainment 72%
Politics 28%
Entertainment 39%
Politics 61%
Source: Ipsos MORI and Election Unspun, Media Standards Trust
% coverage as
proportion of total
articles collected
Mentions identified in the UK, 20-26th April 2015

8. THE BATTLE OF THE HEAVYWEIGHTS – 42,616 TOTAL MENTIONS 8
29,268 13,348
Shapps’
Wikipedia profile
edits
Robert Downey
Jr. storms out of
interview
Shapps’ reported Wikipedia edits was the biggest hit
of all on social media – beating Robert Downey Jr
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK, 20-26th April 2015

9. THE BATTLE OF THE CRUISERWEIGHTS – 34,126 TOTAL MENTIONS 9
21,844 12,282
John Major’s
speech on
Lab/SNP deal
Anything about
Kim Kardashian
John’s major intervention beats all conversation about
Kim K…
2
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK, 20-26th April 2015

10. THE BATTLE OF THE LIGHTWEIGHTS – 25,098 TOTAL MENTIONS 10
13,412 11,686
SNP Manifesto
launch
Clarkson’s boss
quits Top Gear
The SNP manifesto launch pulls a bigger discussion than
Clarkson’s boss quitting - just…
3
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK, 20-26th April 2015

11. BATTLE OF THE FEATHERWEIGHTS – JUST 16,026 TOTAL MENTIONS 11
7,460 8,557
Cameron’s Aston
Villa mix-up
Avengers movie
premier
Cameron’s ‘brain fade’ on Aston Villa got almost as
many mentions as the Avengers movie premier…
4
Source: Ipsos MORI; data collected through Crimson Hexagon social media analytics platformMentions identified in the UK, 20-26th April 2015

12. PLEASE CONTACT
Bobby.duffy@ipsos.com
Steven.ginnis@ipsos.com