Whose announcement won on Facebook: Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina?
On a day of dueling presidential announcements, conservative neurosurgeon Ben Carson was the clear winner in Facebook engagement, driving nearly three times the traffic of former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina.
In the 24 hours leading up to the announcement, 847,000 people on Facebook generated 1.5 million interactions including likes, posts, comments and shares, according to data provided by the website.
By comparison, 304,000 people generated 515,000 interactions related to Fiorina.
Traffic over the last three months actually suggests Carson should have done even better in relation to his new Republican rival. While Fiorina was generating conversation by about 11,000 people over the last 90 days, Carson was generating conversation by about 63,000 unique people per day.
They also had entirely different geographic regions fired up about their candidacies. Carson generated the most engagement in Maryland, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina, while Fiorina was most interesting for those from Washington, D.C., New Hampshire, Idaho, Oregon and Colorado.
The political topics associated with both candidates were similar, with crime and enforcement the leading issues. Both also generated conversation about foreign policy and international relations, though Carson was associated with more discussion about racial issues and Fiorina was associated with more discussion about employment.
In relation to other GOP contenders, both fall on the lower end of engagement. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio got about 1.3 million interactions from 695,000 people, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul got about 1.9 million interactions from 865,000 people, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came out on top with 5.5 million interactions generated by 2.1 million people.
But the title of biggest social media engager goes unequivocally to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who generated 10.1 million interactions by 4.7 million people in the 24 hours around the announcement of her candidacy.