On UK Labour and Conservatives Tweet Sources

~ Ernesto Priego

 

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I‘ve been tracking the Twitter accounts of the UK Labour, Conservative, Green, and LibDem parties as we approach June the 8th (General Election). I am interested in what they are saying on Twitter through their official Twitter accounts, how they are saying it, how often and what apps they choose to do so.

Unfortunately there are still some duplicates in my Twitter data collection, but I can at least share at this point the sources used to tweet from the UK Labour and Conservatives Twitter accounts, as well as some indicative numbers, bearing in mind they may vary slightly, for tweets per source in a sample of 500 Tweets per account from 12/05/2017 to 01/06/2017 so far.

 

from_user
UKLabour
Source Count
MediaStudio 279
SproutSocial 106
TweetDeck 55
Twibbon 1
Twitter for Android 3
Twitter for iPhone 8
Twitter Web Client 48
500

 

from_user
Conservatives
Source Count
MediaStudio 25
TweetDeck 222
Twitter for iPhone 73
Twitter Web Client 180
500

Even bearing in my mind the sample of 500 tweets from each account may still contain some duplicates, the list of sources alone provides objective indication of each account’s social media management tool preferences. Something that stands out is that in comparison to, say, the realdonaldtrump account, none of these tweets were posted from Twitter Ads.

The source list indicates to me that UK Labour has attempted a more professional social media management strategy, with a reduced number of tweets from Android, iPhone and the Web Client, whereas the Conservatives have a majority of tweets coming from free & anyone-can-use apps, with no shortage of tweets coming from an iPhone (but no Android at all).

This short update is part of an ongoing lunchtime pet project for which I wish I had more time, but hey.  I also have data from the other political parties, but no time right now. Anyway, for what it’s worth, I thought I’d share.

N.B. Dear Guardian Data, in case you like what you see here and you ‘borrow’ the idea or any data… please kindly attribute and link back. It’s only polite to do so. Thank you!

Published by Ernesto Priego

My passion is creating opportunities for discovery, creativity and innovation. I am an advocate for enhanced access to information as a public good. I enjoy fostering engagement and openness, facilitating collaboration and mentoring. My main focus is multi-disciplinary and involves practically and theoretically connecting the dots between varied, closely-related fields and topics: comics studies; human-computer interaction design, library and information science, digital humanities, scholarly communications, publishing studies, digital innovation and material culture, intellectual rights and open science, access, data and educational resources. I love writing and spreading the word about the things I believe in. I love higher education and the Internet and I define myself as a digital scholarship advocate. I love working collaboratively and on my own. You can still follow me and/or contact me via Twitter @ernestopriego.