Election Day was Facebook’s most talked about event in 2012, according to internal metrics.
Facebook announced Thursday that it tracked 72 million election-related mentions in the U.S. on Nov. 6, and more than 90 million mentions worldwide of election day. The release noted that buzz about the election was the highest among men and women between the ages of 25 and 34 years old.
During the run-up to the election, men were more eager to talk politics than women, however that gap narrowed on Nov. 6 as men and women shared their voting views in an equal proportion
It was also the most talked about event in 2012, earning itself a 9.27 on Facebook’s Talk Meter, an internal measuring barometer that rates buzzworthy events on a ten-point scale. Barack Obama’s reelection outpaced the Super Bowl (8.62) and the World Series (6.1).
While residents in Washington D.C. were most likely to be discussing the campaigns, Facebook said the day before the election, the most election-related buzz originated from people in New Hampshire, where the first votes are cast in Dixville Notch.
The terms “Big Bird” (a nod to Mitt Romney’s threat to cut funding to PBS) and “binders full of women” (another Romney debate debacle) received the most mentions during the campaign season.
Facebook also released the most-mentioned terms during election day in four time periods: 10am, 5:30pm., 9pm, and 1am ET.
The morning saw various formations of the words vote (i.e. voting, I voted, go vote), “polls,” “freedom,” and “our country” to be the most-discussed. Interestingly, neither of the candidates’ names trended in the morning.
In late afternoon, “Obama,” “election,” and “Romney,” were the top-three most typed words. At 9pm ET, two hours before the winner was declared, “Obama,” was the most typed term, followed by “Romney,” and several formations of the word “win” (i.e. wins, winning, win the election.)
At 1am ET, when Obama was giving his acceptance speech, unsurprisingly the words most mentioned included “Obama,” “4 more years,” “thank God,” and “Yes.” Romney’s name didn’t register in the top 10 during that time period.
Facebook’s measurement of election-related mentions toppled Twitter, which tracked 31 million election tweets, and Instagram, which saw just 250,000 election day-themed photos. They also proved that not even a browser extension could stop people from being insufferable about their politics on Facebook.
Photo via Barack Obama/ Facebook
