Twitter stats are back for the new term. I was on the road for the week after the election and so didn’t get a chance to rebuild the data collection to get rid of the candidates and add all the new MP accounts. I have done a bit of copy and pasting from the last run on the 19th of September so we can have a few insights into how the lay of the land has changed. Check below all the stats for some of my thoughts on how the new term might play out.
These figures cover a 2 week period, not a 1 week period as per normal. Also, because when I did the last data collection on the 19th a small number of accounts had been closed down temporarily I have no base line for them. So I am ignoring them this week. This means that some of the percentage figures for number of accounts that sent 0 tweets may be a bit out.
Most Tweets by an MP:
National: Chris Bishop 49, Simon O’Connor 36, Jo Goodhew 30.
Labour: Trevor Mallard 149, Clare Curran 65, Ruth Dyson 59.
Greens: Catherine Delahunty 145, Julie Anne Genter 110, Metiria Turei 96.
NZF: Winston Peters 7
Others: Marama Fox 311, Peter Dunne 136, Te Ururoa Flavell 23.
Most New Followers by an MP:
National: John Key 4361, Nikki Kaye 265, Bill English 187.
Labour: Jacinda Ardern 1026, David Cunliffe 655, Grant Robertson 413.
Greens: Russel Norman 473, Metiria Turei 406, Julie Anne Genter 88.
NZF: Winston Peters 231
Others: David Seymour 262, Peter Dunne 180, Te Ururoa Flavell 124
Most New Favourites:
National: Chris Bishop 71, Paul Foster-Bell 27, Simon Bridges 23.
Labour: Peeni Henare 832, Trevor Mallard 84, Jenny Salesa 39.
Greens: Metiria Turei 194, Kevin Hague 102, Julie Anne Genter 100.
NZF: Winston Peters 1
Others: Marama Fox 329, Te Ururoa Flavell 59, David Seymour 9.
Average Tweets per MP: 22.27
National: 8.42
Labour: 16.14
Greens: 51.31
NZF: (only have two NZF MPs so any figure will be meaningless)
Others: 121.25
Average New Followers per MP: 114.58
National: 146.44
Labour: 134.52
Greens: 104.38
NZF: (only have two NZF MPs so any figure will be meaningless)
Others: 168
Zero Tweet MPs:
National: 10 (23.26%)
Labour: 7 (24.13%)
Greens: 0
Parties:
Most Tweets: Greens 148, Act 38, Internet Party 28,
Most New Followers: Greens 440, Labour 386, National 379.
Most New Favourites: Greens 69, Internet Party 34, Maori Party 20.
The figures are a bit all over the place this week (last two weeks). This is to be expected considering it covers the period right after the election where people take a break and forget about politics. There are some familiar faces in some places, like the top 3 from Labour for tweets and followers, and some new faces, Marama Fox in the other parties group and Christ Bishop and Peeni Henare for National and Labour respectively. I am expecting Chris to be up there in the running to replace Tau within National. But I suspect it might be Marama who replaces Tau over all as the most active member on Twitter.
Act getting into the two three parties was a bit of a surprise, along with David Seymour gaining the most new followers in the other parties group, and being well up there overall.
National look to be continuing their trend of being the least active party over all. There are a few new MPs, but a lot of the MPs that have left are the ones who were active on Twitter. So if National want to start pushing into the Twitter Sphere they are going to need to formulate a plan to get some of their less active MPs going.
Other than those, cautious, conclusions, it is far too early in the term to draw any meaningful conclusions about how things will pan out. It will be interesting to look back at things come Christmas time. See if any of the long term trends are changing or not.
Remember if you want to keep up to date with the MPs on Twitter, check out this list.
