While politicians and the media continue to argue about the live TV debates in the run up to the general election in May, the debate on social media channels is already well under way.
It seems that the winners, for the moment at least, are the Conservatives.
According to research conducted by recruitment firm EMR, if votes were counted against social media newsfeeds, the Tories would end up with 158 MPs in the House of Commons. Labour would finish in second place, taking 130 seats in Westminster.
The researchers counted how many likes, followers and fans there were of each political party on the main social outlets. Looking at the numbers for Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter, the Tories had the largest total.
There are differences between the channels, however, with the Conservatives finishing in first place on LinkedIn and Facebook.
After analysing the YouGov profiler results for typical LinkedIn members, this may not be a complete surprise, as it claims that they are most likely to be rightward-leaning males working in management consultancy positions. With an interest in business and finance, they typically have £1,000 in spare cash to spend each month.
The Tories beat UKIP by just 1% in ‘likes’ on Facebook, but with many predicting a near wipe-out for the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg may well be buoyed by the news that his party soars to the top on Google+.
Labour, meanwhile, ends up as the most followed party on Twitter, although not by much.
Interestingly, the YouGov profiler suggested that while not as marked as LinkedIn members, the Twitterati do have a slight penchant for their politics on the right.
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