Quebec general election campaign 2012 on Twitter: An overview.

1. Disclaimer: These charts are plotted for educational purpose only.
Hugues H. Lherisson (@hlherisson) is not affiliated with and doesn't support any
political party. He doesn't receive support from any group, organisation, or
individual to collect the data, and to produce and publish these charts. He publishes
these charts on his own behalf.
Version française disponible sur www.slideshare.nethlherisson

2. 1. How did political parties compare with each other in their
use of Twitter?
2. When did political parties’ Twitter accounts gain
momentum?
3. What Twitter strategies were used by political parties?
4. What were political parties and leaders tweetting about?
5. Is it true that the more you tweet the more followers you
have?

3.  Only political parties represented in the Quebec National Assembly at the
time of the election are included in this study: Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ),
Parti Québécois (PQ), Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), Québec solidaire (QS),
and Option nationale (ON).
 Some party leaders and co-leaders have their own Twitter accounts: François
Legault (CAQ), Françoise David (QS), Amir Khadir (QS), and Jean-Martin
Aussant (ON). Jean Charest (PLQ) and Pauline Marois (PQ) didn’t have Twitter
accounts at the time of the study.
 The data on number of followers, tweets, and following were collected every
day before midnight between August 1st and September 4th from the parties’
and leaders’ accounts. For CAQ, collection ran from August 4th to September
4th.
 One individual may have different accounts.
 Number of followers for all political parties were increasing every day and it
was impossible to know if the Quebec Election generated an increase of new
Twitter accounts.
 Followers on Twitter are not necessarily constituents, affiliated members,
supporters, or sympathizers.

4. Percentage increase in the number of followers
First week Second week Third week Fourth week Fifth week
Parti libéral du Québec 18% 31% 46% 54% 62%
Parti québécois 14% 24% 39% 46% 59%
Coalition avenir Quebec N/A 7% 19% 26% 33%
François Legault (CAQ) 27% 47% 73% 85% 101%
Québec Solidaire 9% 16% 31% 37% 44%
Françoise David (QS) 9% 15% 46% 57% 69%
Amir Khadir (QS) 5% 9% 22% 25% 29%
Jean-Martin Aussant (ON) 23% 40% 123% 141% 158%
Option nationale 25% 52% 124% 146% 167%

5. 35000 Number of
followers
30000
Day 1
25000
Election Day
20000
15000
10000
5000
0 This confirms
that Twitter is a
good platform
for parties with
a modest
budget.
Day 1 Election Day Increase
ON increased the ON 4667 12451 167%
number of followers
Jean-Martin Aussant (ON) 8907 22972 158%
substantially during the
campaign, but was not François Legault CAQ) 12860 25907 101%
invited in any of the Françoise David (QS) 11781 19932 69%
four televised debates. PLQ 6533 10600 62%
PQ 13061 20793 59%
CAQ 8034 11597 44%
QS 14011 20217 44%
Amir Khadir (QS) 26635 34270 29%

6. 180%
Parti libéral du Québec
160% Parti québécois
Coalition avenir Quebec
F. Legault (CAQ)
140%
Québec Solidaire
Françoise David (QS)
120%
Amir Khadir (QS)
Jean-Martin Aussant (ON)
100%
Option nationale
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
First week Second week Third week Fourth week Fifht week
The momentum happened between the 2nd and
3rd weeks during the televised debates.

7. Average new New followers- New followers- New New Average new New followers-
followers August 1 First debate Second debate followers- followers- followers-After Election night
to August 18th Third Fourth the debates to (September 4)
debate debate September 3
Parti libéral du Québec 154 230 198 203 112 55 285
Parti québécois 223 553 408 286 235 121 1008
Coalition avenir Quebec 115 287 206 199 166 73 303
François Legault CAQ) 426 901 666 617 468 147 910
Québec Solidaire 156 896 452 360 213 178 614
Françoise David (QS) 122 1565 1179 554 427 120 916
Amir Khadir (QS) 178 1293 1002 426 219 241 584
Jean-Martin Aussant (ON) 290 3686 1434 937 390 150 881
Option nationale 185 1566 719 382 213 104 515
The number of followers increased substantially on televised
debates, even for ON who didn’t participate in any of them.

8.  Party leaders who have their own Twitter accounts said they
author their tweets.
 François Legault was the most active and was involved in direct
“conversations” with journalists, celebrities and politicians from
other parties on a daily basis.
 On evenings, the parties (PLQ, PQ, and CAQ) were using Twitter
to give heads-up on the next day announcements.
 These parties was sending many tweets on the same subject,
several times during the day (sometimes the message was
exactly the same.)
 The tone of the messages were sometimes very strong, but
always civil.

9.  No party leader made any blunder on Twitter during the election
campaign, which demonstrates that Twitter can be used wisely.
On July 21, 2012, a CAQ candidate was dismissed after a tweet
(election was called on August 1st, 2012.)
 Parti Québécois tried to engage followers by organizing a quiz
on Quebec politics.
 Like other regular Twitter users, politicians shared photos,
cheered athletes during the Olympics, said where they were, and
commented on “how great their lunches were.”
 All parties used Twitter to correct or give their own versions on
information disseminated in the media.

10. They used Twitter to attack or direct followers to negative media
reports, columns, or editorials on other political parties.
PLQ PQ CAQ QS ON
PLQ tweets
on 11 9 0 0
PQ tweets
on 12 10 0 0
* QS and ON
didn’t send
CAQ tweets
negative on 207 247 7 0
tweets
against each QS tweets
other. on 33 32 9 4*
ON tweets on
18 14 11 4*

11. Top five issues
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th
Parti libéral Economy and job Education Plan Nord Transport Tourism
du Québec creation (88) (29) (20) (13) (11)
Parti Family/ Natural Economy (18) Sovereignty Corruption
québécois Daycare(22) resources Health (18) (14) (12)
Education (22) (19) Senior (14)
Coalition Education (144) Economy Health (89) Sovereignty Natural
avenir (108) (77) resources
Québec (54)
Québec Natural resources Education Sovereighty Health (37) Poverty/
solidaire Environment (69) (62) (57) minimum
wage (34)
Option Sovereignty (54) French Education (15) Health (12) Natural
nationale language resources
(17) (8)

12. Average Followers
Daily increase
Tweets &
Retweets
180
Average Daily Tweets & Retweets
160 Parti libéral du Québec 16 62%
140 Followers increase (%) Parti québécois 39 59%
120 Coalition avenir Quebec 19 44%
100 F. Legault (CAQ) 81 101%
Québec Solidaire 8 29%
80
Françoise David (QS) 5 69%
60
Amir Khadir (QS) 8 29%
40
Jean-Martin Aussant (ON) 7 158%
20 Option nationale 54 167%
0
Not necessarily !
At least in this
election, you
didn’t have to
tweet a lot to have
a significant
number of
followers.

13.  Who follow political parties on Twitter:
age, gender, address, profession, party affiliation, etc.?
 Do followers tend to follow all political parties or only the
one that they support?
 Why do people decide to follow a political party ?
 How many people subscribe to Twitter during the election
compared with the rest of the year?
 Was Twitter beneficial to the election (more people was
engaged in discussions thanks to Twitter) or was the
election beneficial to Twitter (Twitter obtained an
increased number of subscribers thanks to the election)?

14.  Hugues H. Lherisson (@hlherisson) is not affiliated with and
doesn't support any political party. He didn't receive support
from any group, organisation, or individual to collect the
data, and to produce and publish these charts. He publishes
these charts on his own behalf.