By The Numbers: Bernie Sanders in Kansas City
During election season, people you normally never hear from on social media suddenly reappear in droves. Whether it’s sharing articles, opinions or photos, the one thing that sets them apart is that they’re the ones who are attending the rallies, speeches and other events that are taking place around the country in support of their favorite candidate.
This week, we take a look at Bernie Sanders’ daytime rally on Wednesday February 24 in Kansas City, KS.
10:50am CST: Doors Open
According to the captions of some of the images in the story, people have been standing in line since 6:00am to secure a spot in Bartle Hall at the Kansas City Convention Center. With doors opening around 11:00am, people began posting photos of the line, which wound around the corner and down the block.
11:45am: Unexpected — Biggest Spike In Posts
Here’s the interesting data point we found in this story — the largest spike in posts didn’t come when Sanders was on stage; rather, it came when almost the entire audience was inside Bartle Hall. The majority of posts we see at one time are of people waiting for him to come on stage.
This is atypical of other events where the audience is anticipating the arrival of a figure, such as a concert, where the most posts come as soon as the headliner begins their set.
12:27pm: Sanders Takes the Stage
Sanders’ appearance on stage for his speech is the second largest spike in posts for the event, as seen in the graph above.
Here, we also see another unusual trend that is atypical of a concert-type of event: the audience is so tuned into the Sanders, that almost no one is sharing on social media during his speech:
Unlike at concerts, where people will take the time during their favorite artist’s set to share their experience with followers, the purpose of political events is not to experience, but listen.
Post-Rally
Instead, attendees of the rally spent the rest of the day post-rally sharing their experience with followers:
The shared posts are a mix of waiting in line, waiting inside, and Sanders on stage:
Storytelling with Social Media
Although on the surface a political rally seems like it should follow the same data trends as a concert — both events feature a “star” in the candidate and headlining act — Zero Slant shows that this is a false assumption.
Whereas at a concert the most posts come during the show, the most posts at a political rally happen AFTER the “show.” Although band superfans will vehemently disagree, we can logically conclude that the contents of the political rally are exponentially more important than that of a concert; one audience is more physically in-tune with the events’ contents than the other.
Side Note
We’ll be at LAUNCH Festival next weekend, where our CEO/Co-founder Ryan Sheffer will also be judging the LAUNCH Hackathon. Come by our booth in the Demo Pit and say hello — we’re excited to meet you!
As always, feel free to reach out to us with any questions or comments at team@zeroslant.com.
