THE YEAR IN PRESIDENTIAL #TWITTER
When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States on Nov. 8, 2016, pundits wondered if he would hand over his Twitter account to White House handlers to manage. He didn’t. Instead, Twitter appears to be Trump’s preferred method of communication, giving the president an immediate way to get his ideas across to millions upon millions of followers. Here’s a by-the-numbers look by the National Post’s Monika Warzecha at Trump’s tweets, from when he woke up as president- elect on Nov. 9, 2016, to the morning of Nov. 8, 2017. The numbers are based on data largely obtained through Social Bearing. The data includes retweets, but not deleted posts.
BIG REACH
Donald Trump has more than 42 million followers, but he only follows 45 accounts himself. Who belongs to this exclusive club? Family members, his White House team, a smattering of accounts linked to Trump resorts and Fox News personalities, including Bill O’Reilly. He also follows Roma Downey, a producer and actress known for the TV series Touched By An Angel.
TWEETSTORM
The majority of Trump’s Twitter activity tends to be tweets of his own making. According to the data, the U. S. president composed 2,100 original tweets out of the 2,399 tweets, retweets and replies sent from his account since Nov. 9. On average, he sent out about seven messages a day. His most prolific day was Sept. 30, with 31 different tweets and retweets. He retweeted First Lady Melania Trump, his son Eric, as well as Fox News’ Lou Dobbs and the White House social media director Dan Scavino Jr. But Trump also let loose his own tweets about the situation in Puerto Rico foll owing hurricane Maria. “The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” he wrote. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.”
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Social Bearing data reveals that among the year’s 262 retweets, Trump was most likely to retweet @ foxan- dfriends, with 45 retweets since Nov. 9. He retweeted @ Scavino45, the account belonging to t he White House social media dire c t or, 16 t i mes and @ FoxNews 13 times. Trump family members were also retweeted, t hough some more than others. Ivanka Trump t opped t hem all with 12 retweets from the president, followed by Eric Trump (7 retweets), Melania Trump’s FLOTUS account ( 4 retweets), and Donald Trump Jr. ( 3 retweets). The president does not appear to have retweeted Tiffany Trump, his youngest daughter, during the year.
HASHTAG PRESIDENCY
According to Social Bearing, the president’s top three most frequently used hashtags were # maga ( the shortform of the catchphrase Make America Great Again) with 40 uses, followed by # usa with 19, and 16 references to #fakenews.
MOST POPULAR
The most retweeted Trump post on Twitter is a controversial one: It contains just two hashtags, “# FraudNewsCNN # FNN” and a looped video showing him pummelling an individual with the CNN graphic in lieu of a head. The tweet earned more than 360,000 retweets. Retweets, as t he saying goes, are not endorsements. Trump’s most favourited tweet is significantly more low-key: “The forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. We will all come together as never before.” The Nov. 9 tweet as the new president- elect was favourited more than 600,000 times.