While not all of the numbers are in yet, we thought it would be useful to put in one place all the relevant data currently available about online and offline engagement by the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns. Some of these factoids are essentially unverifiable, but represent the claims being made by the campaigns in press reports. Others are drawn from available social network profiles and/or contemporaneous Google searches.
Number of Barack Obama Facebook friends on Election Day 2012: 32,313,965
Number as of November 26, 2012: 33,752,862
Net gain since Election Day: 1,438,897
Number of Barack Obama Facebook friends on Election Day 2008: 2,397,253
Number of Mitt Romney Facebook friends on Election Day 2012: 12,135,972
Number as of November 26, 2012: 11,906,351
Net decrease: 229,621
Number of Facebook users who downloaded Obama’s Facebook app: 1 million
Number who shared items with friends suggested by that app: 600,000
Number of Facebook users who downloaded Romney’s Facebook app: 30,000
Number of @barackobama Twitter followers on Election Day 2012: 22,112,160
Number of @barackobama Twitter followers on Election Day 2008: 125,639
Number of Google+ followers of Barack Obama on Election Day 2012: 2,304,851
Number of Google+ followers of Mitt Romney on Election Day 2012: 1,017,994
Number of blog posts using the phrase “Voting for Obama” between September 1 and November 4, 2012, according to Google search: 382,000
Number of blog posts using the phrase “Voting for Romney” during same period: 92,600
Number of blog posts using the phrase “Voting for Obama” on Election Day 2008: 79,613
Total number of direct voter contacts claimed by the DNC in 2008, including robocalls: 68 million
Total number of direct voter contacts claimed by the Obama campaign in 2012, including personal calls and door-knocks, not counting robocalls: 150 million
Number of those that occurred in the last four days of the campaign: 25 million
Number of calls made in the last four days of the 2008 Obama campaign: 3 million
Number of volunteers claimed by the 2012 Obama campaign: 2.2 million
Number of neighborhood teams: 10,000
Number on the Obama 2012 campaign payroll, at its peak: 4,000
Number of offline campaign events organized via Dashboard, Obama 2012: 358,000
Number of offline campaign events organized via MyBO, Obama 2008: 200,000
Amount raised online by Obama 2012: $690 million, of which $504 million originated digitally
Amount raised online by Obama 2008: $500 million, of which $403 originated digitally
Total number of individual donors to Obama 2012: 4.4 million
Total number of individual donors to Obama 2008: 3.95 million
With apologies to Harper’s Index.
November 26, 2012