While the political focus of the country is trained on Iowa — where tomorrow the Republican caucuses will give the rest of the nation an idea of who will emerge as the favored Republican presidential candidate — eyes trained on Facebook will find Mitt Romney with the most fans, but Rick Santorum with the most recent uptick in fans, up 22.6 percent.
Social media statisticians Socialbakers have created a microsite for gauging Facebook fans' of the presidential candidates, and which ones are gaining and losing fans, whose fans are commenting the most (and with whom), as well as what they're saying to their fans.
Sitting president Barack Obama has the most fans on Facebook, by a comfortable margin: 24.3 million to runner-up Romney, with 1.26 million. But Romney has about twice as many fans as third-place Ron Paul, with 672,483.
Santorum has had the biggest lift recently, up nearly 23 percent, but that still only leaves him with 40,816 fans.
In much of the way social media mirrors debates all over the country, Romney and Paul's fans are neck and neck in engaging with their candidates' on their Facebook pages, and Paul's Facebook page is especially vocal with his fans, with nearly 3,000 comments. On the other end of engagement is Santorum's Facebook page, with only 63 comments.
We'll find out soon enough if what we see on Facebook reflects the contenders in the upcoming presidential race.
See the rest of Socialbakers' findings below:
More stories:
- First thoughts: Romney vs. Santorum
- For Santorum, enthusiasm, devotion among the faithful
- Another election winner: Facebook’s ’I voted’ campaign
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