• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, September 21, 2016

Twitter has started to play second fiddle to broadcast and stump speeches in the general election. Many of Trump’s more than 11.6 million followers and Clinton’s almost 9 million followers interact with the presidential nominees’ social media accounts on a daily basis.

Many who interact with either candidate often share similar characteristics. The ListenFirst Media Platform has broken down the demographic and interest categories of such Twitter's users, noting precise and telling differences.

First and most striking is the overall gender breakdown.

On Trump’s channel, between September 9 and 15, 66% of interactions were executed by men. The majority of users that interacted with Hillary Clinton’s tweets over that same period were also male, but a smaller percentage at 55%.

Tellingly, Trump had a much weaker interaction with Twitter users outside the U.S. than Hillary Clinton. A total of 71% of interactions with Trump tweets were enacted from American accounts, whereas Clinton’s number is lower at 61%.  

Trump’s top four international audiences were in the UK (5%), Canada (4%), India (2%) and Nigeria (2%). Clinton’s were in the UK (6%), Canada (4%), India (3%) and Mexico (3%).

When looking at interactions by geographic location within the United States, Trump and Clinton followers vary more concretely. The most populous Democratic and Republican states appropriately hold top spot with their respective candidates.

Clinton had the highest percentage of interactions coming from California, at 12%. Texas was Trump’s most active state, with 8% of interactions on his profile from the Lone Star State. California and Florida users also accounted for 8% each of Trump’s national twitter interactions.

Clinton’s top three states rounded out with New York, garnering 8% of the interactions and Texas at 5%.

The insights also analyzed the top TV shows and genres that most highly associated with users who interacted with each candidate. While largely similar, as can be expected from those who use social media to interact with politicians, there were a few small appropriate variations. More Clinton tweeters were interested in comedy than Trump’s.

Finally, glancing at top general interests, while again largely similar, there were certain telling differences. Business was not in Clinton’s top five interests, whereas 80% of Trump tweeters were interested in that topic. Again, Clinton's were much more interested in comedy movies and television (84%) than Trump’s were (75%).