Why Social Media Mattered during Brazil's Presidential Race

During Brazil's 2014 elections, social media took on a bigger role than ever before, as networks reached a critical mass unseen during the previous presidential vote. I've compiled a rundown of stats and highlights of how candidates and voters used a variety of social networks during the race.

Facebook

• Facebook became a major battleground not only for the candidates, but also for voters sharing their opinions, which sometimes caused serious rifts in relationships.
• The most popular social network in Brazil, Facebook was used by candidates to share a plethora of internet-friendly media, including memes, selfies, and videos.
• The network was used by candidates for "Face-to-Face" live events to allow voters to ask candidates questions in real time.
• During the campaign, President Dilma Rousseff more than tripled her Facebook following, from half a million to nearly 2 million.
• Over the same period, Aécio Neves quadrupled his number of Facebook followers, surpassing the president's following and reaching around 3.6 million.
• Three out of five Brazilian voters are on Facebook, and 50 percent of Brazilian voters on Facebook interacted with this year's election on the network.
• There were nearly 700 million election interactions on Facebook during Brazil's presidential campaign, nearly 3 times more than during India's election.
• During the final debate on Globo, there were 19.9 million Facebook interactions with 6.6 million comments a minute and 36.6 million interactions a minute.
• More than 49 million Facebook interactions took place on the day of the runoff.
• Rousseff's campaign team took a new route and created several GIF-laden, Facebook-friendly Buzzfeed listicles.

Twitter

• There were nearly 40 million election-related tweets during the campaign, with 4.2 million tweets on runoff day alone.
• Both Rousseff and Neves had a combined average of 10,000 mentions a day during the race.
• The final presidential debate generated over 2 million tweets.
• Candidates sparred on the network during the race, attacking each other in tweets.
• Ex-President Lula joined the social network during the race to help Rousseff campaign.
• During the race, Twitter tracked the most commonly discussed election issues. Health ranked number one, followed by education, security, and the economy.
• Twitter became one of the best places to find the funniest and most creative user-generated election and debate memes.
• The network was used by bitter voters angry about the outcome of the vote, which ranged from people saying they'd leave the country to bigoted remarks about northeasterners.
• Rousseff's victory tweet was similar to Obama's victory tweet when he won reelection.
• Satirical accounts were big during the election, including the already popular Dilma Bolada and the new Marina Ecológica and EuLucianoGenro.
• Green Party candidate Eduardo Jorge seemed to be personally tweeting and responding to tweeters, which made him an instant internet hit.
• Twitter became the strange space where a number of foreigners "endorsed" and then in some cases, rescinded their support of candidates, including Mark Ruffalo, Lindsay Lohan, and Naomi Campbell.
• Twitter Brasil mapped global tweets about the candidates during the campaign (bel0w).

Youtube

• Candidates, who traditionally depend heavily on TV advertising, were able to use the network to upload their campaign commercials.
• The video site also allowed candidates to show that they're hip, such as dancing passinho or promoting a funk campaign anthem.
• Comedy group Porta dos Fundos tapped in to the country's election-time sentiment, joking about the lack of good candidates in Rio and the need to literally "justify" one's vote.
• It was also a space where Brazilians could spoof what was happening in terms of election fights among friends.

 

Tumblr

• There were a variety of funny Tumblrs that came out of the election including:
• Dilma Meant to Say
• It Lasted Longer than Marina's Promises
• Selfie at the Voting Booth
• VEJA's Desperation
• Coxinha <3 Petralha

Instagram

• Even though voting booth selfies are illegal and even carry a jail sentence, that didn't stop voters from taking pictures and posting them on the network. (The trend even inspired a Tumblr, as shown above)
• This is one network that Neves outcampaigned the president. By the end of the campaign, Neves had garnered over 325,000 followers and Rousseff had nearly 28,000.

 

Seu voto ajudara a decidir o futuro de nosso pais, então tenha consciência.... Ah e nada de #selfienaurna revelando seu voto, pois configura-se em boca de urna tratando-se de crime / #eleicoes #2turno

A photo posted by Bruno Assunpçāo (@bruassunpcao) on Oct 10, 2014 at 2:06am PDT

Whatsapp

• Around one in five Brazilians uses Whatsapp.
• Neves circulated a campaign video on Whatsapp, and Rousseff's team used it to rectify false information and to interact with voters.
• It also became an important campaign tool for young candidates in legislative races.

Images: Memes from Rousseff's and Neves' Facebook accounts; image from Coxinha <3 Petralha

Comments

[Technolomen]

Social media is really something else in Brazil!

[Regina Garcia]

Hello,
I am very glad to find this data because I'm doing a research about Facebook use during the election period. However, I'm just wondering about your sources because I'm curious about the numbers. Thanks in advance and keep on going!