Cotton takes early social media lead over Pryor

If the 2014 race in Arkansas for the United States Senate were measured in Facebook "likes," one candidate would clearly be ahead, and it could easily be considered a landslide at this early stage in the race.

As of early Friday (Aug. 9) afternoon, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, had amassed 38,731 likes on Facebook and 4,403 followers on Twitter. By comparison, incumbent U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., only had 3,046 Facebook likes and 134 Twitter followers. (See Cotton's Facebook page here, and see Pryor's here.)

For even more comparison, Cotton's campaign website has been functional and routinely updated ever since his race for Congress last year. Pryor's re-election website only appeared online late this week.

Emily Reeves, director digital strategy at Stone Ward, an advertising and public relations firm in Little Rock, said said while she normally advises against looking solely at the number of likes and followers, Pryor's low numbers are alarming.

"I would say it's not normal because most politicians figured out with the 2008 election, digital communications in general are hugely important to winning the race," she said. "It's surprising that he would only be nine tweets in. He started on Aug. 1 and only sent nine tweets. He's definitely behind the times when it comes to getting local media messaging and relationship building up to speed."

Pryor's digital troubles may not come as a surprise, though, as he was first elected in 2002, well before using social media in campaigning was even thought of. And in 2008, the year then-Sen. Barack Obama's social media presence changed the electoral game, Pryor did not have a Republican opponent, making for an easy path to re-election against Green Party challenger Rebekah Kennedy.

Reeves made the point that Cotton's digital presence has been active and engaging, well before his official entrance into the Senate race on Tuesday night (Aug. 6).

"When you put them side by side, it's a striking contrast. Tom Cotton's blog is active, he is very active on Facebook and it literally looks like Pryor's campaign just got started. Just one blog post. 133 followers. And really, the posts on Facebook are more recent. There's nothing on there that has (substance) even though they've had the (Facebook page) since March."

Brent Robinson, CEO and chief thought officer at Modthink, a Fayetteville-based firm that specializes in social media, said a bigger problem facing both campaigns is their rankings in search results.

"In both cases, I don't see the campaign sites until the very bottom of the page or the second page," he said.

Reeves said it was something both campaigns should take note of.

"Both of their websites are difficult to find. I had to use the paid advertising in Google search to find their campaign sites. That's a problem when they both have, that they are not showing up in organic Google searches," she said. "To me, someone who uses this on an hourly, minute by minute basis, it took more time than I would have liked to find their campaign sites."

Reeves suggests that both campaigns, especially Pryor's, should spend time doing something she calls "digital handshakes."

"If I were advising him, I would say schedule specific times where people can submit their questions live. That would immediately bump traffic to those sites. That would be my advice for both candidates, but since Pryor is so far behind, that would be the first thing I would do if I were (his campaign team) is show that he needs to be talking to people to do those digital handshakes, if you will, without having to go to events throughout the state."

But even though Cotton does seem to be so far ahead in regards to social media, Robinson said he thinks Pryor may not be as far off as some would assume. The reason? How many people are talking about the campaigns in the digital realm.

Even though Cotton's campaign boasts more likes and people talking about the campaign on Facebook, the percent of followers engaged in the campaign is actually statistically low with only 9,383 people talking about Cotton out of his 38,731 followers, roughly 24.22% of his following.

By comparison, 4,045 people are discussing Pryor on Facebook, while he only has 3,046 likes. That amounts to 132.8% of his following.

"My guess is right now that the senator is talking to his (network of supports). He is getting that engagement because he is talking to people who are interested in the conversation. Cotton maybe has a wider audience, but they're not so deep. He has a national audience, but he doesn't seem to get the people on the local level who will be going to the ballot box."

While Cotton's following may not have the depth that Robinson thinks it should, he said it's not too late.

"If he doesn't, he will in time."

Reeves said the same of Pryor's limited social media presence and activity.

"I do not think it's too late. He can absolutely catch up. But it will take some effort. His campaign will have to be pushing that content out to channels that people will want to share. If they're not regularly putting content out there, people are not going to want to respond to it. It's not too late, but they have to put it out there very, very quickly."