Ireland

Irish President Michael Higgins started his online campaign months before other candidates and he reaped the benefits. His team tweets about a wide range of events that cover all demographics. From January 2010 until October 2011 Michael Higgins’ Twitter account was active on a daily basis. During the last three weeks of the campaign until the day of voting in November, his Twitter account was updated on average 28 times/day. From October onwards his campaign team consistently used the hashtag #aras11. He is also very conversational with his audience as over a quarter of his tweets are @replies. Michael Higgins also uses his Twitter account to make his campaign more visible tweeting snapshots of his campaign bus, campaign posters as well as images of him meeting with supporters. His last tweet from 11 November 2011, the day of his inauguration was a thank you to his 15,000 followers: “President Michael d Higgins, thank you all #pres9.” The Irish president unilaterally follows the Taoiseach @EndaKennyTD, the @WhiteHouse and @Number10Gov but they don’t follow him back...

The Irish Taoiseach’s (Prime Minister’s) account is a typical campaign account: very active during the campaign before going silent once elected. Enda Kenny started to tweet on 21st April 2010, nearly a year before the 2011 general election but has been quiet since 8th July 2011. During the campaign Enda Kenny was actively engaged with his followers as almost half of his tweets were @replies to his followers. As the campaign went into its final phase he used the hashtag #enda and #ge11 and retweeted tweets from @FineGaelToday his party’s account. On average Mr Kenny’s Twitter account was updated three times a week. As the Election Day approached, images became part of his Twitter updates, primarily Twitpics of Mr Kenny with members of the public. After the 2011 general election, Mr Kennys account was only updated twice in June and once in July 2011 before going silent.