Trump Wins Tale of Tweets in Presidential Debate

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump drew the most U.S. social media interactions related to a TV show on Facebook and Twitter Sunday night during the second televised debate, according to Nielsen Social. 

Trump was mentioned in tweets 5.5 million times and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton only in 2.1 million, but there was arguably more to talk about on the Trump side given the recent revelations about a tape from an Access Hollywood pre-segment conversation between Trump and Billy Bush.

In all, there were a whopping 62 million social media interactions on Facebook and Twitter from 18.2 million people in the U.S. Each tweeter interacted an average 7 times about the debate.

Related: Pence Edges Out Kaine in Social Chatter

Interactions are defined as social media posts related to a linear TV episode plus follow-up engagement with those posts.

Interestingly, the online activity did not peak early in the debate during talk about the tapes or Clinton's emails but instead between 10 p.m. and 10:14 p.m. when the candidates were talking about taxes and Syria.

Among the 47.2 million Facebook interactions, a majority (63%) were from women or girls.

The interaction totals capture Tweets and Facebook posts during the initial broadcast as well as three hours before and after that broadcast.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.