Facebook engagement by members of Congress for the State of the Union address [Infographic]

President Barack Obama gave the annual State of the Union address last night, and as Drew Olanoff pointed out, it was the most interactive speech ever made by a United States president. It was the latest example of how Obama has utilized social media and the Internet to great effect, a strategy going all the way back, quite successfully, to his initial campaign for president (and for the Democratic nomination).

During the speech, there were over 760,000 tweets discussing it, with the most discussed topics being education, energy and jobs. 548 members of Congress participated on Twitter as well.

As for Facebook, an infographic from social media statistics and analytics company Socialbakers looks at the engagement with members of Congress posting about the State of the Union over the past 30 days. The data comes from public Facebook posts, gathered using the Open Graph API, with engagement based on the number of likes and comments.

Across 321 posts from members of Congress, the most used word was “budget” with 50 mentions. Next was “jobs” with 35, then “hope” with 33, a central theme of Obama’s campaign. Then “together,” “work” and “bipartisan.” With 21 mentions, “energy” comes in at number 7, which is odd since was it the second most-discussed topic on Twitter (likely because these numbers are from a 30-day window, while Twitter measured only during the speech). The list of most used words is rounded out with “economy,” “war” and “iraq”, topics which used to be at the forefront of political discussion.

116 posts came from Democrats, while 196 were from Republicans. The two most popular posts, by a huge margin, were from Obama’s official account.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Here’s the full infographic, with top posts from both parties (click for full size):

Obama’s extensive social media presence and engagement is set to continue, with an upcoming Google+ Hangout on the 30th. Expect participation from all politicians to ramp up as we move closer to the election.