Looks like Donald Trump really does know how to get attention. Just ask Facebook users.
The New York City real estate mogul easily trumped his 2016 presidential rivals on Facebook Tuesday. He announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, and 3.4 million people generated 6.4 million interactions, which include likes, posts, comments and shares, related to the news.
That’s more than any Republican, though Hillary Clinton, the Democratic-frontrunner, topped Trump with 4.7 million people generating 10.4 million interactions on her announcement day. Among Republicans, only Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, came close, with 2.1 million people generating 5.5 million interactions.
One warning from Facebook: Interactions don’t reflect what people are saying, whether the comments are positive, negative or neutral.
Some statistics from Facebook:
Top states chattering about Donald Trump (by engagement)
1. West Virginia
2. Connecticut
3. District of Columbia
4. Alabama
5. New York
The top talked about political topics associated with Donald Trump in the week leading up to his announcement
1. Foreign Policy and International Relations
2. Fiscal Issues
And to compare, here’s how other candidates did as they announced:
Jeb Bush
493,000 unique people
849,000 interactions
Rick Perry
422,000 unique people
763,000 interactions
Lincoln Chafee
20,000 unique people
27,000 interactions
Lindsey Graham
84,000 unique people
142,000 interactions
Martin O’Malley
84,000 unique people
120,000 interactions
George Pataki
59,000 unique people
81,000 interactions
Rick Santorum
169,000 unique people
266,000 interactions
Mike Huckabee
458,000 unique people
814,000 interactions
Carly Fiorina
304,000 unique people
515,000 interactions
Ben Carson
847,000 unique people
1.5 million interactions
Bernie Sanders
592,000 unique people
1.2 million interactions
Marco Rubio
695,000 unique people
1.3 million interactions
Hillary Clinton
4.7 million unique people
10.1 million interactions
Rand Paul
865,000 unique people
1.9 million interactions
Ted Cruz
2.1 million unique people
5.5 million interactions
Note: each of these is for the equivalent time period – 24 hours surrounding the launch of the campaign.