Thanks for the “best by far” review

Agree 100% with the air versus ground point. I think the comparison is also analogous to the analytics vendors’ approach. The mentions graphs etc are just snaphots from thousands of feet up. They give you a very simplistic viewpoint of what’s going on.

The only way to derive actual insight is to get on the ground and up close so you can get an understanding of the likely motivations of those who are involved.

If I get the chance I will try and take a look at what the “apparent affiliation” groups by party have been talking about more generally i.e. not specifically around any topic. This may shed some more light on your point.

Too much of the analysis is focused on the ‘air war’ that the parties are conducting nationally through their official Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, and those of their senior spokespeople. But actually some of the most interesting activity is the thousands of local accounts of candidates and activists. Many of these won’t mention the keywords that are being analysed as they’ll focus on local issues, which can have a big influence on undecided voters. Often they deliberately won’t mention too much politics or even the party name (certainly those I’ve trained won’t!) This social media ‘ground war’ is largely invisible in the analysis, much like the real ‘ground way’ of people knocking on doors and delivering leaflets as journalists are obsessed with the ‘air war’ because that’s all about the media and them.