Social media users are less likely to share Conservative posts than those of Labour, and more likely to react angrily, according to data across Facebook and Twitter from the last three months.
On a day in which a Cabinet reshuffle was repeatedly interrupted by technical hiccups, Press Association analysis shows the Labour Party continues to out-perform the Conservative Party on the two social media platforms.
Conservative supporters will be looking for incoming chairman Brandon Lewis to overhaul the party’s digital strategy after an election disappointment that has been attributed in part to an inability to attract younger voters.
On Facebook, where the Labour Party has over one million followers compared with the Tories’ 650,000, data showed users were almost twice as likely to share a post from Labour compared with the Conservatives, and nearly four times as likely to react angrily to a Labour post.
The top 20 posts from Labour which users reacted angrily to were all about the Conservative Party, whereas those from the Conservatives which most made people angry were about Brexit.
Posts from the Conservatives were far more likely to generate conversation between users but the top comments were almost exclusively from disgruntled Brexiteers or Labour supporters.
The most-shared posts from Labour on Facebook were all videos, four of which attacked the Conservatives and Theresa May (about rail fares, Universal Credit, the national debt and the NHS).
The fifth focused on lowering the voting age to 16.
For the Conservatives, attacks on the Labour Party were also effective, although the Conservative Party’s most-shared post would not have made the Labour top 10.
Three of the top five posts were videos claiming Labour is misleading students over alleged plans to cancel student debt, one was about claims of anti-Semitism at the Labour conference and a fifth was about Brexit.
Three of the Conservatives’ most-shared Twitter posts focused on Labour spending plans and another on protecting animal rights, alongside the video about claims of anti-Semitism at the Labour conference.
For Labour, the most shared tweet came on the day of the Autumn Budget, featuring a mocking video of the “House of Commons’ group chat”, in which “Jeremy Corbyn” and “John McDonnell” explained to the Government how to “fix their failing economy”.
Three of Labour’s top five came in the new year, focusing on the rise in rail fares and crisis in the NHS.
Again, the Conservatives’ most-shared tweet would not have made Labour’s top 10.
The figures come after two social media gaffes during the Tories’ reshuffle on Monday.
The first saw Chris Grayling wrongly announced as the party’s new chairman in a tweet that was subsequently deleted, while the second introduced the actual new chairman with a typo in his job title. The latter tweet was also deleted.
There was also some confusion when, for most of Monday morning, web browsers blocked access to the Conservative Party website, with users getting a message to say the site was not secure.