This post was part of my coverage of the Liberal Party’s Biennial convention for iPolitics.ca.
The Liberal convention achieved something yesterday that I wasn’t expecting to see. It generated just shy of 9,000 tweets for the day. If you have followed my analysis of digital in Canadian elections, you may recall that was the same amount of Twitter activity generated by Canadians about the election on March 25, 2011 — the very cold day journalists gathered at the Governor General’s residence to cover the announcement that parliament was dissolved.
The first swell of convention tweets occurred late morning. The true spike happened during the evening speeches and debates. There were plenty of quotes and commentary on the theatrics. Delegates and journalists debated whether too much time was spent wheeling out the past rather than limbering up for the future.
Not surprisingly, online activity fell to a dull hush after the official ceremonies. Twitter had an early bedtime. The suites and bars remained active until 3am. So I’ve heard.
Like most events Twitter attends, the tool serves as a broadcast channel allowing users to document experiences and thoughts. In some cases, delegates negotiate where to meet.
Alas, no matter what I write about Twitter, those in the know will “get it” and nay-sayers (many of whom can only speculate what the URL for the service may be) will simply dismiss it and the people who use it. For analysts, well, we get to uncover what resonates with the people who publish content, and those who rebroadcast and respond to it.
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