Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has attracted more online and media attention this year than any Democrat running for president, Axios' Sara Fischer, Neal Rothschild and Stef Kight report.
Like President Trump in 2016, Ocasio-Cortez has mastered Twitter while at the same time acting as a magnet in the digital and cable news ecosystem:
- Her social media stardom follows her around the web, sucking an entire news cycle in around her. That amplifies her media presence, making it feel even bigger than it is on social media itself.
- Coverage of Ocasio-Cortez is more likely to be picked up by news websites from social media than any other Dem, according to data from social analytics company Parse.ly that was pulled for Axios.
From a list of eight popular Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez attracted the second highest overall traffic — after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — between Jan. 3 (when she was sworn in) and Feb. 10 (Sunday) on the websites within Parse.ly's network.
- Most of Pelosi's traffic is related to the possibility of a second government shutdown, per Parse.ly.
How she does it: The digital dominance of Ocasio-Cortez comes not just from the velocity of her social media use, but the buzz around her policies, videos and viral quips.
- "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez" was the #3 top trending search on Feb. 5, the day of the State of the Union, and was the top trending Google Image search related to the State of the Union last week.
- An Axios analysis of Twitter data using CrowdTangle analytics found that Ocasio-Cortez generated more interactions — retweets plus likes — than the six most prolific news organizations combined, over 30 days between December and January.
Be smart: The Ocasio-Cortez web traffic blitz, and cable-news cascade, is because she has introduced — and aggressively defended and promoted — progressive policies around income taxes and climate change on social media.
- Ocasio-Cortez has mentioned #GreenNewDeal more than any other word on Twitter, per data from public affairs software company Quorum (with the exceptions of "people," "one" and "change").
- In less than a month, she has posted 68 times about #GreenNewDeal.
Such hot-button issues flourish on social media and, particularly, Facebook.
- Despite the fact that she isn't the biggest Facebook user (she favors Twitter and Instagram), Facebook is Ocasio-Cortez's main source of social traffic, with about 40% of views coming from that network, per Parse.ly.
- Twitter is next, at just 2.8% of views.