Tories streets ahead on social media

Online feeling towards David Cameron is generally more positive than towards his rivals

The Conservative Party appears to be winning the social media war ahead of the upcoming general election, according to a new report.

The BBC spoke to social media agency Yomego asking how the three main parties were faring and was presented with 'social media reputation scores' for each party and individual leader.

The scores were given according to 'noise' – how much people are talking about the parties online – and 'sentiment' – whether that noise is positive or negative.

Surprisingly, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has the highest popularity score of 68.49, just beating Gordon Brown on 68.20, with David Cameron some way behind on 58.98.

Breaking down these scores, however, Brown's 'noise' is at 87 but his sentiment is just 47 and dropping, while Cameron’s figures are 48 and 58 respectively, so people are talking about the Tory leader less but more favourably than his opponent, the report said.

When it comes to parties as a whole, the Tories are the clear winners, with a popularity score of 73.12, while Labour is stuck at around 63 and the Lib Dems are on 62.

"The Tories have made more effort so far than the other parties to use social media, and that shows. Things like their iPhone app have gone down well," Yomego managing director Steve Richards told the BBC.

"And it's very immediate. Just last week Labour took a hit over the lobbying stuff and David Cameron saw his sentiment ratings improve because of his wife's pregnancy."