Analysing Nepal's CA Election in Twitter Social Media. #NepalVotes why not trending in Twitter? Analyzing #NepalVotes in Twitter

Eighty-seven thousands and counting. We have been collecting public tweets that talk about 2nd CA Election in Nepal since a month prior to the election date (November 19, 2013) and still counting. That’s the number of non-private tweets or statuses pushed to Twittersphere. While Twitter sentiment accounts for analyzing public opinion and determining the fate of candidates in many countries, Nepal is now no exception to talk about. Here we present our short analysis about #NepalVotes tweets and associated number of Twitter users in Nepal.

#NepalVotes in Number

Every minute almost approximately 18 new tweets hash tagged #NepalVotes were thrown to the Internet worldwide in average (figures presented here account for October 1 – November 22, 10am NST.) Considering Ujjwal Acharya’s influencing tweet as the hashtag #NepalVotes initator in October 2, this hash tag has gone official (However, this hash tag was used as early as Sept 4 by @G_Bhattarai  read it here) .

Since I could see many of Twitter users using #NepalVotes hashtag, Let us all make it 'official' hashtag for November 19 election!

— Ujjwal Acharya (@UjjwalAcharya) October 2, 2013

The volume of tweets have been increasing as the number of political leaders joined Twitter. Their statuses have been one of the most retweeted and replied to (ie ranked but not engaged – interaction is defined as two-way communication here) tweets. Followed by tweets from journos both national and international.

So why is #Nepal or #NepalVotes not trending in Twitter? It is partly about the volume of the tweets (last time it had to make 20k Tweets and 220k influences for Nepal to trend globally, besides short duration, it can be localized as well.) So, why is #NepalVotes not trending in Twitter, should we?

It was May 14, 2012 #Nepal last trended in Twitter globally, read the insight here.

Nepalese Twitter users are Increasing than ever!

From mere single digit (approx.) Twitter users back in 2006 to those energized by Kantipur daily’s Celroti, and then by the-then Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai’s entry to Twitter, the number of Nepalese twitter users are increasing than ever. This number increases with Nepal’s participation in International games, news coverage, and other unconditional circumstances that make Nepal popular. The bubble graph above is based on initial count of 400 users back in 2009 and on moving average with period of 2, that marks us significant change over the number of Twitter users.

Our script was able to calculate (collect) a very high rise in the number of Nepalese Twitter users because of this 2nd Constitution Assembly (CA) Election – needless to say new comers being Nepalese politicians, journos & media houses, C-level executives, and observing-Facebook-users. These account for almost 28 thousand new Nepalese twitter users who have been discovered to join the charm of tweeting. The approximate figure of total Nepalese on Twitter as per our record is now 217 thousands – which roughly 10% of Nepal’s facebook users (the calculation matrix is briefly explained below.)

One very interesting fact is that there are more tweets on “Nepal” than on “NepalVotes” even on this duration of CA Election. Yet another interesting fact is that “Nepal” is tweeted more often by foreigners (travelers) than by Nepalese 🙂

How did we collect #NepalVotes Public Tweets?

We used at least three different mechanism to collect, sort out, and analyze this specific keyword #NepalVotes from the public Twitter timeline. In-house script, third-party SaaS (Software as a Service) and select Nepalese public Twitter profiles were used while discarding bots (spiders, robots & autobots) that retweet (RT) and hashtag #NepalVotes.

The number of Nepalese Twitter users computed using a public pull from their location variables as provided by Twitter API. The calculation is based on unique Twitter usernames which is otherwise not provided by Twitter officially. The number of Facebook users is provided by Facebook advertising platform for Facebook ad users. (Read what is the number of Facebook & Twitter users in Nepal our archive post from 2012: सामाजिक सञ्जाल फेसबुक र ट्वीटरमा कति नेपाली होलान्?)

What’s your say for #NepalVotes in Twitter? Share your experience.