What Google and Twitter Say About Trump’s First 100 Days

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/us/politics/trump-twitter-google.html

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The rulers of the social media and search worlds have run their high-powered analytics to give us incisive new insight into President Trump’s first 100 days in office.

And the results, are … well, basically what you’d expect.

We now have data to support the claim that, yes, our commander in chief posts often on Twitter about the media and making America great; we also now know that people spent his first few months in office searching mostly for information about immigration and other related topics.

But let’s start with Mr. Trump himself.

In a report released on Friday, Twitter examined how Mr. Trump leveraged his favorite social media platform during this early stage. They said Mr. Trump had posted a total of 486 times as of 1 p.m. on Day 98. (The New York Times has published an interactive feature cataloging posts from the start of his presidency.)

A less rigorous analysis by yours truly found that, by comparison, former President Barack Obama sent out a dozen messages on Twitter over that span; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, however, sent a ton; Beyoncé did not send any.

Mr. Trump sent Twitter messages containing the word “great” most often, followed by “America/American” and “news/media,” according to Twitter. Other words in the top 10 included: “jobs,” “big” and “fake news.”

Given that so many of his favorite phrases involved the news, it only makes sense that some of the Twitter handles that Mr. Trump mentioned most were media companies. The handle @Whitehouse topped the list, but @CNN and @FoxNews were close behind. The handles @nytimes and @foxandfriends tied for second — presumably for different reasons.

In its 100-days report, Twitter said Mr. Trump was mentioned most on Jan. 20 — his inauguration. Users also mentioned the president frequently on Twitter when he signed controversial executive orders, when he claimed that Mr. Obama had him wiretapped and when one of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers urged television viewers to buy fashion products marketed by his daughter.

Google similarly found in its analysis that search interest in Mr. Trump peaked during his first day in office before beginning a gradual decline.

Still, if Mr. Trump seeks a “win” over Mr. Obama, he can now say that he was searched 140 percent more than the former president during their respective first 100 days, according to the Google Trends analysis released Wednesday.

Among the questions people asked Google to answer the most in that period:

• “How many executive orders has Trump signed?”

• “What countries did Trump ban?

• “Why did Trump bomb Syria?”

Unsurprisingly, topics like immigration and Syria also topped the list of topics people searched for frequently during the first 100 days. Terms related to immigration such as H-1B visas, which allow employers to bring in foreign workers for years at a time, and DACA, which refers to a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also garnered big interest.

And although many of the issues that divide the country were among those that people searched most, one needs only to turn back to Twitter for a possible sign of unity.

The president’s most reposted message since Jan. 20?

Maybe, just maybe, we all can just get along.