One guy was falling asleep, another was spitting fire and the other couldn’t get a word in edgewise. But despite how you felt about the actual debate, it was, however, a spectacularly ridiculous night for Twitter, the real star of Wednesday night’s event. Here’s a quick recap.
Records got broken
According to Twitter, tonight’s tweets surpassed those of both Republican and Democratic National Conventions. But not the debut of PregnantBeyonce at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (8,868 tweets per second, 10 million tweets total).
Tonight’s debate was the most tweeted about event in US political history, topping the numbers from the RNC and DNC.
— Twitter Government (@gov) October 4, 2012
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Kitchen Aid is looking for a new social media contractor
Whoops. During the debate, the KitchenAid account (@KitchenAidUSA) posted a pretty nasty tweet about Obama’s dead grandmother before quickly deleting it. Not quickly enough, though (duh), as it spread even more quickly and prompted the account to tweet an apology.
Classy. RT: @kitchenaidusa: Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’. #nbcpolitics
— Heather Spohr (@mamaspohr) October 4, 2012
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Deepest apologies for an irresponsible tweet that is in no way a representation of the brand’s opinion. #nbcpolitics
— KitchenAid (@KitchenAidUSA) October 4, 2012
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Editor’s note: This is about as bad as it gets, in terms of a social media gaffe by a brand. But they did what they could to clean up the mess. Give it a few days, and most will forget it even happened.
Another editor’s note: Without getting too social media manager nerdy, I’ll point out that a lot of big companies like KitchenAid hire social media agencies or freelancers to handle their social media–aka, this person probably doesn’t work for KitchenAid, per se. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Take more care in hiring these people, Big Brands!
3 – # of Big Bird accounts created
Romney mentioned that he would cut government subsidies for PBS, before declaring “I love Big Bird!” And a star (on Twitter) was born. Except not one of these accounts is funny, and all of them try too hard:
@FiredBigBird
@BigBirdRomney
@BlGBlRD (with lowercase L¿s disguised as I¿s)
And then there was this dude named Terry, who has the actual @BigBird account:
I need a beer.
— Terry (@Bigbird) October 4, 2012
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He’s looking for a girlfriend, by the way:
Even the toughest man needs the tenderness of a woman. And I’m not talking about just physical matters. I wish it wasn’t so difficult.
— Terry (@Bigbird) September 29, 2012
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Also, there were 17,000 tweets per minute for “Big Bird” and 10,000 per minute for “PBS,” according to Twitter (@gov).
Jim Lehrer was obviously checking Twitter
Clearly the loser of the debate–according to Twitter, anyway. Lehrer himself acknowledged that he probably could have done a better job keeping control of the room, which he totally must have realized after he saw the @SilentJimLehrer account.
…but so…excuse me…
— Silent Jim Lehrer (@SilentJimLehrer) October 4, 2012
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“Just for Men” was trending
Romney should be a “Just for Men – Touch of Grey” model. The balance of tone and the luster is just… beautiful.
— Gabriel Rodriguez (@autofellatic) October 4, 2012
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