Social Media Research Indicates Egypt heading for Elections Run-off Between Islamist Candidates

Social Media Research Indicates Egypt headingfor Elections Run-off Between Islamist Candidates

www.socialeyez.ae      @Social_Eyez  @FTarzi
Data analyzed by News Group, the region’s leading media intelligence group, shows that voting in Egypt today and tomorrow will conclude in a run-off between Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsy and the independent Islamist candidate Abdel Monem Aboul Fotouh.

The findings are based on months of research, monitoring and analysis conducted by SocialEyez, News Group’s social media monitoring and analysis subsidiary. SocialEyez has been tracking Egyptian attitudes expressed on social media towards emergent presidential candidates since May 2011, shortly following the revolutionary overthrow of the Hosni Mubarak regime.

“While one may argue that social media users do not represent the masses in a country like Egypt, our findings have consistently shown that social media can be used to gain an accurate and unbiased understanding of public sentiment” said Fadl Tarzi, Chief Operating Officer of News Group.  “Imagine if you could listen to millions of conversations at once and get analysis and insight into these conversation on a same day basis with no bias, and at a low cost – that’s the power of social media analysis, for the first time in history this is possible”

SocialEyez research results are based on collected data from several hundred thousand user comments and online public opinion polling. SocialEyez estimates that Morsy and Aboul Fotouh are benefitting from the support of 32% and 28%, respectively, of Egypt’s voting public.  The research also shows that remaining contenders, including Amr Moussa and Ahmed Shafik, are not likely to gather any substantial support at the polls.

SocialEyez’s political analysis unit has an established track record of accurate analysis, and of detecting trends online before they materialize offline. In 2010, SocialEyez asserted that social media was becoming “a disruptive force” in Arab politics and noted that Mohamed Baradei’s Facebook page was prompting larger numbers of Egyptians to the streets in public protest of the Egyptian regime. Shortly after, SocialEyez detected calls for the revolution trending on Facebook and other social media platforms two weeks before traditional media discussed the possibility of regime change in Egypt. In 2011, it also captured a growing demand online to cut natural gas exports to Israel, and was ahead of the trend in noting the extent of the Salafist movement’s support and massive popularity online. Likewise SocialEyez noted a high risk for violence at the soccer match in Port Said in February 2012, where dozens of football fans were killed.

SocialEyez is the region’s largest social media research and analysis agency covering Arabic social media. Its political and commercial units offer services to private sector commercial entities, governments, public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations, academic organizations and think tanks. SocialEyez has become the go-to source for some of the world’s most prestigious consulting firms and international businesses seeking interpretations of political security, stability and risk in the Middle East.

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About NewsGroup

News Group, a leading media intelligence group, was founded in 2002.  The company and its subsidiaries specialize in the sourcing, distribution, creation, monitoring and analysis of news content in the emerging markets of the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent. The group includes seven subsidiaries that employ over 300 people. News Group is based in Dubai and operates in 30 countries across the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region