Introducing the #nzpol Twitter emoji

With over half a million Tweets about the New Zealand election in the past few weeks, there’s no doubt that Twitter is the home of live and public political discussion in New Zealand.

Political moments don’t come much bigger than elections, and with the 2017 election campaign heating up, we’re launching a custom #nzpol Twitter emoji to add a little more colour to your election Tweets.

Using the emoji is simple: Simply Tweet using the hashtags #nzpol, #decision17, or #vote17 and a cute little voting kiwi will automatically appear after the hashtag in your Tweet. An emoji will appear on your #nzpol, #decision17, and #vote17 Tweets from today right through until the end of the election campaign.

#nzpol election - the story so far

Three weeks into the official election campaign, election-related conversation on Twitter has  started strong. Here’s some of the key statistics so far.

Twitter mentions of major party leaders since the election was called have changed quite considerably. During the first weeks of the campaign, former Green Party co-leader @metiria was by far the most mentioned party leader. However, incumbent Prime Minister and National Party leader @pmbillenglish has since led the way after the first leaders debate last week, and pacing ahead of Labour leader @jacindaardern.

Most mentioned policy topics on Twitter

But Twitter users weren’t just concerned with the personalities running for the top job. Key policy areas like civil rights, economics and national security were among the most hotly discussed topics on Twitter during the campaign. Interestingly, immigration was the most popular area of policy for Twitter users to post about.

For all the latest updates throughout the election campaign, give @TwitterGov a follow — we’ll be sharing updates, as well as tracking creative uses of Twitter by #nzpol candidates throughout the election campaign.