Tweets rev up as RNC kicks off

The Republican National Convention officially began yesterday but the big ticket activities kicked off today. First order of business: formally selecting @MittRomney as the Republican nominee for President. Tweets related to #GOP2012 during today’s roll call peaked at 1,448 per minute at 5:44p ET — the first large spike in conversation of the convention.

But #GOP2012 tweeters were just getting warmed up. Tonight’s speeches helped drive peaks in conversation far higher than at any point earlier in the day.

One of the night’s most anticipated speakers was @AnnDRomney. In fact, the highest Tweets per minute spike of the entire night — 6,195 — came when Governor Romney joined his wife on stage at the end of her speech.

Garrett Jackson, the Governor’s body man, tweeted a photo of Romney watching his wife’s speech from backstage.

It wasn’t just that Mrs. Romney’s speech inspired a lot of conversation, but Twitter responded positively as well. Her Twitter Political Index score nearly doubled over the course of her speech, from 45 to 83— the biggest increase for any of the night’s speakers.

Gov. Chris Christie’s speech inspired the second highest spike in conversation for the night (6,079 Tweets per minute), at the point of his line about a “second American century”. Right after he was finished, the Governor began tweeting from the special account he set up for the night: @ChristieKeynote.

@RickSantorum’s speech inspired a lot of conversation, though much of it was satire about a moment in his speech mentioning hands. Even David Axelrod stepped across the aisle to join the conversation.

Keep following @gov this week. We’ll have more to share as the convention rolls on.

Posted by Adam Sharp (@AdamS)
Head of Government, News and Social Innovation