Clinton’s Instagram page has grown rapidly over the past month. Clinton gained 124,926 followers from November 1 to 6, ahead of Trump’s 71,906 for the same period.

In the final week of the election, she also drew more supporters on Facebook. Clinton gathered an additional 257,326 fans to Trump’s 172,000. In the wake of the FBI’s revelations about new emails, the New York Times reduced Clinton’s probability of winning from 93% to 83%. Social media users rushed to support Hillary Clinton’s official pages in the final days of the election.

The last minute advance didn’t close the social gap for Clinton. Donald Trump remains ahead by 6,817,553 fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. What does Hillary’s final swell mean? Her rapid growth might signal that her supporters are stirring to action before voting day. Donald Trump’s slowdown could mean that his fans have already started celebrating.

Predicting the Wildcard Candidate

Crowdbabble collects data for more than 400 metrics on each social platform. Which ones can help predict election outcomes? Based on engagement rate, we incorrectly predicted that Bernie Sanders would become the Democratic nominee. In a later case study, we found a stronger correlation between total share of followers and polling percentages.

Total follower share predicted Hillary Clinton’s win in the primaries. For Clinton and Trump, social media audience share and the polls share similar parallels. Both are both split. As of November 6, Hillary has 43% of the total audience across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and will take 50% of the popular vote, according to Monmouth University. But Trump has 47% of total audience share and in the same poll is predicted to win 44% of the popular vote. Trump’s stronghold on social media is invisible to Hillary supporters, and vice versa. On Facebook and Instagram, you see more of what you like in your feed — there are no equal time laws on social media.

The margin of misinterpretation for social media data is wide and impossible to pin down. The graph below compares Crowdbabble Facebook engagement data with polling data for Hillary and Donald.