The heat has turned up in recent days as GOP presidential candidates 
Jeb Bush and Donald Trump hone in on each other with recent jabs and attacks.
But Trump is getting a lot more traction on his hits, thanks to his copious use of social media. Meanwhile, if Team Jeb wants to know why they are going to lose, all they have to do is look at their online engagement.
Sure, it’s not a ballot. But Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (and Periscope very soon) are as much a daily survey of public political opinion as any Quinnipiac poll. And Jeb’s trailing miserably.
Take, for instance, a tale of two posts on Instagram this week.
Former Florida Gov. Bush posted a video clip Tuesday a The 
Situation Room segment years ago where Wolf Blitzer asks millionaire with the famous hair who he would like to represent the United States in an Iran deal.
“I think Hillary would do a good job. She’s always surrounded herself with good people,” Trump said in a soundbite that would cripple anybody else.
The post got 828 likes and 142 comments as of late Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Trump’s post titled “Wake up Bush supporters” — using a clip of someone falling fast asleep at a Bush campaign rally, with Jeb’s voice droning on and on — had 12,800 likes and 7,600 comments. It had only been posted three hours earlier.
That’s likely due to the disparity in followers. Bush has 33,000 followers and Trump has 388,000.
And while likes and retweets don’t necessarily translate into votes, 
they are the yard signs of tomorrow, showing voters how widespread your support is. And that’s what candidates want because everybody wants to be part of the popular crowd, voters included.
If you still think social media has no effect on elections, I have two words for you: Barrack Obama. With more than 63 million followers on twitter, Obama is known as the first Social Media President. There are hundreds of theses and white papers written about his social media campaigns.
On Facebook, Jeb Bush has 259,671 likes on his public figure page. Trump has more than 3.6 million. The Donald Trump for president page has 86,314 likes. Not much. But more than 10 times Jeb’s combined likes on Jeb Bush
for President (1,593) and Jeb Bush 2016 (6,144).
Even Sen. Marco Rubio has more likes than Bush, with almost a million likes.
Same thing for Twitter. Jeb has got 290,000 followers but Trump has more than 4 million and is the only one who gets close to Hillary Clinton’s 4.2 mil followers. (Marco is in the middle again with 836,000 followers).
The difference is probably in the engagement. Trump has tweeted 27,700 times. Bush seems more disinterested with 1,984.
It’s social media for a reason, guv. You gotta tweet, tweet.
And you gotta make sure your posts don’t put people to sleep.
Donald Trump trumps Jeb Bush in social media contest added by Ladra on
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