The social media world can be hilarious sometimes. Satire, sarcasm and general trolling is the order of the day on Twitter which is one of the many reasons it makes it special. If you are a regular Twitter user, you may have seen this post tweeted by an avocado facts account.
This is an example of unofficial “polls” that are done on Twitter daily as a satire to a certain event that happens in real life. Well apparently, Presidential hopeful and a tycoon Donald Trump was clearly outclassed by a mere poll garnering 9% of the total vote if you assume a negligible number of people who retweeted and favourite instead of voting only one option.
who would you rather have in office? rt for an avocado. fav for donald trump. pic.twitter.com/aZBQ8uZWG0
— Avocado (@avocadofact) July 1, 2015
Well people decided to hop in the fun and conduct their Twitter polls against Donald Trump against a random thing: Donald Trump vs a cat. Cat won!
Late Night Question: Who would you prefer as president? RT for a cat. Fav for @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/NxRaONguRV — Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) July 6, 2015
Donald Trump vs an egg. Egg won!
Fav for Donald Trump. RT for Egg. pic.twitter.com/HpkYiWfc4r
— Ookay (@Ookayx) July 3, 2015
Donald Trump vs the beloved Donald Duck…you see where this is going. He lost to a duck!
Quick Poll: Donald for President RT FOR DUCK FAV FOR TRUMP #DonaldTrump #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/WZ7fyZVymh — SCOTinUSA (@SCOTinUSA) June 18, 2015
These may not be official polls conducted by reputable research companies, but they can clearly highlight he is not a popular candidate. Can Twitter be used effectively in conducting polls? Not really, issues like buying bots to “favourite” or “retweet” or trend your hashtag is a real issue. But nonetheless, Twitter can be an entertaining platform to highlight which candidates are popular and social media managers of these candidates should take note of the opinions of people and develop strategies to prevent embarrassing user generated polls like the Trump ones.