Trump Continues His Reign on Twitter, While Ben Carson Leads the Race on Facebook

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - January 15, 2016) -  Technology and data company Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL), creator of eValue Analytics™ score, today released rankings of the top performing U.S. Republican Presidential candidates on Facebook and Twitter, during the Republican debate which took place on January 14, 2016.

Leading up to the debate, both Ben Carson and Donald Trump were the frontrunners on Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Both candidates were able to maintain their lead generating the highest eValue scores following last night's debate.

eValue Rankings of the Top Performing Republican Candidates on Facebook and Twitter:

Source: Engagement Labs eValue ™ U.S. 2016 rankings of Republican Candidates on social media.

"Presidential candidates continue to leverage social media as an online platform to voice their opinions and address hot-button issues. What we're seeing as the Presidential race enters into the new year, is that candidates are starting to use the platforms in more creative ways, which ultimately helps candidates such as Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz compete with popular online candidates like Trump and Carson," said Bryan Segal, CEO at Engagement Labs.

Rankings of Highest Follower Growth for Republican Candidates on Facebook and Twitter Based on the January, 14 2016 Debate:

Source: Engagement Labs 2016 rankings of Republican Candidates' follower growth on social media.

On Facebook, Carson maintained his dominance with the highest eValue score and the highest number of likes per 1,000 fans. Trump dropped into second place following last month's first place ranking following the third debate. He had the highest Engagement and Impact score along with the highest active user base of all the candidates. Ted Cruz came in at third place, ranking just below Carson and Trump for Engagement and Impact scores.

On Twitter, Trump continues to lead the pack with the highest eValue score, along with Engagement and Impact scores. Trump also saw the highest number of likes and retweets on the channel. Rand Paul, despite not participating in this week's primary debate, managed to secure second place on Twitter. Posting directly from Twitter headquarters, Paul generated plenty of online buzz by boycotting last night's debate and instead holding a Q&A session titled #RandRally. His efforts to engage voters online allowed him to garner the second highest number of new followers, behind Trump. Carson secured a third place ranking, frequently posting points from his debate regarding military and the Supreme Court, accompanying each post with the trending hashtag #GOPDebate.

According to Engagement Labs' data, Trump received the greatest increase in followers on both channels among the Republican candidates with a 15,233 increase on Facebook and 10,135 on Twitter. Cruz gained the second highest number of followers with 4,818 on Facebook. On Twitter, Paul leveraged his #RandRally to gain the second highest number of followers with an increase of 3,382.

However, Democratic party candidate Hillary Clinton generated a larger fan growth than any Republican candidate, besides Trump, with 5,599 on Facebook and 8,891 on Twitter.

"While social media has proven to be beneficial to candidates participating in the debates, it's also proving to be an extremely useful for the opposing party. As we saw yesterday, Hillary Clinton live-tweeted during the debate to call out topics and points made by Republican candidates, helping to grow her following significantly and solidify her positions on various topics," noted Segal.

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) offers intelligent Total Social™ data, analytics and insights for marketers and organizations enabling them to track, measure and benchmark the conversations happening around their brand or industry both online and offline. These conversations are proven to drive critical business outcomes, including sales, while Engagement Labs' tools provide data and actionable insight to help guide business decisions and power marketing effectiveness.

Engagement Labs' eValue™ Analytics tool is the global benchmark for social media scoring. eValue's proprietary data technology offers real-time analysis to measure a brand's social media and digital marketing efforts, distilling it down to a single meaningful number between 0 and 100 -- an eValue score. Composed of a series of metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), an eValue score measures social media Engagement, Impact and Responsiveness which is benchmarked against 100,000+ handpicked and verified brands. The Keller Fay Group, an Engagement Labs company, is the only firm to regularly measure offline conversation, which independent research finds is a significant driver of sales with twice the impact of online conversation.

Engagement Labs maintains offices in Toronto ON, Montreal QC, London UK and New Brunswick NJ.

www.engagementlabs.com / www.kellerfay.com

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