The Globe and Mail

If social-media presence could predict election victories, Rob Ford would be the next mayor of Toronto.

That’s according to Brett Bell, the principal of social-media consultancy Grassroots Online and keeper of torontoelectionnews.com.

Mr. Bell reviewed the online footprints of Toronto’s three major mayoral candidates Tuesday after social-media measurements proved better prognosticators than polls in Calgary’s election, which was won by political outsider and social-media darling Naheed Nenshi.

“These kind of metrics have been pretty good predictors of actual ballot outcomes,” Mr. Bell said.

Mr. Bell found Mr. Ford is dominating in most categories – something of a surprise considering the Etobicoke councillor hasn’t run the most sophisticated online campaign and his natural constituency isn’t exactly young, hip and Web savvy.

However, much of the overwhelming interest in Mr. Ford is negative. George Smitherman, meanwhile, is garnering more attention as election day draws nearer.

YouTube

• Ford:

  172,676 video views

• Smitherman:

  38,659 video views

• Pantalone:

  2,398 video views

Rob Ford Web satires have practically become a cottage industry during the campaign. But Daryn Jones and his fellow comedians aren’t behind these YouTube figures. Mr. Bell looked only at videos posted by the campaigns. (In Joe Pantalone’s case, he could only estimate based on views of Mr. Pantalone’s channel page. The number is likely low.)

Mr. Ford’s astonishingly high total is thanks to a handful of successful clips, including videos revealing his financial and transportation plans. A cape-and-tights-clad Mr. Ford halting a cartoon gravy train (after it ran over John Tory) also garnered an impressive number of views.

Mr. Bell puts a lot of stock in YouTube views. Watching videos is among the most popular online activities, after basic search.

“The average person, what are they most likely to do? Watch a video.”

Search

• Ford:

  up 32 per cent

• Smitherman:

  up 2 per cent

• Pantalone:

  down 62 per cent

These figures are according to Alexa Search Rank, and they count the increase or decrease in visits to a campaign’s official website in the last 30 days. Mr. Bell also looked at Google search traffic and found interest in Mr. Smitherman has increased dramatically in the same period. Searches for his name grew by 170 per cent in the last 30 days, compared to a 50-per-cent increase for Mr. Ford, Mr. Bell said.

Twitter

• Ford:

  16,949 mentions

• Smitherman:

  4,271 mentions

• Pantalone:

  2,866 mentions

Mr. Ford’s official Twitter feed actually has fewer followers than his competitors’ feeds. He has 1,899 to Mr. Smitherman’s 3,260 and Mr. Pantalone’s 2,012, figures that have certainly increased since Mr. Bell compiled his data Tuesday. However, Mr. Ford dominates the conversation in the Twitterverse.

Facebook

• Ford:

  2,587 friends

• Smitherman:

  2,543 friends

• Pantalone:

  3,346 friends

A rare spot of social-media good news for the deputy mayor. His official Facebook page has the most friends.