Study: GOP senators beating Dems on social media

Senate Republicans are outpacing their Democratic colleagues on recruiting and communicating with supporters via Twitter and Facebook, according to a new study.

George Washington University School of Business Dean Doug Guthrie and Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at New York University's Stern School of Business, evaluated and ranked the "Digital IQ" of 100 Senators based on their presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The study found Republican Senators are increasing their followings and communicating with supporters at a faster pace than Democrats. The ratings give equal weight to the number of followers a Senator has on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with the rate of growth and their amount of engagement (the number of tweets, videos uploaded/downloaded and "Likes" on Facebook). The number of times a Senator is mentioned on blogs and traffic to their websites were also factored in.