This new article on TechCrunch.com analyzed the discussions on Facebook on election day, and came across a surprising fact: there were 88.7 million election-related mentions outside the US, compared to 71.7 million state-side. Could Americans be less interested in American politics than foreign Facebook users? What other social media trends are emerging from this election?

The statistics that Facebook has released regarding election-day usage are surprising in many ways. Here’s a quick debrief on what happened:

• “Vote” was the most popular word on Facebook while the polls were open, while “Obama” became the most-used word after 6pm PT.
• In the run-up to the election, men were more likely than women to talk about politics, but on election day that evened out.
• Adults ages 35-54 and 55+ were most likely to discuss the debates on Facebook, while youth 25-34 years of age contributed the most political mentions on election day.
• Facebook’s “Talk Meter scale” measured election mentions at 9.27 out of a possible 10 (some perspective: the 2012 Superbowl scored an 8.62, and the San Francisco Giants winning the World Series scored a 6.10).
• Facebook users mentioned Election Day-related topics 71.7 million times, making it the most popular American topic of 2012 (past Hurricane Sandy at the #2 spot).
• Throughout the campaign, the most popular campaign-related phrases were “Big Bird” and “Binders full of women” (at the #1 and #2 spots, respectively). However, once the election was called for Obama, the respective list was “Obama,” “4 more years/4 years,” “President/President Obama,” “Thank God,” “Won/Wins,” “America,” “Country/My Country/This Country,” “Yes,” “Ohio,” and “Florida.”
• A total of 9,682,443 people told Facebook that they voted.

I want to bring to your attention one more surprising fact. According to The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, exit polls showed that 49.3 percent of eligible voters age 18 to 29 cast their ballot, and is expected to rise to 51 percent once all of the votes are counted. This is almost exactly the same as this subgroup’s voter turnout in 2008 (though Obama’s stronghold on the group diminished to 60% from 66%). This is somewhat counter-intuitive, considering how active this group was on Facebook and other social media sites during this election. One would think that increased social media presence of the candidates and engagement by young social media users would lead to increased voter turnout. Considering Facebook has grown from 145 million to 1 billion monthly users in the same time period, it seems as though there is no correlation between social media activism (also known as “slactivism”) and real-world engagement.

This is a disappointing realization, and could have many implications for future presidential campaigns. Although youth are increasingly engaged in the online world, that passion does not seem to translate into real-world action and – most importantly for presidential campaigns – votes. This is discouraging for analysts who are seeing a candidate’s social media presence as directly affecting their voter turnout.