By the numbers: Pakistan politics online

Are 20 million online Pakistanis worth the time and effort it takes to build a winning web presence? Most political parties don’t think so, or possibly they have no idea how to actually do it.

A quick glance online reveals the wide disparity between the major political players. The 2013 elections may have them thinking differently now.

The online presence of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and its emergence as the third largest party in Pakistan may not be altogether unrelated. The online landscape may very well be changing given the reality of the PTI’s success.

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The basics

Total Pakistanis online: 20 million

Total Pakistanis on Facebook: Over 8.5 million

Total Pakistanis on Twitter: 1 million

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Party	Website	Rank in Pakistan	Estimated users per day	Estimated pages viewed per day	Traffic from inside Pakistan
PTI	Insaf.pk	116	19,743	67,125	76%
MQM	Mqm.org	835	603	1,320	78%
PML-N	Pmln.org	1,473	498	1,195	87%
JI	Jamaat.org	3,464	160	400	86%
PPP	ppp.org.pk	5,462	176	440	84%
ANP	Awaminationalparty.org	11,064	91	190	74%
PML-Q	Pml.org.pk	13,955	87	155	84%
APML	apmlpak.com	25,998	54	140	77%

Source: Alexa.com, websitetrafficspy.com as of May 24 2013

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Facebook interest	Audience
PPP	242,000
PML-N	442,000
PTI	1,200,000
MQM	198,000
JI	400,000
ANP	40,000
PML-Q	14,000
APML	98,000
Source: Facebook.com as of May 24 2013 Note: Facebook interests are based on what users have entered as an interest on their timeline. Only the exact party name was used as keyword for the above stats

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	Name	Twitter account	Party	Followers	Klout
1	Shafqat Mahmood	@Shafqat_Mahmood	PTI	60,259	66
2	Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad	@ShkhRasheed	AML	97,346	67
3	Shehbaz Sharif	@CMShehbaz	PML-N	119,336	70
4	Sharmila Faruqi	@sharmilafaruqi	PPP	51,990	66
5	Rehman Malik	@SenRehmanMalik	PPP	91,660	82
6	Pervez Musharraf	@PMPakistan	APML	51,317	53
7	Mushahid Hussain	@Mushahid	PML-Q	53,462	75
8	Maryam Nawaz Sharif	@MaryamNSharif	PML-N	94,317	66
9	Jahangir Tareen	@JahangirKTareen	PTI	88,340	65
10	Imran Khan	@ImranKhanPTI	PTI	628,887	78
11	Bilawal Bhutto Zardari	@BBhuttoZardari	PPP	51,575	61
12	Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari	@BakhtawarBZ	PPP	73,967	69
13	Aseefa Bhutto Zardari	@AseefaBZ	PPP	61,853	66
14	Dr Arif Alvi	@ArifAlvi	PTI	64,166	69
15	Ahsan Iqbal	@betterpakistan	PML-N	46,127	65
Source: Twitter.com, Klout.com as of May 24 2013 Note: Klout score is a measure of social influence based on followers and user engagement.

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Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, June 2^nd, 2013.

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