February 12, 2014 marked the one year anniversary of Kathleen Wynne’s inauguration as Ontario Premier. It has been a busy and sometimes challenging year for the Premier and the government she leads.

Many tough issues arose during Premier Wynne’s first year in office. Some of these were political issues (by-elections, budget negotiations, gas plant hearings); others were more substantive. To get a sense of which policy issues were the focus of social media conversations, our Ontario public affairs team took to Twitter for some analysis. We ran a search in Radian6 on the number of tweets between February 12, 2013 and February 11, 2014 that mentioned both Wynne’s official Twitter handle (@kathleen_wynne) and a key policy issue as a search term (see the full list in the graph below). The results gave a strong cross section of the issues most important to Ontarians.

“The results of our Twitter study show that jobs and the economy is the most important policy area for the Ontario Premier with the second most discussed area being health care,” says Geoff Owen, our Ontario public affairs practice leader. “The economy is the most important challenge the government faces and health care is the most important service it delivers. This data aligns with the important issues we recognize and it demonstrates how Twitter is a true reflection of public opinion”.

Our study collected more than 9,500 tweets that referenced her handle, showing the sheer volume of interaction that is possible via Twitter.

Here is a breakdown of the key search terms/issues that were mentioned alongside @kathleen_wynne in tweets over the last year.