Interesting look here at the four 2012 Republican presidential front runners on Twitter and Facebook. One thing that clearly emerges is that, Ron Paul, the oldest candidate in the race is also the most successful in terms of social media across both social networks.

Paul has the highest levels of engagements and crucial scores more retweets than any of the other candidates.

Dan Zarrella analysed the obvious numbers, such as followers, retweets and mentions, but also looked at a few deeper metrics like retweets-per-follower, link-percentage and reply-percentage as well as Twitter “penetration” in primary states: South Carolina and Florida.

Newt Gingrich might have the most follower by a country mile, although questions were raised last year about the veracity of Gingrich’s followers and whether many were fake, but it is outsider Ron Paul, the Texas congressman, who gets the highest average number of retweets and engagement on Facebook.

Paul is also pulling in big crowds in South Carolina and is scoring well  on social media in general. As well as doing surging on Twitter, Paul became the most mentioned GOP presidential candidate among Facebook users earlier this week.

He shot past Mitt Romney after Monday night’s Fox News/Wall Street Journal presidential debate, as you can see in this chart via Politico:

Paul’s success on social channels is being credited to his social  media savvy supporters and to the diverse group he attracts, due in part to his foreign policy ideas which have included suggesting capturing Osama Bin Laden rather than taking him out.

A study earlier this month from consultancy Sociagility also suggested that Paul is using social media most effectively to support his Presidential candidacy. It showed a close correlation between candidates’ social media profiles and voting intention in the earlier Iowa primary, which was won by Mitt Romney.

Sociagility found Paul’s campaign website and YouTube channel, and Gingrich’s Twitter and Facebook profiles, proved the most effective among the GOP candidates. Paul achieved the best interaction, network and trust scores, while Gingrich’s social media presence demonstrated the highest level of receptiveness.

Back on Twitter, as the infographic below shows the 76-yearold Paul has the highest engagement level of the four main GOP candidates. Anyway, here’s the infographic: