Salvini and social media: a winning strategy for the European Championships
The 2024 European elections are approaching and the parties have long since restarted the engines of their electoral machines.
There has already been a political repositioning.
For example, on the right, while Fratelli d’Italia moved towards the center Salvini relocated himself, physiologically, towards the right.
It is a mechanic bound by stakes. In fact, in order to govern, Meloni must show a reassuring appearance in Brussels and Washington and so she has wisely recalibrated her statements by adopting a completely pro-Atlantic line.
But this, at the same time, left a vast territory free to his right which was promptly reoccupied by Salvini and which has also seen the birth or consolidation of other movements, such as that of Gianni Alemanno who has a position, for example, clearly different from the leader on the war in Ukraine and that in Palestine. A position which – it should be noted – resonates more with the base of right-wing voters, at least with the hard core, the historical one that has always been critical of the United States and NATO.
But if Alemanno is perceived by Meloni as a sort of internal stimulus, given their previous history and common past militancy, the situation is different for Salvini which aims to regain the 30% consensus that had made it hegemonic in the centre-right just a few years ago, when Meloni was waiting for her turn from the opposition.
However, it must be considered that the editorial group supporting Meloni sees the Angelucci battleship lined up, with Libero, il Giornale and il Tempo, while Salvini, despite being supported, does not currently have “his” publisher of reference. So he restarted the exceptional social machine that had led him to the results previously described.
A study by Corriere della Sera shows that Salvini published 266 posts on Facebook last month (7.6 per day) for his 5 million followers.
Giorgia Meloni published only 38 (1.1 per day) for her 2.9 million followers.
But the situation is similar on other social networks too.
On “Xvitter” Salvini wins 134 to 61; on Instagram 241 to 43, on TikTok 42 to 17 (source: DeRev).
It feels like we’re back in Luca Morisi’s time. Now the social machine is managed by Leonardo Foa (son of Marcello, former Rai President) and Daniele Bertana, head of the private secretariat at the ministry. The posts signal the change in political strategy compared to the past. Just look at the last two cases: the migrants and above all the story of the Apostolic judge, with the publication of the famous videos.
The “engagement” parameter, which is used to measure communication effectiveness and which is defined as “interactions divided by the number of followers”, has also increased thanks to the paid sponsorship for the Pontida event with the presence of Marine Le Pen.
Roberto Esposito, DeRev’s delegate annihilator, explains that:
“The new strategy seems to want to abandon Twitter and Facebook in favor of Instagram and TikTok, where Salvini’s engagement exceeds that of Meloni: on these two platforms there is a younger and more reactive target audience but above all the algorithm allows the emergence of themes and trends useful to those who want to be trendsetters and always be at the center of the debate”.
In short, the competition game is open, but the Captain, at least on social media, is back to leading the charge.
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