Whether it’s time for a new government or not, one thing is certain: Enrico Letta and Angelino Alfano are the top men of the PD and PDL and the most influential on the web. Due to the possibility of early elections, we started to think: who is the most accepted in Italian public opinion? Buzzoole analyzed the politicians’ online influence in the opening of its blog!
Letta and Alfano agree on a new way of communicating, a policy-oriented social media. Alfano is currently the most influential Italian politician on Google Plus while Letta rules on Youtube, we have yet to see who wins over Twitter. Let’s see why.
Alfano “tweets” an average of 3.6 tweets per day compared to an average of 1.4 tweets per day from Letta. In terms of interactivity and the level of feedback created with other twitter users, we found both politicians to be equally active on Twitter. Angelino Alfano, despite having only 234 followers, shows an excellent ability to create dialogue with users. Through this interaction with his fans he gains a strong position in the ranking of the most influential. In his last 200 tweets, 132 included one or more Twitter users.
Letta can do even better than his rival. In the week we monitored him (30/09/2013-06/10/2013) his popularity increased, which was linked to the hashtag #crisidigoverno . The President of the Council launched a social battle via Twitter, through his official profile @EnricoLetta with one tweet stating: ” #IVA colpa dimissione parlamentari che ha provocato crisi e reso impossibile continuare. Berlusconi rovesciafrittata, italiani non abbocchino!”
As a result of this in his last 200 tweets, 98 were cited with #crisidigoverno 155 times someone was mentioned in the same context. According to the politician’s popularity and increase in dialogue on Twitter, they are currently on the same social media level. Alfano has 99,582 followers and Letta in close behind with 94,365. Retweets are also an important measure to take into account when comparing the politician’s popularity, and Letta has taken the lead.
We are currently facing a different situation then in the past. While Letta and Alfano have an equal social media influence, as well as working towards common goals – they are also both supported by strong institutions such as the Quirinal, the mainstream press, Confindustria, trade unions and European summits. Fini has never been able to count on the net that supports them, while Mario Monti, who arrived on the political scene having only a part of the consensus is now lined up alongside Alfano and Letta. The point is, if the election were today, We’d all vote for a ballot recount !
