A social media analysis of 6 european leaders. Focus on the spanish PM Mariano Rajoy. © DOING - Prime "Social" Ministers, March 2016

1. Rome,
March 2016
PRIME “SOCIAL” MINISTERS
A SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS OF 6 EUROPEAN LEADERS
MARIANO RAJOY FOCUS

2. What is a social media analysis?
• The collection and analysis of datas coming from the official social media profiles of the politicians considered.
Subjects of analysis
• Profiles considered: Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (benchmark only) official profiles of 6 european politicians: Matteo Renzi,
Alexis Tsipras (for twitter @tsipras_eu had been considered among the two profiles), Angela Merkel, Mariano Rajoy, François
Hollande, David Cameron.
• Popularity: analysis of fan/follower base: trend evolution, days with main growth, demographics and geolocalisation
characteristics and fanbase interests;
• Content Analysis: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the posting made by the politicians;
• Engagement: analysis of the interactions received by the politician’s posts/accounts;
• Twitter network: connections network around the leaders’ twitter profiles;
• Reach Twitter: potential reach of the twitter profiles.
• Online Reputation Monitoring: a quali-quantitative analysis on the conversations on the 6 politicians outside their official social
media profiles.
Period taken into consideration.
• January - December 2015
INTRODUCTION
2

3. The Twitter and Facebook profiles of the political leaders have been analysed mainly focusing on three different perspectives.
Popularity: the size of the fan/follower base had been measured on the the first day of each month from January to December 2015.
Two different focuses have then been analyzed on social media channels: the interests of the most active Facebook fans are shown in
a map of the other pages they have been active on whereas Twitter followers gave us insights on demographic data (sex ratio
calculated on a 5k sample for each profile) and on geolocalisation of the users that did interact with the political leader in the month
of January 2016.
Analysis of the entirety of content published online by political leaders provides qualitative and quantitative insights on their social
media behavior. Besides the mere quantitative metrics, the different posting styles, main topics dealt with and different kind of posts
have been analyzed.
Engagement: to retrieve data on how engaging the contents published by political leaders are and compare it in spite of the fan/
follower bases size differences, the index that has been chosen is the engagement rate per 1000 fans/followers. On Facebook the
engagement is calculated from Likes, Comments and Shares, whereas on Twitter it’s the Retweets, Replies and Likes that have been
included. Furthermore, the Twitter Reach has been calculated to figure how many users each political leaders can actually reach with
their tweets (the reach has been analyzed on a week-long time sample).
METHODOLOGY
3

4. Furthermore, a social network connections analysis on the politicians’ twitter handles, has been carried out taking into
consideration the total number of mentions received by every profile during 2015 in the five languages: italian, english, spanish,
german, french.*
An additional analysis of this kind has been made on every politician considering the terrorism-related mentions received: that
means tweets both containing a mention to the leader (#merkel for Angela Merkel that doesn’t have an official twitter profile) and
almost one terrorism-related keyword in the five language of analysis (terrorismo, terrorism, terrorisme, terrorismus…).
The analysis is enriched by a focus on the leaders’ online reputation (results outside the social media owned profiles) that, along with
a quantitative/trend analysis on the online conversations, presents a qualitative part on the most discussed topics and on the
sentiment of every politician on the whole 2015 year as a result of a manual analysis of over 10.000 in topic tweets.
Among the different tools used to carry out the analysis for the different “chapters”: Radian6, Talkwalker, SocialBakers,
FanpageKarma, Gephi…
METHODOLOGY/2
4
*sample: 10.000 contents per every week ordering the users per follower number

5. 2015 INTERNATIONAL KEY EVENTS
5
January February March April May June July August September October
7th:
Charlie
Hebdo
Attack
18th:
Bardo
National
Museum
Attack
2nd:
Garissa
University
Attack
7th:
General
Elections
14th:
Local
Elections
5th:
Grexit
Referendum
14th:
Agreement
for a Third
Greek
Bailout
3rd:
Syrian Child
Aylan
Drowns
31st:
Russian
Plane Crash
in Sina
November December
13th:
Paris Terror
Attacks
20th:
General
Elections
24th:
German
wings
Plane
Crash
25th:
Earthquake
19th:
Mediter-
ranean
Migrant
Shipwreck
23rd:
Special EU
Council on
Migrant
Crisis
31st:
Local
Elections
26th:
Sousse
Attack
12th:
Agreement
at EU
Summit on
Greece Debt
14th:
Iran
Nuclear
Deal
23rd:
Special
EU Council
on Immigration
18th:
Volkswagen
Emissions
Scandal
24th:
Mecca Haji’s
Stampede
24th:
Russian
Warplane
Shot down
by Turkish
Army
12th:
Climate
Change
Agreement
at COP21
Conference
28th:
EU
Referendum
Act
Introduced in
the House of
Commons
28th:
EU
Referendum
Act
Introduced in
the House of
Commons
20th:
General
Elections

6. 6
POPULARITY

7. FACEBOOK ANALYSIS
POPULARITY
7

8. MARIANO RAJOY - POPULARITY
8
+146,07
Average Change of Fans per Day
+53.316
Total Change of fans
in the period
175.208
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
112.500
129.375
146.250
163.125
180.000
1 Jan 1 Feb 1 Mar 1 Apr 1 May 1 Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 1 Jan
Fanbase on 31st of December
N. of Likers
Remarkable growth in December: general elections were held on the 20th, and footage of the leader getting punched in the face on the
16th went global.

9. 9
MARIANO RAJOY - DAILY MAX. GROWTH IN FANS
16th Dec. 2015
+ 26,6k
Fans change in the day
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Image Source

10. MARIANO RAJOY - FANBASE INTERESTS
10
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Strong links with local politicians and
media
The most active fans of the page are also active fans on the linked pages in the graph.

11. TWITTER ANALYSIS
POPULARITY
11

12. MARIANO RAJOY - POPULARITY
12
+1.121,75
Average Change of Follower
per Day
+ 409.439
Total Change of follower
in the period
1.064.482
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
600.000
725.000
850.000
975.000
1.100.000
1 Jan 1 Feb 1 Mar 1 Apr 1 May 1 Jun 1 Jul 1 Aug 1 Sep 1 Oct 1 Nov 1 Dec 1 Jan
Follower on 31st of December
N. of Followers
Unlike the trend noticed on Facebook, the growth is steady even if there are no relevant peaks on Twitter.

13. 13
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
16th Jun. 2015
+ 68k
Followers change in the day
MARIANO RAJOY - DAILY MAX. GROWTH IN FOLLOWERS

14. FOLLOWERS DEMOGRAPHICS
14
Based on a 5k followers sample for each profile
MARIANO RAJOY
37%
63%
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

15. MARIANO RAJOY - GEOLOCALISATION
15
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Outside of Spain, Rajoy's
interacting followers are
located in western european
countries. There's a strong
concentration in spanish
speaking central and south
American countries.
Geolocalisation of the followers that interacted with the official twitter profiles during January 2016

16. 16
CONTENT

17. QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS
CONTENT
17

18. MARIANO RAJOY - PUBLISHED POSTS ON FACEBOOK
18
Status Photo Link Video Album
81
97
39
62
346
313
Published posts
Average published posts
per week
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
10
of the total were
promoted posts
Promoted posts mainly used for campaigning (Elections in December)

19. MARIANO RAJOY - PUBLISHED POSTS ON TWITTER
19
0
75
150
225
300
Lun Mar Mer Gio Ven Sab Dom
101,6
5.284
Published tweets
Average published tweets
per week
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
43,5%
56,4%
0,1%
Tweets
Retweets
Replies
N. of tweets published per day of the week

20. TOPICS AND POSTING STYLE QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
CONTENT
20

21. MARIANO RAJOY - TOPICS
21
Campaigning
Economy & Taxes
Current news/Comments
Jobs
Other (26%)
38%
11%
9%
9%
European Union7%
• Terrorism
• Foreign politics
• Justice
• Health
• Immigration
• Culture
• Innovation
• Climate
• Education
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
• Intense use of social media, dynamic
approach and informal tone of voice;
• Focus on electoral campaigning, sometimes
harsh or negative, with 1 general and 3 local
elections in 2015. Only few posts about
government measures;
• Even post on other topics, such as Jobs or
Economy are part of an electoral strategy.

22. 0
5
10
15
20
25
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
MARIANO RAJOY - MONTH BY MONTH PUBLISHED POSTS TOPICS
22
Campaigning (30%)
Terrorism (21%)
Foreign politics (12%)
Economy (27%)
Jobs (23%)
Campaigning (23%)
Campaigning (23%)
Foreign politics (18%)
Current news (18%)
Campaigning (31%)
Economy (27%)
Jobs (7,7%)
Campaigning (69%)
Current news (9%)
Jobs (6,3%)
Campaigning (29%)
Economy (21%)
Jobs (16,7%)
Campaigning (42%)
Economy (25%)
EU (8%)
Campaigning (41%)
Foreign politics (12%)
Terrorism (12%)
Campaigning (39%)
Jobs (14%)
Current news (11%)
Campaigning (22%)
Jobs (16%)
Justice (16%)
0
5
10
15
20
25
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Campaigning (31%)
Economy (17%)
Terrorism (17%)
Economy (25%)
Campaigning (15%)
Jobs (14%)
Campaigning (32%)
Current news (15%)
Jobs (12%)
Campaigning (40%)
Jobs (10%)
Current news (10%)
Campaigning (55%)
Jobs (13%)
Economy (12%)
EU (22%)
Campaigning (19%)
Foreign politics (13%)
Campaigning (28%)
EU (17%)
Economy (16%) Campaigning (34%)
Current news (20%)
Economy (18%)
Campaigning (45%)
Economy (14%)
Current news (11%)
Campaigning (32%)
EU (12%)
Economy (12%)
Campaigning (35%)
Justice (16%)
Jobs (10%)
Campaigning (56%)
Current news (21%)
Jobs (3%)
Campaigning (43%)
Justice (13%)
Terrorism (11%)
Campaigning (55%)
Economy (6,3%)
Jobs (7,5%)
The monthly percentage is calculated on the total of the 12 months of analysis (100%).
Monthly
Post %
Monthly
Post %
Local elections
March 22nd
Local elections
May 24th
Local elections in Catalunya
Sep. 27th
General elections
December 20th
Most Recurring topic: Campaigning

23. MARIANO RAJOY - POSTING STYLE
23
• On Mariano Rajoy’s Facebook page half of the
posts are made of pictures or albums and a
third include videos.
• In a year with several elections, most of the
photographs are related to electoral
campaigning and the image quality is usually
high.
• Videos are generally used for government-
related purposes instead.
• Among the pictures, some infographic and real
time banners can be found on the page which
demonstrates a clear visual strategy.
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

24. 24
ENGAGEMENT

25. FACEBOOK ENGAGEMENT
ENGAGEMENT
25

26. MARIANO RAJOY - ENGAGEMENT
26
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
Average post engagement:
599 Comments
2.475 Like
349 Shares
10%
17%
72% Like
Comments
Shares
1.071.828
Total interactions
313
published posts
23,98Engagement Rate
Average tweet interactions
per 1.000 fans*
*Considering the average post interaction per 1.000 fans allows to compare pages with very different fanbase numbers.

27. MARIANO RAJOY - TOP 3 POST PER ENGAGEMENT
27
Agradezco de corazón las muestras de
afecto y solidaridad que me estáis
haciendo llegar tras el suceso de esta
tarde. Me encuentro bien. Sigamos
trabajando y construyendo una
#EspañaEnSerio.
45.868Like
16th December 2015
Comments
Share
12.847
8.478
22.413Like
20th December 2015
https://www.facebook.com/matteorenziufficiale/posts/
Comments
Share
4.636
2.389
A todos los españoles, gracias por
vuestra generosidad. Estoy bien, esta
mañana he podido hacer un poco de
deporte y continúo con mi agenda. Acabo
de finalizar la presentación de una
conferencia en Barcelona y en breve me
voy a Bruselas para seguir defendiendo
los intereses de todos los españoles en
24.480Like
17th December 2015
Comments
Share
4.778
1.922
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
A todos los españoles que han acudido a
las urnas para votar, sea cual sea la opción
elegida, gracias por vuestra participación.
Mi gratitud también a todos los militantes,
simpatizantes y votantes del Partido

28. TWITTER ENGAGEMENT
ENGAGEMENT
28

29. MARIANO RAJOY - ENGAGEMENT
29
Average Interactions per
tweet:
94 Retweets
21
12%
34%
53%
Retweet
Likes
Replies
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
60 Likes
Replies
0,44Engagement Rate
Average tweet interactions
per 1.000 followers*
933.035
Total interactions
5.284
published posts
Tot. Mentions received
2.387.099
*Considering the average post interaction per 1.000 followers allows to compare accounts with very different follower base numbers. Mentions are not
considered interactions to tweets obviously.

30. MARIANO RAJOY - TOP 3 POST PER ENGAGEMENT
30
7.837RTs
16th December 2015
Likes 8.828
Replies 391
8.060RTs
7th December 2015
Likes 3.303
Iba a pedir unas gafas nuevas a los
#ReyesMagos, pero me dicen que ya las
han encontrado
28.301RTs
18th December 2015
Likes 18.574
Replies 1.085
Replies 959
Agradezco de corazón las muestras de
afecto y solidaridad que me estáis
haciendo llegar esta tarde. Sigamos
trabajando. MR
Nos vota gente muy diferente,
#TambiénLosHipsters. Confía en el
@PPopular, #SinPrejuicios. Por ti. Por
todos https://t.co/k0FtSLjvPQ
Jan. -> Dec. 2015

31. 31
TWITTER REACH

32. BENCHMARK - TWITTER REACH
32
Reach calculated during the week 21st - 28th of February 2016
Tsipras Rajoy Hollande CameronRenzi
2,3 mln
11,6 mln
260 k
2 mln
1,2 mln
9,8 mln
1,5 mln
2,5 mln
1,4 mln
5,5 mln
Followers Reach

33. 33
TWITTER NETWORKS

34. METHODOLOGY - TWITTER NETWORKS
34
Social network analysis allows us to map a twitter network starting from a list of nodes (the points visualised on the net show a
single user or hashtag) and a list of relations (any connection shown with an arrow is a mention) through the use of different
softwares that give the possibility to choose within different representation procedures (layout algorithm) in order to organize the
network and nodes distances according to various criteria.
Nodes, labels and arrows dimensions reflect the number of entry connections (mentions), and give an idea of the relevant user/
hashtag related with the analysed topic.
Sample: Every leader’s network have been realised by extracting a sample of tweets (during 2015) containing a direct mention to the
leader’s account adding the total of the tweets published by the leader. Sampling procedure extracted a max of 10.000 tweet per
week ordered by user’s followers. After the sampling procedure retweets have been excluded.

35. MARIANO RAJOY - TWITTER NETWORK
35
Source: Twitter
Language: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French
Keyword: @marianorajoy
Period: January - December 2015
Number of tweets: 2.387.099
Number of tweets analysed: 223.859 (9%)
Network information:
77.715 nodes
- 60.536 users
- 17.179 hashtag
186.484 unique connection
2,4 avg. node connections
@marianorajoy:
3.216 hashtag/user mentioned
133.260 mention received
Top mentioned user:
@marianorajoy
@ppopular
@psoe
Top Hashtag:
#rajoy
#20d - 20/12/2015 election day
#españa
Network showed above represents 0,1% of total network from which are excluded nodes with less than 400 edges
Local
Global
Self-
referential
Non Self-
referential
Political
sphere
Media
sphere
35
Mainstream News
National politics
International politics
User or Hashtag
Mention
Legend:
Most mentioned
Less mentioned

36. #votaenserio
#espanaenserio
#ganarajoy
#libertad
#seguridad
#paz
@marianorajoy
@luissalom
@ppmadrid
@ppandaluz
@nngg_es
@noticias24horas
#yovotopp
#partidopopular
#conventionpp
@albiol_xg
@rafacatalapolo
#terrorismo
#espana
#paris
#democracia
#yihadista
@desdelamoncloa
@interiorgob
@eppgroup
@amigosvictimas
@24h_actualidad
@sexeniomx
#rajoyencope
#rajoyenlaser
#rajoyentecinco
@ppopular
@mdcospedal
@europapress
TERROR ATTACKS
GOVERNMENT ELECTION
PARTIDO POPULAR
DELEGATES
PARTIDO POPULAR
@ppopular@marianorajoy
@espanaenserio
#ganarajoy
#partidopopular
#yovotopp
#votaenserio
#espana
#terrorismo
@desdelamoncloa
MARIANO RAJOY - TWITTER NETWORK ON TERRORISM
36
Source: Twitter
Language: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French
Keyword: Leader’s official profile &
Terrorismo, Terrorism, Terrorisme, Terrorismus
Period: January - December 2015
Number of tweets: 2.409
Top mentioned user:
@marianorajoy
@ppopular
@sanchezcastejon
Top Hashtag:
#terrorismo
#yovotopp
#votaenserio
Network showed above represents 38% of total network, selecting the 4 biggest clusters.
User or Hashtag
Mention
Legend:
Cluster
Most mentioned
Less mentioned

37. 37
ONLINE REPUTATION MONITORING
(ITALIAN & ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

38. METHODOLOGY - ONLINE REPUTATION MONITORING (ORM)
38
Quantitative analysis: Trend & Channel distribution
Period: January - December 2015
Source: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum
Keywords: Every leaders’ Name and Surname (e.g. Matteo Renzi)
Qualitative analysis: Tag Cloud, Topics distribution & Sentiment analysis
Period: January - December 2015
Source: Twitter
Keywords: Every leaders’ Name and Surname (e.g. Matteo Renzi)
Minimum follower number: 2.000
Sample Methodology:
Twitter contents has been divided into 2 different clusters:
Tweets published by users with a follower base within 2.000 and 500.000.
Tweets published by users with over 500.000 followers.
The difference between the two clusters match the relevance of users on the twitter network, in particular, the 2nd cluster
represents mainstream news and notorious persons handles.
A total of 10.000 tweets have been analysed by extracting a random sample with the following numeric characteristics:
3.000 contents for Renzi and Cameron (2.000 from the 1st cluster and 1.000 from the 2nd cluster)
1.000 contents for Hollande, Merkel, Rajoy and Tsipras (700 from the 1st cluster 300 from the 2nd cluster).

39. MARIANO RAJOY - NUMBER OF RESULTS & TREND
39
0
6.250
12.500
18.750
25.000
January Febrary March April May June July August September October November December
Jan. -> Dec. 2015
December 2015
Government Election
Monthly Results
Highest month
Period
86.855Total contents
Perimeter: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum content containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

40. MARIANO RAJOY - SOURCES DISTRIBUTION & TAG CLOUD
40
Social
63%
News
24%
Blog
11%
You Tube
2%
SOURCES TAG CLOUD
Perimeter: Online news, Social Networks, Blog, Forum content containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

41. MARIANO RAJOY - TOPICS & SENTIMENT
41
HOT TOPICS SENTIMENT
Speech over Germanwings disaster
Speech over Paris Attack5%
54%
41%
Government elections and Spanish parties clashes
Foreign Politics
Current News (Rajoy punched)
Terrorism
PPopular corruption and chauvinism
Catalunya independence
Economy and taxes
General discontent over Rajoy mandate
Other (10%)
• Official meetings
• Greek Crisis
• Job
• Terrorism
Satire on personal life
Election/ referendum
Current news
25%
24%
23%
9%
Foreign Politics9%
Economy & Tax
Perimeter: Sentiment and topics are on Twitter results containing leaders’ name in one of this languages: EN, IT. Media Owned and Retweets excluded. Period Jan-Dec 2015

42. DOING.COM
Roma
Via di Santa Teresa 35
Milano
Via Vespri Siciliani 9
+39 06.33.27.45
+39 02.00.69.90.00
newbusiness@doing,com
THANKS