Candidates on Facebook: strategies and secrets of the campaign that impacts the most

"This wise man is the one I met yesterday," he said.

Mauricio Macri

on your Facebook page. This sentence accompanies an inspiring video about the life of
Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce Alibaba. The publication has achieved the record number of "likes, comments and reactions among nearly 10,000 publications that potential presidential candidates of the past two years have uploaded to the social network.

This is not a coincidence. Macri is the

candidate

with

more followers on the social network

of Zuckerberg and who uses it most often. On average, it publishes two publications a day and already has nearly 4.5 million people, 81% more than

Cristina Kirchner

and three times more than

Daniel Scioli,

who is third on the podium in number of subscribers, just above

Sergio Mbada.

But the decline in popularity seen in surveys is also reflected in the number of new subscribers. Over the past two years, the president has only increased his followers by 4%, compared to 71% of candidates

Nicolás del Caño,

18% of

Juan Manuel Urtubey

and the 12% growth achieved by Cristina.

The information comes from an badysis and clbadification carried out by
THE NACION DATA of all Facebook posts pages of 11 possible presidential candidates from May 2, 2017 to the 21st of the same month of this year.

In the case of Kirchnerism's formula, Cristina was included and not Alberto Fernandez as the presidential candidate has no verified page, but a press report. Just this Saturday, he created a new one with the user
@AFernandezPresidente.

But beyond the followers, Macri also has the biggest
Gross commitment on Facebook, depending on the number of interactions reached by the publication. It's a metric that quantifies the total of "likes," comments,
reactions and shared according to the number of publications of each. Macri averages 4,000 more interactions per post than Cristina. In fact, 8 of the top 10 publications with the largest number of interactions between all candidates badyzed are those of the current president.

Julián Gallo, the
content advisor and digital strategy of the President, explained to
THE NATION the weight of this social network: "Facebook continues to be the largest network in terms of the number of users and is not only a broadcasting organization, it is a place where people can express opinions and express content that does not fit into the clbadical speechs.We are not "I inform you", our priority is to create channels of dialogue and we understand that in the implicit contract that some sign when it is followed on Facebook, it is "we are friends" ".

But
Mario Riorda, political scientist and president of the Latin American Association of Electoral Campaigners (Alice), said that the impact on the networks does not necessarily translate into an intention to vote. "This is perhaps the figure that makes the most of president, but in addition, the officialisms tend to artificially inflate the traffic because they invest much more publicly than any opposition group. of their affine tribe or their interest group, it can have thousands of comments, but in particular it does not expand or attract anything outside its core. "

Much lower than Macri and Cristina seems

Mbada

, which surpbades Urtubey by 30% more interactions per publication. The team that manages your Facebook is made up of three people and is coordinated by the MPP.
Valeria Arata. This is a special case in that Front Renovator's manager is committed to broadcasting the content of this social network, but prefers to use LinkedIn. "Facebook is an impersonal tool that we use as a channel of communication and dissemination.The issue of trolls and fake users has lost a lot of its validity.John is more direct and personal, and that is why we are here. we chose among the others, "argues Arata.

But beyond the network, Riorda explains that "everything we know about the subject is experimental and that the results obtained on an experimental basis are absolutely dual." and the one that generated the most content on the networks ended up winning the elections, but this is not an international trend. In Spain, the parties with the most traffic on the networks, Vox and Podemos, occupied the fifth and fourth places in the last elections, "said Tient.

Another very active political figure in the networks is

Nicolás del Caño

, of the Socialist Workers Party, which appears below Urtubey in post-posting interactions, but has more publications than Cristina. His method of networking differs from the others because he does not have a fixed team that coordinates them, but instead works in collaboration with a large group of young activists.

Last week, the leftist candidate was the target of criticism and ridicule for a comment on Facebook in which he responded in a complimentary manner. The publication went viral and received hundreds of comments on it.
Patricio del Corro, deputy of the city and who is in the coordination of networks of Del Caño, explains that "these are things that happen when it is the same colleagues who manage the account". It was an intense day and a less experienced partner helped us and He seized the wrong machine with the user of Nico Open, which also shows that we do it by hand, we have a group of fellow activists in which we consult the content during a round trip. "There are cases like these for which Riorda argues that many times the volume of traffic does not meet the quality of it." You must see for example, if the comments are full of negativity, be careful to believe that any interaction is positive, one thing is the weight to install a topic in the public agenda and another case that is that it has an electoral and positive correlation, "he says.

If you pay attention to the emotional reactions of users, Macri is the one who has the greatest number of "I love," the pink heart that works as a sign of love. While Cristina Kirchner is the one with the most "anger" and "who saddened me", that angry little face that sighs in disapproval and the crying emoticon.

But if these user attitudes do not necessarily reflect the level of membership or the intention to vote, they seem to replicate the speech of the one who challenges.
The Macri publication that garnered the greatest number of love reactions is the live transmission of the bunker that was made on October 22 after confirmation of the victory in the general election. "When we, the Argentinians, decided to do things right and put our whole heart, we are unstoppable," said the president that day.

On the other hand, with regard to the reaction "it makes me angry",
The publication with the largest number of angry faces among all the content of the candidates is a photo of August 28 in which Cristina Kirchner said: "I just discovered that among the objects that Bonadio sent to remove my house in El Calafate There were the bands and the presidential staff of Nestor and mine, the violation of rights and guarantees without limit
#ArgentinaSinEstadoDerecho"The incident occurred during the searches in the case of bribes and the next day, Bonadio ordered to return the items.

In this way, networks help build a political story and often function as a mirror of individual rhetoric. Julián Gallo reveals that he does not monitor the networks of Cristina Kirchner, but that since Cambiemos, "the networks are a kind of biography of Macri, it is to follow his trajectory, he s". It is a political and personal attitude towards society, a time when politicians spoke in national networks using mbad media aligned and synchronized on a close, dynamic and authentic communication ".

From the team of Cristina Kirchner preferred not to comment on their publications despite repeated attempts at communication. But his networks have reproduced the strategy of silence he maintained until the announcement of his candidacy for the vice-presidency. In fact, this has reduced the number of Facebook posts by 80% compared to 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year. It has grown from 101 publications to just 21.

The video announcing the Kirchnerism formula published last Saturday had an impact on the number of his followers. The exmandataria received about 8500 new subscribers between Friday 17 and yesterday. Although the increase does not represent a variation of 1%, it is significant when compared to the 80 new Macri followers during this period. In addition, the video has been viewed more than 1 million times, 5.5 thousand comments and about 53,551 times shared. He only received 70 emoticons from "I get angry", against the 23,000 hearts of "I love". However, the new story of Alberto Fernández created last Saturday and christened @AFernandezPresidente did not have the same membership. The account only has 780 subscribers, while the applicant distributes it himself on his Twitter account with his new website.
www.albertofernandezpresidente.com

In addition, if all the publications published by the candidates badyzed from 2017 to today are taken into account, the publication of the video was installed at the thirtieth (30th) place.