Since the beginning of the pandemic, the governors of the various Italian regions have often had positions contrary to government decisions, not failing to make their contrary voice heard, especially during the Conte Bis.
With that in mind, it was the presence on the 2 main social platforms was analyzed in Italy by number of subscribers, i.e. Facebook and Instagram: the number of followers, the number of average daily posts and the number of interactions were analyzed for each of the governors, from the first lockdown (i.e. from 9 March 2020) at the recent reopening of last May 19th.
It should be noted that the president of Umbria, Donatella Tesei, elected in November 2019, does not have a presence on social media: her Facebook page remained for a long time on the day of the electoral victory, with the last post that on 27 October 2019 portrayed her with a flute of champagne to celebrate; a couple of months, the page was deleted. Instead Nino Spirlì, who took over from Jole Santelli as governor of Calabria, has a fanpage and also an account on Instagram, but has made the curious choice of making the profile private.
Facebook, De Luca and Zaia in front of everyone
Among all the others, the governor with the most followers is Vincenzo De Luca, followed by Luca Zaia and, not considering Nicola Zingaretti for the dual role of governor of Lazio and also (until recently) as secretary of the Democratic Party, from Stefano Bonaccini.
In the time frame taken into consideration, always the governor of Campania also recorded the greatest increase in followers: +991,345, equal to a growth of 189.12%, followed also in this case by those of Zaia and Bonaccini. Growth achieved, it must be said, also thanks to not negligible investments in Facebook ads.
Among all, the governor of Veneto is the one who has the highest intensity in communicating on Facebook with a average of over 7 posts per day; in last position there is the president of the Aosta Valley, Erik Lavévaz, with an average of 0.17 posts / day (in practice, an average of 1 post every 5 days). From this point of view, the lack of communication of Solinas (Sardinia), often at the center of controversy in recent months both for the reopening of discos and for the very slow start of the vaccination campaign in its territory.
As for interactions and involvement, Zaia is always the one who gets the most, between likes, reactions, comments and shares; at the other extreme, also in this case, Lavévaz, as his rather rarefied presence could not be otherwise seen.
Going into the details of the interactions, as regards Zaia it would seem that the followers, or in any case those who land on his page, overall appreciate the governor of Veneto: anger reactions are only 0.88% of the total and those of mockery (that is, the smiley face) just 0.25%; this is not the case instead of De Luca, who instead has 1.07% reactions of anger and 0.95% of mockery.
Finally, among the 3 posts with the highest number of interactions, two are by De Luca and the third is by Bonaccini: in the case of the governor of Campania, the video of 23 October 2020 in which he takes stock of the epidemiological situation in the region, obtained 2.1 million views and just under 241 thousand comments, surpassing even the post on the commemoration of the death of Maradona (it must be said, however, that the comments on the video are largely negative). As for Bonaccini, the video of 15 November 2020 on a family of dolphins spotted off the coast of Rimini obtained just under 2 million views. And enthusiastic comments, of course.
Instagram, Zaia bypasses De Luca
On the social network of photos, the landscape changes, and also quite significantly: the numbers are far reduced and the distances between the governors more marked. Zaia overtakes De Luca for the number of followers, but settles on values that are less than half of those on Facebook; instead, the governor of Emilia Romagna is the one who produces the greatest number of contents (on average, 7 per day) and Vito Bardi, a general who works for politics, settles at just over one post every 10 days.
As far as the level of involvement is concerned, there is Zaia, and then all the others: the president of Veneto, in the period examined, obtained just under three times the number of De Luca’s interactions, in second position; photos and albums are the two most used formats on Instagram by Zaia.
And it is always his post that among all has conquered the greatest number of interactions: it is the one with the photo of the first and after the flood of Verona, published in August 2020.
Finally: Donato Toma, governor of Molise, has an account, but the latest post dates back to the end of October 2018.
The distance between politics and the country, even on social media
Overall it would really seem that Instagram works less well than Facebook for governors: it could be that in general, more or less everyone needs to review their presence strategies on the social platform dedicated to photos and videos, but it may also be that on Instagram, people are looking for themes that are far from politics. Or more likely a combination of both.
In conclusion, beyond the emerging differences between Facebook and Instagram, the presence of the governors is very “top-down”, that is, one-way, as is the current political communication on social media. But that is a great wasted opportunity for the regional institutions, which they could make themselves feel closer to the citizens and their needs, especially in this dramatic period.
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