“I apologize for the voice. It’s a sad day.” Antonio Palmieri has been Forza Italia’s head of online communication since 1995. A parliamentarian since 2001, he has worked with Silvio Berlusconi since 1994. From the “descent into the field”, declining it online. Site, forum, social media, up to the unfortunate parenthesis of TikTok: “He would never have let the Beast suggest anything. Online wanted to be a leader, not a follower.” The network was not his habitat. Social media is too distant from his television style. “But he was him. He has never agreed to modify online communication to please, or follow the instincts of voters on social media ”.
Palmieri, when Berlusconi discovers the Internet as a communication tool?
“It’s the end of 1994. We were in the electoral campaign and the 475 college leaders (the law was the Mattarellum, ed) were given a kit to connect to the internet and exchange e-mails. He immediately understood that as a tool for organizing everyone’s work it was already indispensable ”.
Even before the site.
“That comes later. In February 1995 our website went online as Forza Italia. We were the second in Italy to go online with a site, after the radicals. By October 1995, we were already doing at least one update a day. We were the only ones.”
Did anyone recognize him?
“Yes, in a curious way. Domenico Minniti had a magazine, it was called ‘Ideazione’. He dedicated a monographic issue on our online strategy to Forza Italia. And of our site he wrote that it was characterized by an ‘obsessive updating’ of the contents. It was 1997, then it was difficult even to think about continuous updating”.
Then came social media.
“We started our Facebook page in 2009. Instagram in 2016, the year after Twitter. He immediately sensed its potential. But there is one thing that differentiated him from everyone else. He used social media as a leader, not as a follower ”.
Can you explain to us?
“It has imposed its own communication standards on all channels. He has never agreed to replicate a model just because it worked better on social networks ”.
Are you saying that Berlusconi would never have accepted a “Beast” suggesting which posts to make to get more support?
“Exactly. If the tools that probe the daily sentiment suggest you talk about fries and you do, you are a follower. Silvio was a leader. And he cared about knowing for himself what he had to share with his own people ”.
When does digital communication become part of Forza Italia’s strategy?
“It has become a great strategic choice since 2009. It was starting to become a powerful organizational and user contact tool. We launch Forzasilvio.it and we do it on the model of Barack Obama’s site. After 3 years we reach 270,000 subscribers. And each member had shared with us data, contact details, information that would have been useful for keeping in touch with the base and creating a network”.
Berlusconi has never made it big on social media. What did he think?
“I’ll tell you an anecdote. In 2013 during the electoral campaign he promised the return of the Imu (the tax on first homes introduced by the Mario Monti government, ed). Memes about Silvio Berlusconi who returns things immediately began to circulate. We identified this phenomenon, and created one: ‘I will return Monti to Germany’. The idea was mine, but when he understood the situation he was very amused. We had intercepted a possible negative avalanche, exploiting it in our favor. Here, he considered social media to be a useful tool, he was intrigued by it ”.
Let’s take a step back. The 3I program, Internet, business and English to create one million jobs in Italy. It was 2008 and the Internet was seen as a lever for development. But then the funds for broadband were withdrawn.
“That’s true, but the chaos of subprime mortgages had just erupted, those 800 million were used to protect workers who would have lost their jobs due to the economic crisis. By the way, the “I” in the program was 4” at the beginning.
That is to say?
“It was November, we were at the Arcore kitchen table. I believe it was a Saturday afternoon. I proposed 4i, and the fourth was Italian. He told me: ‘Look Antonio, it’s all right, but remove Italian’. Why? ‘That’s already there, we have to talk about what we bring again. He was interested in the new, and he knew the internet was a new economy.”
He has not proved to be a great friend of startups and innovative new businesses.
“It is not true. When the Startup Act was passed in 2012 (the first Italian law on the regulation of startups, ed), with Monti and Passera in government we were there too. And then he invested in digital companies before they even existed”
Which?
“In 1995 he co-financed with his ex-wife, Veronica Lario, Athena 2000, a startup that dealt with internet and online consultancy for businesses”.
But it wasn’t really his world.
“True, it wasn’t his world. But it cannot be said that he was alien to him, or that he was not friends with her ”.
Have you ever talked about startups?
“No, mai”.
When did Berlusconi discover social media instead?
“In 2009, we opened our Facebook page. It was where we thought its content fared best. And indeed it was. But even earlier on our site we have opened channels for comparison with the network. In 2000 we created a space called “blue space”, a kind of forum where messages of 180 characters could be written. This was joined by another vain, “sinister tolerance”. All the moderate comments ended up there, with insults ”.
How did he take the comments on social media? Did the insults upset him?
“No, for him it was a place to listen, we noticed the negative comments that came from former voters, we analyzed them together, to understand. Once everything happened on live TV”.
Tell us.
“Regionals of 2005. For us it was a debacle. Giovanni Floris welcomes him in the broadcast by showing 5 negative comments taken from “Spazio Azzurro”. Berlusconi replies to the 5 and says: “You see dear Floris, we practice freedom, so we do not censor the negative opinions of the voters”. It was an unexpected blow. But he reacted well. I have not received any critical calls for leaving those comments.
Did you accompany him in the TikTok bracket?
“Not directly, but from a distance, some advice, no more”.
It seemed a bit out of context.
“He was consistent. He was him. He wanted to explore TikTok, but because he was done. But he did it his way.”
Do you think there is a legacy of yours for online political communication?
“Being a leader and not a follower, giving an account of one’s position, but without chasing the sentiment, prevail over the network. And two, using the internet to keep your people together, especially between election campaigns, you need something that holds people together, even online. He had succeeded.”
Twitter: @arcamasilum