Who is spending the most among politicians for the election campaign on Facebook?
Today it is possible to know how much parties spend on sponsorships on Instagram and Facebook thanks to the "Meta Ads Library", a constantly updated archive created by the giant of Mark Zuckerberg in 2019 following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. with the aim of ensuring transparency on the part of Meta on advertisements concerning political, electoral or social issues (despite the difficulty in controlling, as evidenced by a sportsgaming.win survey on the occasion of the 2019 European elections). In addition to spending, the function also allows you to know other data related to the targeting of content based on the gender of the users to whom the posts are shown. We have tried to draw up a sort of ranking based on the expenses of the leaders and their respective parties in the last 90 days considering that, albeit unofficially, the electoral campaign started already in the weeks preceding the end of the Draghi government.
What social networks are doing ahead of the elections Promote verified content, institutional information and fight disinformation. To do this, TikTok has launched the in-app Election Center, while Twitter has activated a collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior The center-right in the lead Leading the ranking of the leaders who have spent the most is Matteo Salvini. In the period from 2 June to 30 August, the secretary of the League paid 84,013 euros for the ads on Meta, distributed as follows: 54,813 euros for the 69 posts on his personal page Matteo Salvini, while the other 14 cost 29,200 euros. sponsorships on the Lega Salvini Premier party page. The recurring themes of the League "cards": stop landings, zero VAT on food products and the end of the Fornero law, to which is added the most recent push on nuclear power for "energy independence". The audiences to which Salvini's posts are addressed are distributed equally for both the age group and the sex of the users. Especially when it comes to immigration and landings, one of the last posts dedicated to the topic has exceeded one million views with an ad between 1,500 and 2,000 euros.
First party according to many polls, Fratelli d'Italia is content to spend half the amount of the leader of the League. Giorgia Meloni, in fact, has decided to focus mainly on the profile of the party in which she has invested 29,200 euros for 14 advertisements. On his personal page, however, he paid "only" 9,238 euros for 22 contents. The rest of the 46,909 euros put on the plate by the only opposition party of the outgoing government was spread on the satellite pages of Fratelli d'Italia Camera and Fratelli d 'Italy Senate, on which 4,498 and 3,973 euros respectively have been invested.
Forza Italia closes: Silvio Berlusconi, who, as we have seen, has decided to focus heavily on social media in this smart working electoral campaign , which provides for the daily publication of a video-pill of his program, has spent just 5,399 euros for 70 posts, while his deputy Antonio Tajani has moved all-in on a single post in the last three months, spending 2,167 euros. , the 953 euros used to promote the page of the senators of Forza Italia should be added, which bring the total expenditure of the party to 8,519 euros.
Facebook content This content can also be viewed on the site it origi nates from.
The Democratic Party is recovering The Democratic Party is trying to recover in this special ranking. In the last month, which runs from 1 to 30 August, Enrico Letta's party spent 35,350 euros for sponsorships on Facebook and Instagram in 111 posts, just 6,000 euros less than those spent by Salvini for almost half of the contents (67 sponsorships paid 41,611 euros). However, when comparing the spending of the last month with that of the last quarter, the extent of the investment in these days of the election campaign immediately catches the eye. In fact, from 2 June to 30 August, the Democratic Party paid out € 47,194. The 35 thousand in the last month of the campaign therefore represent more than half of the amount invested from June to today.
The most performing posts released in recent days by Enrico Letta manage to touch between 400 and 500 thousand views. In the contents chosen by the Democratic Party, the attacks directed at Giorgia Meloni in particular on abortion: it is no coincidence that the advertisement was only on the female audience.
Enrico Letta's electoral campaign
Third Polo without waste, zero expenses for Conte and Di Maio The sudden agreement between Carlo Calenda and Matteo Renzi with the establishment of the third pole led to a change in the strategy for the social investments of the former prime minister. Until a few days before the decision to create an alliance between Action and Italy alive, Renzi's party had already spent 3,617 euros for two posts (one of which was a petition for Mario Draghi to return to the head of the government). Then the sudden blow from the tail of Calenda meant that it was the leader of Action who became the face of the coalition for the electoral campaign.
In the last three months Calenda has spent 5,946 euros on Meta advertisements in fifteen posts for his personal page, plus 3,119 euros for 9 other publications on the Action profile for a total of 9,065 euros. Of these, almost half was spent in August alone, 4,178 euros to be precise. The sharing that cost the most is the one in which Calenda explains his electoral program in a video. To reach a range of between 700 and 800 thousand views, between 1,000 and 1,500 euros were spent. Little interest from young people: 61% of users, between men and women, who were offered the video are over 55 years old.
Those who instead decided to rely only on their own strength, without " 'help of the booster ”offered by Zuckerberg are Giuseppe Conte and Luigi Di Maio. Both the former premier now head of the 5 Star Movement, and the Foreign Minister with his new Civic Engagement movement have decided to rely exclusively on free posts.
Facebook content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Others do not stand by and watch In the rear, however, the expense of Gianluigi Paragone and his Italexit movement stands out. In August, the journalist spent more than a third of the last quarter: of the 9,164 euros spent since the beginning of June, 3,652 euros ended up in Meta's coffers in the last month alone. Even Più Europa has decided to invest a nest egg to spread the logo of its list: with an expense between 200 and 299, Emma Bonino's party has secured a range of views ranging from 150 to 175 thousand. Coraggio Italia, on the other hand, spares no expense: € 5,531 invested for the 61 sponsored posts during the summer.
