MEPs are back to school – and so are we. As we have been doing this year, we’ve taken a thorough look at their tweets in the first plenary after the summer.
Here is what we found:
- The speech on the state of the European Union by Mr Juncker completely dominated the online debate – not a big surprise, dah!
- Quantity, not quality: None of the most active MEPs posted any of the most popular tweets.
- The EPP’s group account was the most active political group on Twitter and the most shared account of last week. All other groups were far behind.
- Some of the most popular tweets, including the top one (yes, it was posted by Mr. Farage) were not related to the EP plenary agenda but to national politics.
- Mr Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE group, was the most popular political group leader for his tweets on the state of the European Union.
Let’s have a look at what we found. The most active MEPs of the week were:
- Michal Boni (EPP) with 591 tweets & RTs
- Ana Gomes (S&D) with 207 tweets & RTs
- Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens) with 160 tweets & RTs
- Ramon Tremosa (ALDE) with 101 tweets & RTs
- Michele Rivasi (Greens) with 141 tweets & RTs
The most popular tweets were:
People simply have had enough of being sneered at by an out of touch political elite. pic.twitter.com/o5BakqyFMj
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) 12 September 2016
J’intervenais ce matin lors de la #PlenPE, en réaction au discours de “L’état de l’Union” de @JunckerEU. #SOTEU pic.twitter.com/kV75vroGWN
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) 14 September 2016
If UK wants access to #SingleMarket, it must also accept the free movement of citizens. Our four freedoms are inseparable.
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) 13 September 2016
Sarkozy ne sait pas 1) L’UMP a voté le statut des travailleurs détachés il y a deux mois à Strasbourg 2) Le FN aussi !
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) 15 September 2016
The top five most shared accounts by our MEPs were:
- EPP Group – 95 times
- MEP Janusz Lewandoswky & the S&D Group – 72 times
- Europodemos – 55 times
- Greens Group – 53 times
- Platforma Obywatelska – 44 times
On Wednesday morning in less than 2 hours MEPs posted almost 1500 tweets using the hashtag #SOTEU which created an impressive peak in their overall Twitter activity.
Almost 50% of the overall Twitter activity of MEPs was generated on Wednesday. The top five most active MEPs on #SOTEU were:
- Michal Boni (EPP) with 135 tweets & RTs
- Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens)with 62 tweets & RTs
- Ana Gomes (S&D) with 40 tweets & RTs
- Renaud Muselier (EPP) with 36 tweets & RTs
- Marie-Christine Vergiat (GUEL) with 34 tweets & RTs
The top five most popular tweets on #SOTEU were:
J’intervenais ce matin lors de la #PlenPE, en réaction au discours de “L’état de l’Union” de @JunckerEU. #SOTEU pic.twitter.com/kV75vroGWN
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) 14 September 2016
À #Strasbourg, le porte-parole des libéraux me met dans le même sac que Le Pen. Les zombies délirent. #EPlenary #SOTEU
— Jean-Luc Mélenchon (@JLMelenchon) 14 September 2016
UK Gov. wants to make #Brexit a success for Britain. Fair enough. It is our duty to make it a success for Europe. #SOTEU
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) 14 September 2016
President @JunckerEU just doubled down on attacking the hyperlink in #SOTEU speech! #SaveTheLink pic.twitter.com/mZt3PoUj3J
— Julia Reda (@Senficon) 14 September 2016
Juncker y PP defienden con ahínco el #TTIP y el #CETA. No quieren reconocer que la gente los está enterrando. #SOTEU pic.twitter.com/Bvi3wLWmei
— Lola Sánchez Caldentey (@LolaPodemos) 14 September 2016
The top five most shared accounts on #SOTEU by MEPs were:
- EPP Group – 44 times
- Greens Group – 32 times
- S&D Group and Natasha Bertaud (European Commission Spokesperson)- – 22 times
- PES_PSE – 21 times
- European Parliament (EN) – 18 times
Amongst the EP political groups’ leaders, tweets posted by ALDE’s Verhofstadt on #SOTEU were much more popular than the ones posted by his colleagues. He tweeted ‘only’ eleven times but collected more than a thousand retweets and almost 1.5K likes. Mr. Pittella posted the most (fourteen times) but only three were original tweets, the remaining eleven were retweets from third party accounts. He got 38 total retweets and 46 likes. The other political leaders did not create any relevant buzz.
See you at the next EP plenary 😉
@Giammabxl