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Sunday 5 June 2016

Bucharest Local Elections 2016 in social media

What does social media say about the Bucharest local elections on 05.06.2016?


Bucharest Local Elections - Twitter - The upper-left corner Gabriela Firea, Social Democratic Party, the upper-right corner Nicusor Dan, Save Bucharest Union, and the lower left quadrant Catalin Predoiu, National Liberal Party

In the picture above you can find a rather simple semantic analysis taken out of Twitter for the first three contenders to become the mayor of Bucharest, Romania's capital, in the 2016 elections. I will not go into too much detail on them but I would say they speak loudly of the campaign strategy of the three candidates. While Gabriela Firea focused excessively on visuals and Facebook contents, she also introduced topics that would appeal to the older female electorate such as religion, health, family. On the other hand, Nicusor Dan focused his campaign on himself and rallying his electorate for a good turnout. Last but not least, Catalin Predoiu focused his campaign on attacking the front runner (Gabriela Firea) and the allegedly corrupt PSD leaders. He also focused more on government than on local issues.  

All three candidates have a rather modest presence on Twitter, but fought quite tough on Facebook. 
Here is a short analysis of the strategies of the three candidates on Facebook

Catalin Predoiu, PNL - roughly 70 000 page likes. His hashtag of choice was #SolutiaSerioasa (#theserioussolution). His presence on social media was stiff and minimal. Most of the posts including his core hashtag were endorsements from party members and press releases. No personal photos, buttoned up, hardly any smiles.

Gabriela Firea, PSD - more than 400 000 page likes (gained a significant number of followers on election day, over 40 000). Her hashtag ‪#‎rezultatepentrubucureşteni (#resultsforBucharest). Her presence was aggressive and overarching. Pictures with children, biking, sweeping streets, visiting construction sites, book launch, religious ceremonies. Also, we could see several videos and professional photo-shoots, mostly outdoors, seemingly active, frequently blue figure-hugging outfits. 

Nicusor Dan - USB, little over 100 000 page likes, strange profile picture (weird blue hue) Personal photos, relaxed look, a variety of videos. Had a child born a few days before election day, far more text than the other two candidates, hardly any professional photo-shoot, significant number of shares and comments as opposed to the other two pages analyzed. No hashtag.

Last but not least, of the three candidates, only Gabriela Firea has an active Instagram account. 

I will let the others do the math, but I have a hint about who is going to win this election.




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