Faced with Covid-19, the candidates’ strategy to lead the battle on social networks

It will not have escaped anyone’s notice that this presidential campaign promises to be singular – and not just because we “screw up” people or threaten to “bring out” high pressure water washers. A moment of meetings with the French and great gatherings par excellence, the race to the Elysee Palace is hampered this year by a serious obstacle: the health crisis. Prime Minister Jean Castex will also meet on Tuesday – by videoconference – party leaders and declared candidates to discuss its progress in this tense context.

One thing is certain, the fight will more than ever shift to digital and social media. Because you can walk there without a mask on, but also and above all because the vast majority of the population walks it daily. According to 2021 figures from the specialist agency OnlySo, 75.9% of French people are on social networks, spending more than an hour and a half each day on average. A valuable sounding board for politicians, who do not hesitate to invest time and resources in it.

Thierry Vedel, CNRS researcher specializing in the relationship between the Internet and politics, sums up the idea:

“Social networks are like the rest of political communication: we do not know exactly the consequences, but we go there anyway! Because the others do it, because it is always good to display your modernity, and then to reach young people (18-30 years), a particular public since much less interested in politics than the rest of the population. “

There remains a fundamental problem: how to aim fairly and mobilize voters? Because we no longer speak of two or three platforms, as during the beginnings at the time of the 2007 campaign – fond memories of Nicolas Sarkozy’s NSTV or of Ségolène Royal’s foray into Second Life -, but of about fifteen, each with its codes, its language and its audience. “Writing a tweet is easy. Decline the same political sequence for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, the newsletter and the official website, a little less, observes Valerio Motta, head of the digital campaign of François Hollande in 2012 and now at the head of an agency of advice. This requires a multiplication of skills, or a certain standardization of the messages sent, with the risk that this may not always be appropriate. “

Mélenchon’s “political DNA”

Among the main candidates, each has their own strategy, according to their electorate and their aspirations. There are those who have invested the platforms for a long time and those who rely more on the breath of the last months of the campaign. In the first category, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is often cited as an example. The most recent social networks already have no secrets for the candidate of La France Insoumise, the only one to have truly launched his Twitch channel and who has just passed one million subscribers on TikTok. A 10-second video released last month, in which we see him jaded by a speech by Emmanuel Macron on lyrics by rapper Nanke, has accumulated 860,000 likes and more than 36,000 comments.

@jlmelenchon

#Macron #Europe ????

♬ original sound – Jean-Luc Mélenchon

“It is part of its political DNA to try to conquer these spaces”, describes his right-hand man in this field for nine years, Antoine Léaument. More generally, LFI believes that social networks “are one of the main tools to convince” voters, relying on the personality of the boss. The latter will easily chat live on Twitch in a casual style, or talk about the last book he liked between two geopolitical analyzes on YouTube. “It offers proximity, unlike the extreme right-wing candidates, for example, who think that putting clips with martial music is enough, launches Antoine Léaument. I don’t feel like I know Eric Zemmour better after seeing one of his videos on the Internet, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon, yes. “

The digital army behind Zemmour

The former columnist, precisely, is undoubtedly the one who has made the most noise on social networks for a few weeks. In December, carried by the announcement of his candidacy and his first appearances as a contender, he, according to the figures of the barometer launched by France Inter and Visibrain, compiled 5.3 million posts citing him, leaving far in the retro his runner-up Valérie Pécresse (1.2 million). Behind the leader of the Reconquest party, an army of more than 1,000 people which is active on all fronts, claims its “digital strategist”, Samuel Lafont. His watchword: door open to anyone who wants to give a helping hand.

“We give directions, then everyone can make Eric Zemmour their own and create things,” he explains. What I want is, when I wake up in the morning, not to be able to watch all the content that is circulating on it. If I have seen it all, it is because there is not enough. “The team is artillery, multiplies the hashtags (# Zemmour2022, #ZemmourPresident, more recently #ZOZZ in reference to the new year), tries blows like the search engine” Zemmour for all “. With the objective that the souffle does not fall again now that the sequence of his entry into the campaign is over.

“We are not going to transform Valérie Pécresse into a beauty influencer”

While awaiting the entry into the dance of Emmanuel Macron – whose Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts logically group together the most subscribers, by its function – other teams are putting themselves in order of battle at the beginning of the month of January. The digital division of Valérie Pécresse will gradually reach around thirty people. With a clear idea in mind, “invest in a social network only if you have something to say about it”, summarizes its manager, Pierre Liscia.

The latter is not jealous of the advance of its competitors on certain platforms. “We are not going to transform Valérie Pécresse into a beauty influencer on the pretext that this is what would work best on TikTok,” he says. The codes of social networks will not influence the communication of the candidate. On the other hand, we will adapt the content of the desired communication to the use of each. “Because the way to invest a new space is essential: networks are a flammable material. It is sometimes better to abstain than to go with a grain of salt and arouse rejection from users.

“The surveys show a very strong mistrust of politicians [sur les réseaux sociaux]. You have to be careful and stay consistent, otherwise it can be interpreted as demagoguery or recovery, ”recalls researcher Thierry Vedel. This is the meaning of the speech of Europe Ecology-The Greens, which ensures to focus on the substance rather than the figures. Yannick Jadot does not appear in the “top 5” of the main social networks. “Our goal is not for him to have one or two million subscribers on a particular platform, but for the many accounts belonging to civil society who talk about ecology to create a dynamic that supports our candidate”, explains the spokesperson Sabrina Sebaihi.

Even more than convincing, something that is done over the long term, social networks are a means of attracting attention – especially in the media – to reach its target by ricochet. “Candidates must reconcile a search for innovation on the one hand and efficiency with the masses on the other,” analyzes Valerio Motta. Always keeping the essentials in mind: these tools will only really be useful if the supporters they have enabled to mobilize occupy the field when the time comes. “The most effective is knocking on people’s doors and explaining why we are supporting a candidate,” said the advisor, basing himself on the debriefs of the Obama and Biden teams. While respecting barrier gestures, of course.