The evolution of EU Politicians and EU Influencers conversations on X: Impact of platform changes and recent EU elections.

With the arrival of Elon Musk, the social network Twitter was renamed X, bringing numerous changes to the company at all levels. This led to drastic changes in the staff, but also in the very structure of the platform at the algorithm level, including the ads section. These and other changes caused a stampede from many advertisers, and it is also affecting how users interact on the platform.

Twitter was well known as a key platform for politicians, journalists and public figures, allowing news, opinions and updates to be shared in real time. This immediacy made it easy for them to respond quickly to events or trends and connect directly with their audience. It was also the perfect space for public debates and discussions, amplified from a global audience through their own retweets, likes and replies, achieving greater reach and visibility. X enables all this, but how are users and audiences responding to the change?

Another recent relevant difference happened at the political level. Since June 9, we have seen many new faces at the level of political representation in the European Union. The citizens of the European Union countries voted for the new Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). These elections allow EU citizens to vote for representatives who will play a role in making laws and policies at the European level. Some of the new MEPs are returning members, but many of them are new faces.

So, in view of these changes, we can ask ourselves: how is the conversation on X evolving on major European issues?

For some time now, Sybaris has been analysing trends in conversation and reach on X. We are interested in knowing how frequently users as relevant as MEPs and EU institutions (who are also the audiences of many of our clients) are using the platform to interact with major European topics like health, environment, sustainability, economy…

Our analysis indicates that, when it comes to the general conversation towards the big topics of MEPs and EU high profiles, although the trend of reach is increasing over time, mentions seem to be decreasing over the months. While two years ago there could be peaks of more than 5.5K mentions, in recent months they do not exceed 4K mentions, even taking into account the peaks of conversation during the recent European elections. This means that visibility increases but engagement on the platform decreases.

As for the Sustainability topic, analysed for a relevant audience such as EU influencers, both reach and mentions follow a decreasing trend.  A similar trend to that of the Healthcare topic.

All this leads us to think that these key users may be using the renewed X platform with suspicion. And this is very important, because as these users are the key audiences of many companies, advertising may be compromised. 

This being said, 4K mentions from MEPs and Commission is a good conversation still to work with. We still recommend investing on X, supporting it with other social media platforms such as LinkedIn.

Will the new faces in the European Parliament change this trend? Stay tuned, we will know more in a couple of months!

At Sybaris, we are keeping an eye on these changes, as well as the emergence of new platforms such as Threads, which may change the landscape of conversation in the political arena and on major European issues.