Abstract
The aim of the present study is to examine the communication strategies used by Greek mayors in Twitter across different periods of an electoral cycle (pre-campaign, campaign, and post-campaign). Moreover, this study tries to delineate the effects of Twitter strategies on users’ engagement and identify the most effective ones. To that end, a content analysis is performed on 32,810 tweets of Greek mayors for a six-year period. Moreover, quantitative metrics such as the number of favorites and retweets are also obtained for each tweet. Results suggest that Greek mayors mainly use Twitter as a press release bulletin board for dissemination of information about the main events taking place in municipality. Moreover, they also use impression management strategies to promote a distinct personal, political and professional image. Results also show that during different periods of an electoral cycle mayors utilize a different mix of Twitter strategies. Furthermore, aggressive (attacking opponents), interactive (direct communication), and mobilization (requesting feedback) strategies are found to be the most effective in enhancing followers’ attitude expression (favorites) and advocacy behavior (retweets). The present study provides valuable practical implications for social media political marketers as well as politicians.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aharony, N. (2012). Twitter use by three political leaders: An exploratory analysis. Online Information Review, 36(4), 587–603.
Ahmed, S., Jaidka, K., & Cho, J. (2016). The 2014 Indian elections on Twitter: A comparison of campaign strategies of political parties. Telematics and Informatics, 33(4), 1071–1087.
Barger, V. A., & Labrecque, L. I. (2013). An integrated marketing communications perspective on social media metrics. International Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, 5(1), 64–76.
Bellström, P., Magnusson, M., Pettersson, J. S., & Thorén, C. (2016). Facebook usage in a local government: A content analysis of page owner posts and user posts. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 10(4), 548–567.
Bene, M. (2017). Go viral on the Facebook! Interactions between candidates and followers on Facebook during the Hungarian general election campaign of 2014. Information, Communication & Society, 20(4), 513–529.
Bode, L., & Dalrymple, K. (2016). Politics in 140 characters or less: Campaign communication, network interaction, and political participation on Twitter. Journal of Political Marketing, 15(4), 311–332.
Bonsón, E., & Ratkai, M. (2013). A set of metrics to assess stakeholder engagement and social legitimacy on a corporate Facebook page. Online Information Review, 37(5), 787–803.
Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2011). #Ausvotes: How Twitter covered the 2010 Australian federal election. Communication, Politics & Culture, 44(2), 37–56.
Bruns, A., & Highfield, T. (2013). Political networks on Twitter: Tweeting the Queensland state election. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 667–691.
Cho, M., Schweickart, T., & Haase, A. (2014). Public engagement with nonprofit organizations on Facebook. Public Relations Review, 40(3), 565–567.
Conway, B. A., Kenski, K., & Wang, D. (2013). Twitter use by presidential primary candidates during the 2012 campaign. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(11), 1596–1610.
Criado, J. I., Martinez-Fuentez, G., & Silvan, A. (2012). Social media for political campaigning. The use of Twitter by Spanish Mayors in 2011 local elections. In C. G. Reddick & S. K. Aikins (Eds.), Web 2.0 technologies and democratic governance (pp. 219–232). New York: Springer.
DePaula, N., & Dincelli, E. (2016). An empirical analysis of local government social media communication: Models of e-government interactivity and public relations. In Y. Kim & M. Liu (Eds.), Proceedings of the 17th international digital government research conference on digital government research (pp. 348–356). New York: ACM.
ELTRUN. (2015). Annual survey on social networking. Retrieved May 30, 2017, from https://www.eltrun.gr/sm-survey-results-2015/.
Enli, G. S., & Skogerbø, E. (2013). Personalized campaigns in party-centred politics: Twitter and Facebook as arenas for political communication. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 757–774.
Evans, H. K., Cordova, V., & Sipole, S. (2014). Twitter style: An analysis of how house candidates used twitter in their 2012 campaigns. Political Science & Politics, 47(2), 454–462.
Frame, A., & Brachotte, G. (2015). Le tweet stratégique: Use of Twitter as a PR tool by French politicians. Public Relations Review, 41(2), 278–287.
Gerodimos, R., & Justinussen, J. (2015). Obama’s 2012 Facebook campaign: Political communication in the age of the like button. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 12(2), 113–132.
Gesuele, B., Metallo, C., & Agrifoglio, R. (2016). What do local governments discuss in social media? An empirical analysis of the Italian municipalities. In F. D'Ascenzo, M. Magni, & A. Lazazzara (Eds.), Blurring the boundaries through digital innovation (pp. 297–306). New York: Cham.
Golbeck, J., Grimes, J. M., & Rogers, A. (2010). Twitter use by the US Congress. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(8), 1612–1621.
Graham, T., Broersma, M., Hazelhoff, K., & van’t Haar, G. (2013). Between broadcasting political messages and interacting with voters: The use of Twitter during the 2010 UK general election campaign. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 692–716.
Graham, T., Jackson, D., & Broersma, M. (2016). New platform, old habits? Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2010 British and Dutch general election campaigns. New Media & Society, 18(5), 765–783.
Hofmann, S., Beverungen, D., Räckers, M., & Becker, J. (2013). What makes local governments' online communications successful? Insights from a multi-method analysis of Facebook. Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 387–396.
Ikiz, Ö., Sobacı, M. Z., Yavuz, N., & Karkin, N. (2014). Political use of twitter: The case of metropolitan mayor candidates in 2014 local elections in Turkey. In Proceedings of the 8th international conference on theory and practice of electronic governance (pp. 41–50). New York: ACM.
Jackson, N., & Lilleker, D. (2011). Microblogging, constituency service and impression management: UK MPs and the use of Twitter. Journal of Legislative Studies, 17(1), 86–105.
Jungherr, A. (2016). Twitter use in election campaigns: A systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 13(1), 72–91.
Kassimi, A. (2015). Half of Greeks engage in social media. Retrieved May 30, 2017, from http://www.ekathimerini.com/201228/article/ekathimerini/community/half-of-greeks-engage-in-social-media.
Koc-Michalska, K., Lilleker, D. G., Tomasz, M. & Zajac, J. (2016). Social media actions and interactions: The role of the Facebook and Twitter during the 2014 European Parliament elections in the 28 EU nations. Retrieved from http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk.
Kruikemeier, S. (2014). How political candidates use Twitter and the impact on votes. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 131–139.
Lappas, G., Triantafillidou, A., Yannas, P., Kavada, A., Kleftodimos, A., & Vasileiadou, O. (2016). Social media battles: Their impact during the 2014 Greek municipal elections. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22(3), 375–393.
Larsson, A. O. (2015). Pandering, protesting, engaging. Norwegian party leaders on Facebook during the 2013 ‘Short campaign’. Information, Communication & Society, 18(4), 459–473.
Macnamara, J., & Kenning, G. (2011). E-electioneering 2010: Trends in social media use in Australian political communication. Media International Australia, 139(1), 7–22.
Magin, M., Podschuweit, N., Haßler, J., & Russmann, U. (2016). Campaigning in the fourth age of political communication. A multi-method study on the use of Facebook by German and Austrian parties in the 2013 national election campaigns. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1254269.
Mergel, I. (2013). Social media adoption and resulting tactics in the US federal government. Government Information Quarterly, 30(2), 123–130.
Murthy, D. (2015). Twitter and elections: Are tweets, predictive, reactive, or a form of buzz? Information, Communication & Society, 18(7), 816–831.
Paine, K. D. (2011). Measure what matters: Online tools for understanding customers, social media, engagement, and key relationships. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
Poulakidakos, S., & Veneti, A. (2016). Social media in political communication: How do Greek political parties use twitter during the pre-electoral period? Work in progress. Retrieved from http://www.gpsg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Veneti-and-Poulakidakos-2015.pdf
Ramos-Serrano, M., Fernández Gómez, J. D., & Pineda, A. (2016). ‘Follow the closing of the campaign on streaming’: The use of Twitter by Spanish political parties during the 2014 European elections. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816660730.
Rauchfleisch, A., & Metag, J. (2016). The special case of Switzerland: Swiss politicians on Twitter. New Media & Society, 18(10), 2413–2431.
Raynauld, V., & Greenberg, J. (2014). Tweet, click, vote: Twitter and the 2010 Ottawa municipal election. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 11(4), 412–434.
Sobaci, M. Z., & Karkin, N. (2013). The use of twitter by mayors in Turkey: Tweets for better public services? Government Information Quarterly, 30(4), 417–425.
Southern, R. (2015). Is web 2.0 providing a voice for outsiders? A comparison of personal web site and social media use by candidates at the 2010 UK general election. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 12(1), 1–17.
Stromer-Galley, J. (2000). On-line interaction and why candidates avoid it. Journal of Communication, 50(4), 111–132.
Swint, K. (1998). Political consultants and negative campaigning: The secrets of the pros. Lanham: University Press of America.
Taecharungroj, V. (2016). Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter. Journal of Marketing Communications. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2016.1138139.
Teperoglou, E., & Tsatsanis, E. (2014). Dealignment, de-legitimation and the implosion of the two-party system in Greece: The earthquake election of 6 May 2012. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, 24(2), 222–242.
Theocharis, Y., Barberá, P., Fazekas, Z., Popa, S. A., & Parnet, O. (2015). A bad workman blames his tweets? The consequences of citizens’ uncivil Twitter use when interacting with party candidates. Journal of Communication, 66(6), 1007–1031. Retrieved from https://ssrn.com/abstract=2657074.
Tsirbas, Y. (2015). The 2014 local elections in Greece: Looking for patterns in a changing political system. South European Society and Politics, 20(1), 133–155.
Van Doorn, J., Lemon, K. N., Mittal, V., Nass, S., Pick, D., Pirner, P., & Verhoef, P. C. (2010). Customer engagement behavior: Theoretical foundations and research directions. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), 253–266.
Vergeer, M., & Hermans, L. (2013). Campaigning on Twitter: Microblogging and online social networking as campaign tools in the 2010 general elections in the Netherlands. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 18(4), 399–419.
Waters, R. D., & Williams, J. M. (2011). Squawking, tweeting, cooing, and hooting: Analyzing the communication patterns of government agencies on Twitter. Journal of Public Affairs, 11(4), 353–363.
Xenos, M., Vromen, A., & Loader, B. D. (2014). The great equalizer? Patterns of social media use and youth political engagement in three advanced democracies. Information, Communication & Society, 17(2), 151–167.
Yannas, P., & Lappas, G. (2005). Web campaign in the 2002 Greek municipal elections. Journal of Political Marketing, 4(1), 33–50.
Yannas, P., Kleftodimos, A., & Lappas, G. (2011). Online political marketing in 2010 Greek local elections: The shift from web to web 2.0 campaigns. In Proceedings of the 16th international conference on corporate and marketing communications (pp. 38–50).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Triantafillidou, A., Lappas, G., Kleftodimos, A., Yannas, P. (2018). Attack, Interact, and Mobilize: Twitter Communication Strategies of Greek Mayors and their Effects on Users’ Engagement. In: Sobacı, M., Hatipoğlu, İ. (eds) Sub-National Democracy and Politics Through Social Media. Public Administration and Information Technology, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-73385-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-73386-9
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)