With 140-character fiery outbursts between politicians juxtaposed against sudden demonstrations in Syntagma Square, the Greek crisis has reinforced how dramatically Twitter has changed the mode, speed and tenor of le monde politique.
Then, there’s the European Commission.
Few of the 28 commissioners truly engage with their followers and many of them are seldom mentioned, according to data analyzed for POLITICO.
The weak showing from many of the EU’s top officials stands in contrast to the broader political and media class in Brussels, which can seem obsessed with the social network. It also points to a missed opportunity for an European institution, long derided as out of touch with the continent, to connect directly with a vast, younger audience.
“The current Commission’s tweeting is full of boring pictures of boring people shaking hands with other boring people,” said Jon Worth, a Berlin-based communications consultant and blogger.
Vestager does it herself
Of Twitter’s 302 million active monthly users, 77 percent are outside the U.S. There are no figures for how many politicians use it, but POLITICO studied tweeting data for the Commision over the past six years, based on their level of activity. The figures come from data provided by Matthias Lüfkens, author of Twiplomacy study and a former digital practice leader with Burson-Marsteller, and Simon McDermott, online reputation expert and founder of New Media Cloud.
Three of the most-popular commissioners on Twitter are Federica Mogherini (@FedericaMog), foreign affairs; Pierre Moscovici (@pierremoscovici), economics and financial affairs; and Margrethe Vestager (@vestager), competition; each of whom has more than 100,000 followers.
Surprisingly, the two commissioners in the digital arena, Andrus Ansip (@Ansip_EU) ranked 12th and Günther Oettinger (@GOettingerEU) 8th in followers.
Vestager, who manages her own account, is one of the top performers by many metrics. She has the most replies to followers and was an early adopter, beaten only by Violeta Bulc (@Bulc_EU), commissioner for transport, when she joined Twitter in January 2009. Bulc was ahead of the curve, joining in July 2007.
One of Vestager’s most popular tweets is a photograph during a May Parliamentary voting session of an otter (her followers debated whether it might have been a beaver or muskrat) devouring bread. Vestager wrote, “Now this is France: Even the otters in Strasbourg are eating baguette this morning!”
Going viral
Of course there are the rare exceptions when a Commission tweet goes viral. Last week, Martin Selmayr, chief of staff to the commission president, irked Germany’s finance minister when he tweeted in the wee hours of June 22 that one of the Greek proposals for a deal had finally arrived and was “a good basis for progress.”
His boss, Jean-Claude Juncker eclipsed Mogherini on Sunday as the most-followed in the commission, despite the paucity of tweets.
He has sent fewer than 1,100 tweets in five years — he was most active while campaigning for his job — but is gaining followers at the fastest rate.
“Juncker is famously not digital but his follower count highlights the importance of the role rather than the activity,” said Simon McDermott, online reputation expert and founder of New Media Cloud.
“There will be commissioners like Juncker who don’t have a natural instinct for it. He understands why digital is very important even though he himself isn’t heavily involved,” McDermott added.
The least active on Twitter are Commissioners Elżbieta Bieńkowska (@EBienkowskaEU) internal market, and Věra Jourová (@VeraJourova), justice, who have yet to break the 5,000 mark.
Bye bye paper
The famously fit Kristalina Georgieva, commissioner for budget and human resources, who shares tweeting duties with her team, injects personality into her missives with yoga selfies.
“Bye bye paper! @EU_Commission meetings going digital,” Georgieva tweeted on May 6. “Weightlifting only in the gym from now on. #DigitalSingleMarket.”
Cecilia Malmström, trade commissioner, signs all personal tweets with her initials and is a Twitter “junkie,” according to her team. “Fifty shades of grey? Is that not the weather forecast for Brussels?” she quipped Feb. 13.
Newcomers to Twitter are naturally on the lower end of the scale of followers.
Jourová had a rough start. She reluctantly joined Twitter last September, a staffer said, but a fake account pretending to be her quickly gathered more followers than the real one and Twitter shut it down. Her team do most of her tweeting on her behalf.
Bieńkowska was also a slow-starter, joining around the same time. “She is a unique circumstance,” Worth said. “Twitter is extremely vicious in Polish politics. She and her team were very nervous about it.”
No computer on desk
Oettinger, meanwhile, who POLITICO hears didn’t even have a computer on his desk when he took over as digital commissioner, holds the title of most re-tweeted. His account is also one of the more engaged, ranking No. 2 in replies.
But his top tweet: “Looking forward to my new task. Digital Economy & Society one of the top priorities of the Juncker Commission. #DigitalAgenda #TeamJunckerEU.”
Ansip only joined Twitter last September (he had a neglected account from his time as Estonia’s prime minister). His team told POLITICO that Ansip “loves the trip” of the social media platform.
His top tweet from Feb. 19: “Have you been blocked from a website because of where you live? Send me a screenshot — welcome your tweets for #AskAnsip Monday Feb 23.”
Antoine Sander and Sarah Walsh contributed to this story.