Herbert Kickl’s party reaches by far the most people, not only “at home” on Facebook, but also on YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram. Only X (formerly Twitter) is ignored by the Blues, and Kickl no longer has an account there either. The Beer Party shows that social media election campaigns can work without money.
With 2.4 million interactions in July and August on his channels and those of the federal party, Kickl far surpasses his two opponents in the race for chancellorship, Andreas Babler (603,000) and Karl Nehammer (464,000), as an analysis by the social media market research agency Buzzvalue shows. The fact that the FPÖ is ahead here comes as no surprise to managing director Markus Zimmer, as the Freedom Party is known to have relied on social media early on under Heinz-Christian Strache. The Blues’ recipe for success is: “Simple messages, very polarizing, sometimes completely exaggerated and over the top. But that’s exactly what the supporters want,” he said in an interview.
Emotionalization and enemy images
It is precisely this deliberate emotionalisation, including the stirring up of enemy images, that has worked for the FPÖ for many years, and has led to Kickl and the FPÖ having three times as many followers as Nehammer or Babler, with almost a million. On Kickl’s Instagram account, for example, you can read in “bleeding” font “consistently deport knife attackers” or “the horror continues” (after Ursula Von der Leyen’s second election as EU Commission President). In black and white and quite threatening, there are also pictures of political opponents, for example Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen or Climate Protection Minister Leonore Gewessler. And a fixture of the blue election campaign – the art of rhyming – cannot be missing, even if it is less creative than in previous election campaigns: “Be smart, vote blue”. In private, Kickl can be seen hiking.
Nehammer and Babler try to appear as down-to-earth as possible on Instagram. The former can be seen at the Neustifter Kirtag, a “fixed date” in his calendar, the latter at various dates on the “Heart and Brain” tour or with spray candles in his hand at a football match of the Wiener Sport-Club, known for its predominantly left-wing supporters. Almost all politicians have jumped on the national football team’s performance at the European Championships in the summer, “whether that is credible is of course a fine line,” says Zimmer.
The “liberal center” has a harder time
The expert does not want to decide whether a post is good or bad. But it is clear that it is more difficult for parties in the “liberal center” such as the Greens or NEOS to convey their content than for those at the ends of the political spectrum. But “more needs to happen” with these two, as they are far behind with 135,000 (Greens) and 80,000 (NEOS) interactions, “although they have actually already shown that they can campaign on social media.” Nehammer also has to contend with different challenges than Kickl: “As Chancellor, I can’t act like Rumpelstiltskin either.”
The most people are still reached on Facebook (2.3 million interactions on the parties’ and top candidates’ channels), followed by Instagram (750,000) and X (450,000). All parties use their channels to share interview sequences with their top candidates. Only the FPÖ does not post excerpts from ORF or private broadcaster formats, but instead relies on FPÖ-TV. With its own channel, it also reaches many people on YouTube; over 200,000 people have subscribed to the channel.
The Austrian parties have still not arrived on Tiktok. Although individual politicians, such as ministers Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP), Gewessler and Alma Zadić (Greens), have managed to generate a certain reach there, in general Tiktok is still treated too poorly in Austria, unlike in the USA, where the Chinese platform has almost become a “key channel” in the election campaign. Zimmer believes this is a mistake: “You don’t just reach 13-year-olds who sing and dance there, but 75 percent of young voters.”
This is how much the parties spend
A look at the spending of the parties campaigning shows that everyone was still cautious in the summer months. The ÖVP spent the most, just under 45,000 euros, followed by the FPÖ (38,000), NEOS (33,500), SPÖ (24,000), Greens (18,000) and KPÖ (11,000 invested, 100,000 interactions). Election advertising on social media is an efficient method of reaching one’s target group, especially for parties with limited financial and organizational capacities.
The Beer Party shows that it can be done without money. Purely through “organic reach” it has so far achieved 170,000 interactions, more than the Greens or NEOS, which are represented in parliament. “The Beer Party is no newcomer to the social media election campaign, it already worked well with Dominik Wlazny’s presidential candidacy,” said Zimmer. The movement, which is calculating that it has a serious chance of entering the National Council, knows how to use the channels and, above all, how to reach the younger audience. But Zimmer is convinced that the others will still be making a lot of money in the three weeks leading up to the National Council election. In 2019, for example, the SPÖ under Pamela Rendi-Wagner paid over 250,000 euros, the FPÖ with Norbert Hofer as its top candidate 115,000 and the People’s Party with Sebastian Kurz around 100,000 euros for social media advertising.