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Saper Vedere’s major study on communication directors

Communication directors are increasingly active on social media, becoming, in turn, ambassadors for their employers. This is why Saper Vedere wanted to analyze the media presence of communication directors on Twitter.

How does a communication director tweet?
What is their audience?
Who interacts with them?

Read the full study

Key insights

Three types of communications directors

The agenda of the communications director

Specialized and economic media

The analysis of media followed by communications directors reveals specialized communication sources (We are Com, Stratégie, CB News) and economic media. Les Echos is the most-followed outlet, while Aziliz de Veyrinas from La Tribune is the most-followed journalist among communications directors.

Widespread use of mass following technique

In the sphere of communications directors, many individuals engage in mass following (i.e., following a large number of people to be followed back). This phenomenon is highlighted by the ecosystems of followers and followings.

Indeed, in both cases, a mass-following community is identified by the clustering algorithm and constitutes the largest group. This shows that the audience is largely built on mutual following.

The importance of digital

The ecosystem of communications directors is strongly influenced by digital trends. This topic is of common interest across all sectors for communications directors. Figures such as Mounir Mahjoubi (the third most-followed politician), Axelle Lemaire, and Fleur Pellerin benefited from their tenure as Secretaries of State for Digital Affairs to rank high in lists of personalities most followed by communications directors.

Moreover, the most shared hashtags highlight events related to digital (Vivatech, CES2019), digital transformation (AI, Digital Transformation), and digital topics (E-commerce, Tech).

A different ecosystem for followers and followings

Only 24% of overlap exists between the ecosystem of whom a communications director follows (followings) and those who follow the communications director (followers).

Low-engagement communities

Although communications directors gather CSR & Health-focused communities within their audiences, these communities do not engage with their content. They do not influence engagement with their posts.

This shows that while directors may attract an audience by discussing CSR topics related to their organizations, they struggle to engage these followers to benefit from their networks.

Periods of inactivity and the difficulty of original content creation

Year-end and mid-August are the periods when communications directors are least active. Naturally, there are fewer tweets during weekends. Moreover, 55% of their messages are retweets.

This highlights the difficulty communications directors face in producing original content outside their organization’s activities.

Differences between directors influencing multiple communities and those influencing just one

Some communications directors have influence across several communities (Stéphane Fort, Frédéric Fougerat, Marie-Christine Lanne, and Hervé Monier), while others are uni-community, meaning they hold strong influence in just one community. In the latter group, we also find directors with a large employee-based community (e.g., Axa & Orange).

CSR focus areas

Defined ecosystems

Here are the different ecosystems observed (described in more detail in the study on communications directors) including Owned (based on the communications directors’ followers) and Earned (based on those interacting with communications directors who have over 200 followers).

Methodology

To conduct this study, we compiled a list of 55 communications directors based on several criteria (CAC40 membership, high activity or audience, etc.).

This selection is not exhaustive but representative and sufficient to identify key insights and trends. Some roles may have evolved since the beginning of the study.