For the purposes of this analysis, Pikasa monitored the official pages on social media of the candidates in the local elections in Albania, especially from the day the campaign started until the day before the elections.

This analysis, among other factors, generally shows that Social Media can be an indicator for voting preferences compared to audience reactions on the posts shared on the candidates' official pages.

An indicator can be noticed that the interest of the audience on Social Media by avg. engagements per post matches in proportion to the votes preferences. This general conclusion applies in both cases, where current mayors or new candidates won the elections.

In municipalities where results were declared as "surprising" by the opinion, Social Media showed the opposite, i.e. the same trend as the votes (e.g. Tropoja, Shkodra and Kavaja's candidates).

Methodology

Pikasa used its analytics.live media intelligence platform to conduct real-time online monitoring of more than 1,500 media and thousands of social media channels in 6 countries of the Western Balkans Region (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and North Macedonia).

The analytics platform monitors media articles along with their respective penetration on social network platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok etc.) counting all types of activities and engagements.