Videos on TikTok, pictures on Instagram and posts on Facebook: the AfD is leaving the democratic parties behind on social media. An expert sees initial successes for the party.
The AfD reaches far more people on social media than the democratic parties. On some platforms it has ten times more subscribers than the traffic light parties, CDU/CSU or the Left. This is shown by an exclusive data analysis by AfD expert Johannes Hillje for “zdf today”. “The AfD has the most effective social media communication among the parties,” says Hillje. “Other parties not only leave individual platforms like TikTok to the AfD, but also the political emotions in the country,” said the expert. This brings success for the AfD, particularly among young voters.
On the video platform TikTok, which is popular with young people, the AfD is far ahead of the democratic parties in terms of its reach: According to Hillje’s evaluations, the content of the AfD parliamentary group was shown to around 430,000 users between January 2022 and December 2023 – per TikTok video. For comparison: The FDP There were around 53,000 advertisements on the platform in the same period. The remaining parties are even further behind.
According to the report, a similar picture emerges on other platforms: parties such as the FDP, Greens, CDU and SPD each have fewer than 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, while the AfD has more than 240,000 subscribers, more than ten times as much. Only when it comes to Instagram followers is one party ahead of the AfD in terms of subscribers: the Greens. However, in terms of the interaction rate per post, the AfD trumps them here too. At around 3.6 percent, this is about twice as high as that of the other parties.
First successes in the state elections
According to Hillje, the reason for the success of the AfD social media strategy is that the AfD politicians optimized their Bundestag speeches for social media and, above all, sent emotional messages through them. The party also relies on support from other real accounts from the AfD youth organization “Junge Alternative” and heads of the “Identities Movement,” who in turn distribute their videos. “These networks multiply the AfD’s reach on social media,” said Hillje.
In his opinion, the TikTok offensive in particular is already paying off for the AfD: “The AfD’s TikTok reach is its key to the young electorate. In the 2021 federal election, it only achieved six percent of first-time voters with an overall result of 10.3 percent “says Hillje. Since then, TikTok activities have been significantly expanded at federal and state levels, which presumably contributed to the better results among young voters in the state elections in Bavaria and Hesse. There, the AfD was 15 percent of first-time voters in Hesse and 16 percent in Bavaria.
