#YoSoyNaranjito or Make hay while the sun shines

On Thursday March 5 Rafael Hernando, PP spokesman in Congress, called for the “useful” vote for his party in a breakfast news show, alerting to “more or less fashionable” alternatives as the magenta party (UPD), the purple (Podemos) or “naranjito” (Spain´s world cup mascot) referring to Ciutadans leader, Albert Rivera.

These words created a reaction on Twitter under the hashtag #YoSoyNaranjito. The first appearance of hashtag corresponded @tomiguelalezcano with this tweet at 11:50:

@Albert_Rivera #YoSoyNaranjito y a mucha honra

— miguel angel lezcano (@miguelalezcano) marzo 5, 2015

At 14:05 it began to be a trending topic (TT) in Spain and four minutes later @AlbertRivera tweeted a photograph with a Naranjito, setting off an avalanche of tweets that become global TT.

It is a clear example of how to repel an attack on Twitter responding with humor, a really sensitive wit and irony media. After this avalanche of tweets I tried to deepen their propagation to see: who were the most viral users? Were the messages supporting or rejecting? How the time of publication and reach influenced the spread? And what was the frequency of tweets to become TT in Spain and globally?

Most users viral

Four of the ten most popular tweets were by @Albert_Rivera, which have been numbered from 1 to 4 in order of publication in time. The Top-ten to broadcast from 11:30 to 23:00 on March 5 were these messages:

1. @Albert_Rivera 1 (3.086 RTs)
2. @Albert_Rivera 3 (948 RTs)
3. @elmundoes (736 RTs)
4. @CiudadanosCs (710 RTs)
5. @Albert_Rivera 2 (670 RTs)
6. @Albert_Rivera 4 (626 RTs)
7. @A3Noticias (428 RTs)
8. @Santi_ABASCAL (374 RTs)
9. @lavozlibre (356 RTs)
10. @elpadrecorajede (327 RTs)
11. @SahlHost (271 RTs)

The following figure shows the spread of the ten most popular tweets grouped by hour (grouping by minute gave an unclear graph). We used the following color code:

• Orange: Ciutadans
• Green: Media
• Blue: Other parties
• Red: Critical Messages with Ciutadans
• Brown: Spam

The role of @Albert_Rivera is evident in spreading the hashtag helped by Ciutadans supporters. Only three media were among the ten most popular users.

Regarding the hashtag support or rejection of the hundred most popular posts, 69% were positive, 16% neutral (news) and 15% were negative.

Reach vs. spread

As will become the tradition in barriblog, represent the propagation through a timing diagram of the publication of messages per minute. The blue line shows tweets and the gray reach (calculated as the sum of followers of the authors of the tweets). Each of these values has its own scale. The reach peaks were tagged with the names of users with more followers who have published at that time.

In a first step the spread of hashtag was conducted between Ciutadans supporters, strengthened by RTs who performed @Albert_Rivera (11:55, 12:03 and 12:04 and 13:37). When it became TT in Spain, @Albert_Rivera tweeted a photograph with Naranjito. Fifteen minutes later became world TT. At this stage a great reaction on the reach is observed because the hashtag was coming to a very receptive audience the message both to support and to criticize. Also bear in mind the TT effect, which allows users who were not in the conversation to enter into it. In a second phase media appear with a huge following but the frequency of tweets drops. However, the media exert an indirect influence to publish the news because expanded the circle of knowledge of the hashtag. Proof of this is that during this period @albert_Rivera acquired 2,000 new followers (between 18:47 and 19:45). I have observed in other studies that Twitter users are more likely to tweet the news than to RT to a Media. In a third phase appeared Spam, always linked to TT appears.

I found it interesting to compare the spread of the media involved in the dissemination of this hashtag.The absence of @el_pais, @abc_es, @larazon_es, @20m, @publico and @diarioes.is noticeable The digital newspapers were faster than traditional media. It is curious that the spread of @lavozlibre with less than 5,500 followers is only slightly lower than @elmundoes with 1,66 million followers and almost equal to @A3Noticias with 855K followers. Further evidence that the reach is not enough to spread.

Trending topics

It began to be a TT in Spain when it beat a frequency of 100 tweets/minute and global TT when duplicated to 200 tweets/minute. It remained a TT In Spain all day even when it fell below 50 tweets/minute. However, it stopped being a global TT when frequency lowered to 100 tweets / minute

Conclusions

• The reaction came from Ciutadans supporters. @Albert_Rivera helped to spread the hashtag first with RTs and after tweeting a picture of himself with Naranjito and remained alert throughout the day posting messages or making RTs of the messages of others
• The media exerted influence indirectly by expanding the circle of knowledge by publishing the news hashtag. Proof of this is that during this period @albert_Rivera acquired 2,000 new followers
• Not all media participated in the dissemination of this hashtag. Among those who did, digital news was faster than traditional media. The media attention was not proportional to their number of followers. As always, the reach is not enough to spread
• It seems that at a frequency of 200 tweets/minute become global TT and remain at 100 tweets/min. Not too much
• Ever present spam, as a TT wherever it appears