moreperfecteu.org

Robert, 19, discusses the benefits and challenges of the European Union.

Today we speak with a young university student, who studies psychology in Barcelona. We talk about his family background and his views on European identity, the Erasmus program, and accessing EU grants as a non-expert.

In our first research and demonstration project, we wanted to see if social media influencers could more effectively communicate to a targeted audience from their social media about EU initiatives than EU officials or their surrogates. The initiative: DiscoverEU, which gives away thousands of interrail passes to EU 18-20 year olds.

The European Commission manages and directs outreach. Apparently they used influencers this year. Most posts we saw topped out at 10 instances of engagement. Maybe you can find them: search on Instagram. Pls share!

Our post:
has > 200,000 followers on Instagram + TikTok in Catalonia only (pop. 7.5 million)
Views: 130,000 in 24 hours
TikTok: over 16,000 likes
Instagram: 5000 likes
Long is barely 20, very sharp. No post-grad degree

What explains our broad success?

We’re still analyzing results but we can reveal our simple approach:

1) We identified influencers with the most followers in our media market, 2) Ensured they didn’t endorse anti-EU values, 3) Hired the one we liked best. 4) Gave him the info, and he decided what to do - we aren’t viral social media influencers, he is. 4) He sent the posts, we reviewed and paid. (All the influencers quoted approx the same price: enough for a long weekend in a nice Paris hotel, not too fancy).

Lessons learned:

- You don't need a post-grad degree to be a successful influencer; or to be successful in many non-technical jobs; or to prove your insightful instincts.

- Most top marketers do not have post-grad degrees and (surely?) do not work at the EU. (Europe would fall apart without Eurocrats: full respect. But they don’t excel when they micromanage all projects in-house)

- Professionals delegate non-core projects to experts who work faster, better and cheaper, instead of wasting their own time and expertise.

We are not suggesting that France send nuclear subs to North Korea for annual checkups. Just that existing social media tools can improve exposure to EU initiatives. DiscoverEU gives the EU a good name. Let’s ensure access to all EU youth, not just privileged ones or those who attend university.

For a More Perfect Union

Today we speak with Enric, a Spanish grant writer living in Sweden. We discuss the lack of trust towards the EU among his peers, and his take on fads in innovation funding.