The social communication of Regions and presidents, Lombardy and Roberto Fico in first place

Lombardy it is still the best among the Regions in terms of institutional communication. For the fifth consecutive year, the analysis that DeRev, a strategy, communication and digital marketing company, carries out to measure the effectiveness of Regions and Region presidents on social media, shows an unchanged first place, but also a very compact top spot, with Puglia which returns to second place (where it was in 2023) and the Friuli-Venezia Giulia which faces third place with a continuous progression that, from 2022 to today.

In the queue, we always find Molise, Calabria and Trentino-Alto Adige which, although with small variations, in 2026, historically show a communication difficulty. In the section dedicated to the presidents of the Region, the 2026 report “loses” some of its historic protagonists who have completed their mandates: Luca Zaia, in fact, occupied the top of the ranking for a long time, as did Vincenzo De Luca in second place, while Michele Emiliano was in third. The analysis, therefore, took into consideration the successors, who are partly emulating the performances of those who preceded them.

Ranking of presidents

The president of the Campania Region, Roberto Ficoin fact, debuts in first place, improving De Luca’s positioning, as he does Antonio Decaro compared to Emiliano, placing himself in second place. Alberto Stefanihowever, begins his term from eighth position, leaving a space in the leading trio which is occupied by Eugenio Gianiwhich has always been close to the top of the rankings in recent years.

Data on users and engagement

In particular, Roberto Fico manages to reach the highest number of users (775,880), followed by Decaro (686,056) and Eugenio Giani (425,693), and stands out for engagement (16.69%), in this case followed by Alberto Stefani (5.3%) and Francesco Rocca (3.31%). The president of Friuli, however, leads the ranking in terms of penetration: with a percentage of 26.13%, Massimiliano Fedriga it is the one that speaks to the largest share of the population.

Growth and indicators

In the individual comparison, that is, considering only who led the organization both in the last report and in the current one, it is Attilio Fontana the president who shows the greatest progress, moving from 11th place in 2025 to sixth in 2026. The ranking is obtained on the basis of DeRev scorea score obtained from an algorithm that takes into consideration the main parameters of the effectiveness of social communication, such as presence and quality of coverage on the platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and

Strategies and communication

“The distance between those who communicate well and those who struggle depends a lot on the presence of a strategy – explains the CEO of DeRev, Roberto Esposito -. The top of the ranking is compact precisely because the Regions that lead it have chosen to invest continuously and methodically, building a relationship over time. This year’s data clearly shows that the institutions that are growing the most are those that manage to transform digital channels into coherent and continuous spaces for dialogue. Engagement, in this sense, is the signal of communication that truly manages to come into contact with citizens. At the same time, the report highlights how Italian institutional communication is still very concentrated on consolidated platforms and languages: this guarantees stability, but risks slowing down the ability to intercept audiences and information habits that are changing rapidly”.

Performance of the regions

From the results of the report which, like every year, took into consideration the official accounts of the Regions, excluding those of the regional councils, departments or sector verticals such as tourist portals, in the period between 13 May 2025 and 13 May 2026, the performance of the Pugliawhich recorded the most significant progress (from seventh to second place): five positions gained thanks to a marked improvement in engagement (0.57% versus 0.35% last year), an indicator for which it is now third in the ranking behind Friuli-Venezia Giulia (0.86%) and Sardinia (0.6%), while in 2025 it was in fifth place.

Follower ed engagement

Engagement is also a key element for other significant variations, such as the third place in the general ranking of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia: the Region led by Fedriga has always presented a good value from this point of view, which this year however is the highest among all those recorded by the regions. Furthermore, Friuli-Venezia Giulia also ranked first for follower growth: it gained 45,521 in the period considered by the analysis, followed by Lombardy (41,021) and Puglia (26,250).

Presence on social media

From a follower point of view, it is the Lombardy to conquer the record in 2026 (738,767 users), overtaking Campania which stops at 717,628. If we consider the level of penetration of institutional communication, however, the first five Regions that reach the highest share of citizens on social media are Liguria (17.98%), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (17.88%), Valle d’Aosta (16.53%), Basilicata (14.24%) and Abruzzo (13.52%).

Platforms used

Looking at the principals, only four Regions are present on all four platforms considered (Lombardy, Puglia, Liguria and Sardinia) and, in general, institutional communication continues to prefer consolidated channels and, in particular, Facebookwhere all the Regions and 19 presidents are present (with an overall total of registered citizens of 3.6 million for the regions and 2.6 for the presidents), which is constantly growing. It follows Instagram (19 regions present and 18 presidents), while on TikTok we find 4 regions and 10 presidents. Xon the other hand, despite being on average covered (15 regions and 14 presidents), presents a negative follower balance for both the Regions (-17 thousand) and the presidents (-3.8 thousand).