From Twitter to Instagram: evolution in the use of social networks in political communication. The case of the elections of the autonomous community of Madrid 2021.

Political communication in social media is a vital element in any modern electoral campaign. In the early days, the use of any social network or even a website was the norm, however, nowadays, all candidates participating in an election must be present in Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For this reason, the aim of this research is to analyze the impact of the main political leaders that ran for the presidency of the regional government of Madrid in these three major social media. To do so, a quantitative methodology, based in massive data collection is used, allowing for a precise approach to the impact of every candidate account in the studied social media platforms. As an initial conclusion, it can be highlighted that, even if Twitter is the preferred social media platform by politicians, Instagram is the one favorite by users.