The traditional analysis of social media has consolidated the knowledge of a series of KPIs, by the experts, whose most common purpose is the drawing up of rankings of various kinds, such as the most viewed or most engaged posts, the most quoted hashtags, the influencers with the highest engagement rate, the share of voice compared between brands in terms of mentions, views, engagement and sentiment.

The project Instagrammable Italy was born with an innovative perspective: the use of social data as a "digital signal" to track and analyze the flow of tourists in a territory, in this case Italy. So, not the compilation of a ranking based on KPIs suitable to measure the "grammar" of the network, but an aggregate analysis of the digital traces left by each of us in the combined use of smartphones and social media, with the aim of revealing the movements and the preferred destinations of tourists in the Bel Paese, in this summer 2021.

The purpose of this innovative research was explained by Extreme CEO and founder Riccardo Di Marcantonio. "We wanted to structure a research that would go beyond the traditional analysis of the web and social media. We would like, with new techniques, to develop alternative methodologies capable of analyzing the network, adapting the study to today's contexts and therefore to an observation of data that allows for a better interpretation of contemporary trends. Only in this way we believe that we can give effective and performing answers to the needs of the market, which can no longer afford not to take into consideration what happens on digital platforms.

The research, is based on two enabling factors: 1. The first related to human behavior. 2. The second of technological nature and, in particular, related to the large availability of data made available by social platforms.

The project is focused on data related to Italy coming from the Instagram social platform, which due to its characteristics is perfectly suited to the objectives of the research: a) it is used by a wide and highly heterogeneous audience; b) it was created for sharing photos; c) it preserves and makes available the geographical coordinates of the posted photo (when available); d) it allows the acquisition of data through keywords and hashtags, then in a targeted and parametric way.

Through the social intelligence platform extreme weblive, in the between July and August 2021 400 thousand Instagram posts have been selected and collected, to which users have associated some of the most used hashtags to "tag" travel experiences in Italy. The selection of hashtags was based on statistical evidence provided by Instagram.

The 400 thousand geo-referenced posts, analyzed between July and August 2021, have been selected using a group of 24 hashtags related to travel experience in Italy to build a homogeneous and balanced data sample. With some methodological tricks, the data sample was optimized to allow tracking of people and their movements. The data have been processed in full respect of the privacy of the users who have published them and given the limitations imposed by Instagram do not constitute 100% of the data actually available. In this report we present the results of the project to be read as an experiment and in full awareness that the sample of data used cannot be considered fully representative of the population.

Distribution of presences on the territory

The map provides indications on the volume of presences on the territory, real users who have passed through a specific geographical area. The areas with a darker coloring show a greater overall presence of people. The data refer to the entire period analyzed, July/August 2021. The presences result capillary on almost all the national territory with the coastal zones great attractors of the tourism.

Virtual Presences

We know that each photo shared produces a certain number of views depending on the amount of followers of the account that publishes it. Therefore, followers can be considered "virtual presences" of a location, i.e. people who, although not physically in the place portrayed by the posted photo, can admire the panorama, the context and the details. The map here reported indicates the number of "virtual presences" distributed on the Italian territory between July and August 2021. The darker coloration and the larger size of the circle indicate a greater density of virtual presences.

Distribution of presences by region

The map represents the volume in percentage of presences detected, aggregated by region. The table shows the ranking of the regions based on the presences detected in the period.

The first macroscopic result is that most of the presences of travelers were recorded this summer, on the Italian coasts and in the Alpine resorts, those in particular of the northeastern Alps.

Going into more detail, the most visited regions this year according to "Instagrammable Italy" were Campania (almost 11% of the posts analyzed are geolocated here), Lazio (9.7%), Veneto (9.6%), Puglia (8.9%) and Lombardy (8.6%) almost tied with Sicily (8.4%).

Starting from the posts shared on Instagram and taking into account their geolocation, however, we tried to draw up a ranking of the places that have counted a greater number of presences and visitors, region by region. In the case of Campania, first in terms of visits, the bulk of presences is in Naples (a city from which 16% of the total number of Instagram posts tagged in Campania are geolocated), Capri (11%) and the Amalfi Coast (9% of posts published on Instagram from Campania are geolocated in Minori, 7% in Positano and 6% in Amalfi).

CAMPANIA 10.8%.

LAZIO 9.7%.

VENETO 9.6%

APULIA 8.9%

LOMBARDY 8.6%

SICILY 8.4%

LIGURIA 6.2%

SARDINIA 4.8%.

TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE 4,8%

UMBRIA 4,5%

PIEDMONT 4.0%.

EMILIA ROMAGNA 3.6%

TUSCANY 3.5%

MARCHE 3,0%

CALABRIA 2,9%

ABRUZZO 2.3%

BASILICATA 1.7%

FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA 1.4%

AOSTA VALLEY 0.8%

MOLISE 0.5%

Engagement detected by region

The map represents the volume of engagement detected and aggregated by region in the sample of data selected and analyzed. The darker coloring indicates a higher density of engagement.

On the other hand, if we look at the engagement collected, behind Campania, always firmly at the top, there are other regions, such as Tuscany (9.2%), while Lazio and Veneto are second to equal (both 8.5%), followed immediately by Puglia (7.9%).

CAMPANIA 13.1%

TUSCANY 9.2%

LAZIO 8,5%

APULIA 7.9%

VENETO 7.9%

SICILY 6.8%

LOMBARDY 6.7%.

LIGURIA 6,3%

UMBRIA 6.1%

TRENTINO ALTO ADIGE 6.2%

SARDINIA 4.8%.

PIEDMONT 3.8%.

CALABRIA 3.0%

MARCHE 2.3%

EMILIA ROMAGNA 1.9%

ABRUZZO 1.8%.

BASILICATA 1.3%

AOSTA VALLEY 1.3%

FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA 0.8%

MOLISE 0,3%