Matignon wants to continue his digital monitoring. The Government Information Service (SIG), in charge of executive communication, has published a call for tenders for early 2025, reports l’Informed. In fact, it is the renewal of a public contract already awarded four years ago, with the aim of finding service providers in charge of scanning social networks.
Until then, companies such as Visibrain, Talkwalker and Newswhip were responsible for uploading French publications to the main social networks such as Twitter, Instagram or Tiktok. The goal: analyze millions of posts to better understand emerging areas of concern. However, the budget is increasing considerably: from 2.8 million in four years it has increased to more than 5 million euros.
“Complementary tools for opinion studies”
With Tech&Co, the SIG specifies that it is a renewal “for a maximum of four years, of an ongoing contract, which expires on March 28, 2025.” The objective is to select service providers that carry out digital monitoring “for the benefit of all ministries and the services of the Prime Minister”, he specifies.
According to the terms of the tender, the request concerns “the making available of social listening and search tools and studies (social network analysis and online searches, editor’s note), to measure the impact on conversations in line to detect, analyze and measure concerns and expectations of Internet users regarding government action and current events in general.
Several rounds are planned, with the aim of following the dynamics of the topics discussed on social networks. For example, a service provider will be in charge, using algorithms, of analyzing highly commented content on social networks.
Another lot will be awarded to a “search listening” service provider. According to the information provided by the SIG to Tech&Co, the objective is to “study the most spontaneously searched keywords to enrich communication strategies.”
“Unguarded”
Also in this case it is a monitoring strategy used for a long time, using service providers specialized in the analysis of Google searches. Obviously, it is not about accessing the personal searches of Internet users, but rather the list of keywords most searched by the French.
This data is public and Google shares it with partners using its API, a programming interface that allows you to “connect” to their services.
Finally, one of the lots will aim to find a service provider capable of detecting “qualified weak signals to distinguish those that should probably be taken into consideration by public action.” That is, topics that are barely discussed on social networks, but whose dynamics show that they could gain momentum.
“There is no monitoring. The objective is simply to take the pulse of French society, as any government should do,” assumes a government source, also from Tech&Co.
Source: BFM TV