One of the questions raised by lobbying campaigns made by citizen-driven organizations and civil society (above NGOs) is the possibility of evaluating efficiency. Researches on NGOs (Scholte, 2009; Reitig, 2011; Betsill & Corell, 2001) underline the lack of efficient strategies that are able to lobby the policy makers. In this paper, we examine methods of lobbying and procedures of communication used for lobbying and we propose indicators to evaluate actions able to define the efficiency of NGO campaigns

Why are some interest groups successfully using social networks for their lobbying campaign whereas others don’t? This article suggests that some actors are aware that social networks can be used in a positive direction to lobby their target. It also shows that some others are not aware of the dimension of those networks. In order to test the effect of social networks, this article draws on an unprecedented dataset of interest groups in the European Union. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis of more than 44,000 tweets through dedicated software, this article studies the success and the failure of several interest groups. The findings indicate that Intermarché, a French supermarket chain, failed to communicate with the general public, leaving scope to the NGO Bloom helped by a successful comic posted on the web. By doing so, Intermarché has won on the field of lobbying to decision makers in Brussels, but lost on the public opinion field. This is a clear case of an absence of social media strategy in a lobbying campaign.

L’espace public européen existe-t-il ? Si, tous les jours, nous avons les preuves de son inexistence pour les peuples et les pays, il existe bien un espace européen, non public, qui débat des questions concernant les Européens. C’est l’espace élaboré par le dialogue entre entreprises, plus largement fédérations professionnelles et membres de la Commission, plus largement les Institutions.

Le lobbying, la capacité de défendre des intérêts particuliers ou généraux face à des décisionnaires, est soit une atteinte à la démocratie pour la société civile soit une action de relations publiques pour les entreprises, fédérations professionnelles et structures étatiques.