Short answer
A little. While in government, a party's posts drew about 18% fewer interactions than the same party's posts in opposition.
What the evidence shows
- The study uses 660,307 posts from 109 official party pages in 16 European countries, January 2010 to September 2020. Fifty-six pages changed status, through 49 entries into government and 43 exits, and each party is compared with itself.
- The 18% fall (95% confidence interval 4% to 30%) was the same for the head of government's party and for junior partners.
- The difference between them lies in volume: the head of government's party posted somewhat more and kept its total engagement, while junior partners posted about 15% less and drew about 25% less in total, an estimate whose interval includes no change.
- In its first year in office the head of government's party drew no less than in opposition.
Caveats
Cabinet status comes from ParlGov, with corrections. The comparison is party-with-itself, but other things change when a party enters government.