Social media 'becoming key element of presidential campaigns'

Category: Social Media

October 6th 08, 10:06

Presences on social networking websites together with a range of other social media initiatives are playing a key part in the current US presidential election campaigns.

Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have profiles and fan pages on Facebook and MySpace, as well as YouTube video channels and Twitter feeds, the AFP reports.

However, figures suggest that Mr Obama is ahead of his rival when it comes to the number of supporters the candidates have online, with the Democrat having 1.9 million fans on Facebook compared with Mr McCain's 150,000.

Mr Obama is also making use of a wider variety of social media channels, the AFP says, including photo-sharing site Flickr and social bookmarking service Digg.

Michael Malbin, executive director of the non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute, said: "The real Obama story is that he's using the internet as a complete campaign strategy, not just to raise money, but to raise a volunteer organisation."

He added: "No other candidate has ever integrated the full picture the way he has; that's what's really new about his campaign."

Recent statistics from Nielsen Online suggested that both candidates saw higher video viewing figures for their respective websites in August.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.

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