Obama and Romney are both using Social Media, but one candidate has proven to be much more successful in his efforts. Obama has over 28 million Facebook "likes" compared to Romney's seven million. Obama also has over 20 million Twitter followers, which is a commanding lead over Romney's 1.6 million. The social media aspect is used a lot to inform voters of how the candidates feel on issues and just tell them in general about themselves and their campaign. While there is no relationship found between young voters and social media leading you to vote democratic, there is a link between young voters that use social media voting for the republican candidate. I feel that the younger generation is more of a republican generation and the use of social media is a big move for the candidate to drum up some votes.
The idea of social media is only there to help. I feel as if the idea of social media can not really hinder your efforts to gain support if you stick to the issues that are important. On the other hand, I do think that the use of social media can help you gain votes. the younger generation is stuck to their computers and it is so easy for them to read up on a candidate. Facebook and Twitter allow them to compare and contrast the candidates and eventually decide who they think should run this country.
In past campaigns there has been little social media used because social media just hit the scene during the last election really. I can see how Obama has the lead in Facebook "likes" and Twitter followers because he has been our president for almost four years now, and Romney is just breaking onto the scene. This is partially the reason I think the past president running for reelection will most likely always have the edge in social media because of the four years of support prior to the election.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/22/obamas-big-social-media-edge-will-it-affect-the-election/
http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Social-media-has-key-role-in-12-election-3843166.php
http://docs.rwu.edu/honors_theses/4/
I love that fact that Romney and Obama have social media accounts. They are constantly (or whoever is actually running the site) posting other links to click on so that I can get more information other than what I can see on the character limit. And I agree with your comment about Obama being in the lead for social media likes. He has been in the public eye for way longer so it's hard to actually know who is really the "King" of social media.
ReplyDeleteI was really surprised to learn that there was more of a link between young people using social media and voting republican! I wonder why that is, it seems to go against typical statistics for young voters. I liked your observation about Obama's number of followers and friends. I agree that it is highly likely that his numbers are skewed simply because he is the current president.
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