The Elections and Social Media

Each time more people are getting into social network (facebook has reached more than 500 million active users) and everything else on their lives too. Universities are on social media, your favorite singers are on social media, even news are there. The midterm elections that happened yesterday on United States proved that now, politics are on social medias too, and they are becoming very powerful.

Many candidates that were running in this elections had facebook profiles, publishing their intentions, news about their campaign, and even personal information that you wouldn’t normally see on traditional media. Some people think that this  is a good way of knowing better you candidate, and if you think he’s going to be your choice at the elections you may “like” their profiles.

That became a good way of predicting candidates popularity for the elections, and if someone doubt that social medias are an interesting tool here goes some data: The Facebook political team's initial snapshot of 98 House races shows that 74% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests. In the Senate, their initial snapshot of 19 races shows that 81% of candidates with the most Facebook fans won their contests.

As voting is not compulsory in America, the social medias also encouraged people to do it. On the election day, users over age18 were able to click an “I voted” buttom on their profiles and post a story to their Facebook wall telling their friends that they voted. More than 12 million people clicked it.

A facebook user wrote on the U.S. Politics page on facebook “It was the reason I went out and voted today. It was my first time “, and another one added “I have had more and better political allies on facebook and been able to speak my mind and share opinions than any other media option. It's a social network...not a socialist network”.

Google and twitter have also participated on this process. The first one created Election Center, which most notably has a map that pinpoints the polling place nearest to any address and at the second one you can Follow different sides of the conversation by checking out Twitter feeds from the Democrats (@thedemocrats), the Republicans (@gopconference), the Tea Party (@TPPatriots) and some candidates.


Kyrian Mello