Janette Toral
Digital Filipino
I WAS at the Yahoo! Purple Thumb conference last Tuesday and gave my perspective on why social media matters in this election.
It is no longer news to all of us that most candidates today are tapping the Internet to campaign. When you look at sites like SocialMention.com, you will find candidates Senators Manny Villar and Noynoy Aquino on a close competition.
Former president Joseph Estrada can’t be ignored as well as he still has a lot of buzz and so does Gibo Teodoro. In fact, during the Yahoo! event, the former president’s spokesperson, blogger Margaux Salcedo, share their experience posting Twitter and Facebook updates. If you are curious on what transpired during the Yahoo event, I posted photos, interesting slides, and some snippets at http://meme.yahoo.com/janettetoral
The one question begging to be answered during the event was “will online social media really make a dent in this election?”
I think it will.
The total number of registered voters today is 50.7 million. We have an estimated 24 million Internet users and around 12 to 15 million of them are voters. Assuming 70% will exercise their right to vote, that is around 35 million. Then a presidential candidate will need at least 10 to 16 million votes, assuming it will be a tight race.
In that regard, the 10 to 15 million Internet users who can vote will play a big factor in influencing others. Even if you will assume that only 50% to 70% of them will vote, that is still a lot. In addition, the younger generation, which is half of the Internet user population, can still influence others even if they cannot vote. They can share information about the candidates that gets pushed to them.
I think whoever will be able to sustain a momentum online up to April 15 will most likely win the upcoming election.
That is why campaign managers, offline or online, should always figure whether each message or update that they post will either be searched, talked or written about and, more importantly, shared online.
Sustaining momentum requires more than just posting updates. Engaging in conversations will be important and I won’t be surprised when your candidates will really be more hands-on in using technology come late March and April just to make themselves more accessible to their target audience.
(http://digitalfilipino.com)