As the election race warms up, we are able to begin to see the way the party leaders are using social media or being employed by it like never before. This must be the most analysed election in history thanks to the large number of folks monitoring every breath of all involved.
But does this help us decide on a winner?
Well up till yesterday you may have believed it was just a harmless stream of info that would do zilch to sway people either way, but when Brown shouted out the now famous ‘bigot’ slur, things got all heavy fairly quickly.
It was repeated across the net in record time and shortly millions of men and women knew exactly what had gone on. The way news is now distributed means we don’t have to hang about for the daily paper – we can get it straight away, much to the chagrin of our hapless leaders.
Of course, this may all be used for precisely the opposite because excellent news can also spread quickly – it is not as tempting so you’ve got to try harder.
David Cameron has attempted and some say succeeded ( many say failed ) by creating his series of ‘Webcamerons’. Horrible (maybe he should have got some seo training first?). But at least he’s trying and anyway, do we’d like our leaders to interact with us in this way?
There are many that say they should stick to what they’re doing best and leave social media well alone instead of fail and embarrass themselves, but there is a growing swell of opinion that if they need to engage with the populous, they should embrace new technology and all that it brings.
My private opinion is that they should indeed do this, but only when they learn when to talk and when to close up.
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