A Social Media Election?
By @AbbeyNiezgoda
November 2nd is long gone. The Republicans have taken control of the House and gained solid ground in the Senate. The President is frowning at the “shellacking” that occurred during the midterm elections. It was a loss for the majority, and a long night for Democrats, but there was a bi-partisan victory that happened on election eve, and that was for social media.
Gone are the days of walking out of the voting booth and proudly putting the “I voted” sticker on your sweater. Why would you when you can add the “I voted” button to your Facebook? 12 million users did just that this year, a number that’s doubled since 2008. The world’s largest social network also helped analysts find out which types of people were voting and at what time they were hitting the polls.
But for those of us who aren’t analyzing democracy, Facebook can also predict the results. While tracking nearly 100 tight races for House seats, 74% of the candidates with the most Facebook fans ended up winning. And in the Senate, 81% of candidates with more Facebook popularity scored the seats.
So while the 2010 elections may have ended badly for Democrats, it also broke web traffic records. Besides checking into a polling location on Foursquare (to get the I Voted Badge of course!) and using your campaign toolkit on Google Election Center, you can tweet about it all and maybe change the face of democracy along the way. Not bad for a day’s worth of social media.
(via @mashable)
