The first proper ‘Social Media’ General Election

There are three weeks to go and already there have been almost 6000 tweets using the hashtag ‘#GE 2015’ from the  2532 candidates who are standing at the May elections who use Twitter as a way of engagement.

Watch this space! These tweets are going to be coming at you from the candidates, parties, bloggers, print and broadcast media and journalists in a predictable maelstrom over the next three weeks – all looking to influence your decision or give you the facts that will make you say ‘yay or nay’ to who governs the country.

Currently, Labour has the most candidates tweeting (569), followed by the Conservatives (504), Lib Dems (387), Greens (373), and UKIP (266)

The 7 way leaders debate has been the most reported event of the campaign so far on social media – journalists tweeted about it 10,735 times on the day alone.

Even the BBC presenter Andrew Marr has relented and joined Twitter, you can follow him @AndrewMarr9

In Scotland of course the landscape is different. The SNP seems set to send up to 40 MP’s to Parliament and social media has spearheaded this push. The First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP has been a great adopter of social media – readily hosting Q&A sessions on Facebook and both she, her party and her ministers are using Facebook and Twitter to great effect.

Some may even say that the SNP’s election battle has its foundations in social media more so than the mainstream media, because the reach and penetration to shape opinion has been fast and furious. Many commentators will state that this surge of pro-activeness is helping to give the SNP an upper hand in the run up to the election.

This General Election, social media has come of age. We wait with anticipation to see how many tweets ending in #GE2015 will be fed across the Twittersphere in the course of the next few weeks.