The UK General Election of 2010 was the first to be embraced by social media. The demographics of social media use then though was predomininately the 18 to 25 years olds. Since then more widespread uptake of social media by the general population will mean that there should be more coverage across the social media platforms.
The question though is have your local candidates embrassed social media? are you following them for updates? or are you following the parties as a whole.
Lets look at my local area of Woking to see what the state is.
For the general election according to the local council website see link shows that apart from the usual 3 main parties of The Conservative Party, The Labour Party and Liberal Democrates there are candidates for UKIP, Green Party, Magna Carter Conservation Party Great Britain, The Evolution Party and Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol (CISTA). I must admit that even though I keep myself up to date the last three are new to me.
As to be expected the main known parties have a full website and social media presence but what about the 3 lesser known parties. For simplicity I will look for a website, facebook and twitter account at party level.
Magna Carter Conservation Party Great Britain
Website: http://snobgoblin.com/magnacartaconservationparty/
Twitter: @tweetportraits no updates since Dec 2012
Facebook: none found
The Evolution Party
Website: none found
Twitter: @EvolutionPa2015
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Evolution-Party/1377555392551170
CISTA
Website: http://cista.org/
Twitter: @CISTA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CISTA2015
If I look at the current MP for Woking Jonathan Lord who is standing for relelection he does have a twitter account , i presume this is his account , its disappointing to see he has only posted 2 tweets.
It is quote disappointing to see the lack of social engagement. For the smaller parties this could allow them to reach out to the electorate on a regular basis and cut the cost of their door to door mail drops; though it does mean they would alienate certain demographics that a) do not have internet access; b) have internet access but are not socially engaged; they also have no means of knowing who in their electoral region have actually seen their infomation.
Presumably for the national parties there is also a party social policy to avoid gaffes with the consequence of party embarressment and potential deselection and job loss.
If parties want to engage the younger generation 18 to 25 year olds who are very socially aware then disregarding social media does not help persuade this demographic from being involved.
On election night twitter the election will be trending I am sure the main trends for the UK that nught will be majority election related. The hashtag #ELECTION2015 for starters will be one of the main tags and it will be impossible to follow the level of tweets on the night and with the naked eye is impossible to filter any relevant infomation from the mass. No doubt there will be data processing companies that will be monitoring many many hash tags for trends.
Will Election 2015 be a social success only time will tell