Bigot-gate and the role of social networks in the election

Social media is playing a significant role in the election; from increasing voter registration rates amongst the young, to driving traffic to the party home pages.

Gordon Brown’s unfortunate gaff yesterday – already inevitably christened 'Bigot-gate' – was the big political story yesterday. According to Hitwise's daily search data there were 400 distinct search terms containing the word 'bigot' yesterday; the day before there were just seven.

Read the full story at Hitwise...........

For a different take on the role of social media in these elections, read Labour's iPhone app mobilising supporters. In this article Simon Collister writes:

Those in the know are acutely aware that it wasn’t social media wot won it for Obama but rather email marketing. Obama’s team judiciously used huge volumes of targeted data to motivate voters ahead of polling day and mobilise them on polling stations. Data protection laws differ in the US from the UK and while no UK political party yet seems able to replicate Obama’s email campaign, Labour has been having some success with it’s iPhone app in identifying and mobilising voters.