Gillard v Abbott: who's winning on Facebook?

In the past election campaigning was done via radio and television and while 'old media' is still important, there's an increasing effort to harness the internet and social media

Facebook friends – Gillard beats Abbott

There are over nine million Australians on Facebook and it's one of the easiest ways for voters to interact with politicians on the internet.

Julia Gillard has over 37,000 Facebook fans.  Gillard’s page reveals personal videos exclusive to Facebook fans, photo galleries from the campaign trail and messages to supporters.

Tony Abbott has just over 8,500 fans, he follows a very similar process, and gives fans a look behind the scenes on the campaign trail.

But Facebook has also opened our leaders up to ridicule.

Over 23,000 people are fans of the ‘Friends don’t let friends vote for Tony Abbott’ group, while over 28,000 are fans of ‘How the hell is Julia Gillard meant to run the country from her kitchen?’

However it's not only politicians who use Facebook. News agencies, lobby groups such as‘Get Up’ and the ‘Australian Christian lobby’ are continuing to use the medium to discuss, issues giving social media far more penetration.

Twitter – Gillard more followers than Abbott

Over one million Australians are now on Twitter giving increased scope for politicians to access the Australian people.

Malcolm Turnbull was one of the most notable early Twitter converts. The member for Wentworth started out talking about pets and trivial things, but soon he became the beacon for the new wave of politicians utilising the social media.

Malcolm Turnbull has over 22,000 followers

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has 26,390.

Joe Hockey has over 12,000 followers

Tony Abbott has 12,904 followers.

However few have the presence Kevin Rudd has on Twitter - a medium that requires politicians to squeeze their message into 140 characters.

Kevin Rudd has over 940,000 Twitter followers.

Beware of the fakes though. Anyone can open a Twitter account, and many people have, pretending to be who they are not. Here's a few:

Fake Tony Abbott 

Fake Julia Gillard

Fake Kevin Rudd

Fake Wilson Tuckey

Whilst their information may be misleading, they can raise a laugh in the sometimes dry moments of Australian politics.

You Tube – Labor in the lead

According to YouTube people are watching 2 billion videos a day. It is believed that every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to the site.

With this amount of people watching, the scope for spreading ‘the word’ for politicians is huge.

The Australian Labor Party channel has over 80 videos uploaded to it. There have been 187,134 views of Labor Party videos on YouTube - amounting to a lot of free advertising for the party.  

The Liberal Party channel  has 76 videos uploaded with 22,994 views so far.

Politicians are not the only ones on the YouTube bandwagon. Interest groups, lobby groups and unions, such as The Australian Workers Union and activist group Get Up, are all cashing in.

As political parties ramp up their social media strategies they're changing the face of how election campaigns are run.

But despite that we're likely to see plenty more politicians kissing babies on the evening news before this election campaign is over.