The political uprisings in 2011 which included the Arab Spring and the London riots, showed that social media is more than just a communication tool.
It has also prompted policy-makers to pay more attention to the use of social media, particularly by young people.
And as Australia heads towards a federal election, some experts say political parties should be stepping up the use of social media to try to win the support of young voters.
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Samantha Yap reports.
Online social networks like Facebook and Twitter hold the power to mobilise crowds.
To an extent, they can also help to bring about political change.
Activists have used social networking sites to organise and publicise spontaneous protests.
Sydney University lecturer, Laurel Papworth, says for example, it was used extensively by young people both before and after the London riots in 2011.
"The London riots were both organised by the rioters using social media, but then the hashtag "riot clean up" was used by the people who were cleaning up after the riots. So social media itself has been used for both good and ill in groundswell political activism on the street."
Laurel Papworth argues that if governments don't engage with people via social media they run a real risk of being what she calls 'culturally irrelevant'.
"Culturally irrelevance is extremely dangerous for governments because it's then that the community simply ignores what the government's trying to do."
Associate Professor Ariadne Vromen, from the Department of Government and International Relations at Sydney University, says young people are increasingly using social media.
With the September federal election approaching, she says political parties should be using social media to connect with young voters.
"Where young people are really important for parties, is their volatility in their voting behaviour. They don't identify with the party as being about them. So political parties need to think about how do they engage with young people, how do they talk to them about the issues that matter in their lives and invariably how do they engage with them in online spaces."
As organisations, the Australian Liberal and Labor parties are currently roughly equally present on social media.
Both have around more than 40,000 likes on Facebook and roughly 25,000 followers on Twitter.
The Liberals' coalition partner, the Nationals, are lagging way behind, with only 1,400 likes on Facebook and 1,600 followers on Twitter.
The Australian Greens have more likes on Facebook than both the major parties - with over 47,000.
But the Greens have less than half as many Twitter followers.
Media and Policy lecturer from the University of Sydney, Peter Chen, agrees that political parties could be using social media to try to connect with young voters.
However, he says the parties shouldn't just be doing this during election campaigns.
"Younger people's votes are up for grabs in a way they might not have been seen to be up for grabs in the past. And certainly there is the potential to take voters who might have been in an electorate that traditionally didn't vote for a particular party and can put them to your point of view with a fair degree of active engagement not just during election campaigns, but throughout the course of a period of government or opposition."
Far more prominent on social media than the parties themselves are individual politicians.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has over 370,000 followers on Twitter - more than three times as many as Opposition leader, Tony Abbott.
As measured by Twitter followers, Kevin Rudd is far more popular- with over 1.2 million followers.
Australian politicians are also increasingly using YouTube to get their message out, direct to voters.
These include Independent MP Bob Katter, South Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi and Kevin Rudd.
"(Katter): We will be getting paid nothing for our work as we see foreigners take our jobs and don't think this will be confined to the iron or mines or the coal fields. It'll spread into every aspect of our lives and what's the benefit for us? There's no benefit for us. The profits go overseas. The wages go overseas...(Bernardi): Welcome to this week's episode of CBTV... the Cheif of the Emergency Services at Massachusetts General Hospital said 'this is the sort of carnage you expect to see in war.' Well that would be because we are at war, we are at war with terror and those who hate freedom and want to see the dismantling of Western values...(Rudd): I'm here with Sam and Alex, we're at St Laurence's College otherwise known as Lauries, here in Brisbane, and these guys come from my home suburb called Norman Park. They've just introduced me to this secret, secret handshake. It's the Norman Park handshake. Can you explain what it is guys?"
Politicians and governments in other countries are also seeing the benefits of making more use of social media to engage with young people.
Philip Thigo is a technology and development strategist from Kenya,
He's been helping to teach government officials his country how use Facebook and Twitter.
And he says it's proving to be an effective means of promoting democratic reforms.
"Young people now have the channels to actually amplify their voices and a lot of them are saying, 'We're already co-creating democracy. We're already innovating. We're already building scientific tools. We're already doing something.'"
Philip Thigo says he'd like to see governments take up the social media challenge at a global level - through the United Nations.
"There is a clear disconnect at the moment with how the UN is engaging with young people. The UN is not in the social media space for example. We have the phones, we have the tools. We don't even need funding to participate. Just open up the spaces and start listening."
