The 41st Canadian general election was appropriately marked as the social media election, with the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as the most popular places for the public to voice their concerns.
A politician is now at a disadvantage if they lack a social media presence. Research done in 2010 after the U.S. elections showed that Facebook “likes” can be used to accurately predict more than 80% of Senate races.
So, how about now? The Social Election Experiment, an online research project conducted by Dare Labs and Optimum PR, is aiming to find out if Facebook “likes” are equal to real-world votes in our fourth election in seven years. The question of if and how social media affects politics is on the table. But for now, let’s have a look at the numbers.

61,000 People who “like” Michael Ignatieff on Facebook (10,000 more than Stephen Harper) 

1,000,000 Views on the Conservative Party’s YouTube channel (About 800,000 more than the Liberals)

565,000 Total election-related tweets at press time

74.6 Percentage of election tweets that were positive

1,400 Tweets about how Stephen Harper would stare past his opponents during the first night of debates

175,000 Number of followers on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for the Conservatives, the winners of the social media war

*All numbers are approximate, as of press time. Sources include: the Toronto Star, CTV, Politwitter.ca, Techvibes.com.