Online Public Relations Thoughts

News this morning that the Democrats lost the senatorial election in Massachusetts raises an interesting question. How much did social media help? Just before the election, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Republican, Scott Brown, had a more successful implementation of social media than Martha Coakely, the Democrat. However, when one looks at the numbers, the only one that stood out was the number of YouTube views. There, Brown sunk Coakely. He also outdistanced her in the number of Facebook fans although the numbers weren't as large. In an election, every vote counts, so it is tempting to use the social media numbers as a proxy for what happened in the election itself. It might be too soon to do so, but you can bet politicians everywhere have taken notice.