Marquette, Marguerite-Bourgeoys and Verdun ridings

By Tracey Arial, August 29th, 2012

Will social media affect Quebec's election campaign results? In the ridings of Marquette, Marguerite-Bourgeoys and Verdun, it doesn't seem to be having much of an effect so far.
It seems as though several candidates initially thought that social media would be a factor in the campaign, but changed their minds soon after opening their accounts. Although 14 of the 20 candidates in the three ridings have Facebook pages designed to promote their visions to voters, most don't update them regularly nor have most of them drawn much of a crowd. Eleven of the 20 candidates have active Twitter accounts, but most don't tweet and only a few participate in conversations.
Robert Poëti, who's running for the Liberals in Marquette for instance, started a Twitter account as soon as his candidacy was announced. He's only sent a total of six tweets since then with the last one on August 3. His Facebook page is significantly more active, however, and with 88 likes, it features among the top in terms of activity. His opponent Jessica Riggi, who is running for the Parti Québecois, uses both Facebook and Twitter well.
In Verdun, Liberal incumbent Henri-François Gautrin has only 174 followers on Twitter but he shines on Facebook with 573 friends. Thierry St Cyr, who is running for the PQ in the same riding, has 777 followers on Twitter.
If there were a Facebook competition, François Ouimet, the Liberal incumbent in Marquette, would win, with 281 likes on his campaign-specific page. His PQ opponent Étienne Gougoux has only half that number, but his Twitter feed is six times as popular.
In this past week, even candidates who use social media regularly set aside those efforts to visit churches, seniors' residences and schools instead. All the candidates attended as many local community events as they could, including the sidewalk sale in Verdun, a Sikh barbecue in LaSalle and bicycle races in Lachine. They also spent lots of time going door-to-door, standing in malls and recruiting volunteers to poster, reposter and verify that posters weren't vandalized.
It'll be interesting to see if social media becomes more important to them now that we're in the final few days of the campaign.n