SNS and 2012 Mexican elections

After observing how the Internet was a key to Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, politics and the web 2.0 now go hand to hand.  Now, in the current Mexican presidential elections, we were looking forward to see how the candidates were going to use the web 2.0 tools to maybe replicate this phenomenon.  Sadly, this did not occur at all*.

The Mexican politicians wasted the big opportunities that the Internet provides for engaging audiences, creating networks and gaining voters, since they basically replicated the traditional marketing campaigns and brought them to the web: making promotional videos, doing banners, uploading photos to the Facebook fanpages of the candidates, publishing news on their Twitter accounts, etc., nothing new, just the same content poured into the SNS.  The only novelty, and not a good one, was the use of bots in Twitter, specially bots from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

During this election, all the presidential candidates had an average presence online during the campaigns.  However, this constant exposure without a strategic use of the web 2.0 tools can turn these tools against politicians, just as we saw with the PRI candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN).  The candidate was pretty confident about him winning this election before his gaffe at the the Guadalajara´s Book Fair, and the offensive tweets of her daughter Paulina Peña afterwards.  Along with more appearances and mistakes, the Internet gradually became a mocking channel of EPN for a few months. Furthermore, the incident in the Iberoamericana University and the resulting movement #yosoy132 started to worry EPN's team in regards of the Internet and the impact that SNS have in creating or destroying personalities and reputations, thus, in diminishing his lead over his rivals.

What we can rescue about this experience are the communication channels produced online in order to follow the elections or the websites created to observe the online reputation of the candidates.  Moreover, the social mobilizations coordinated through social media lead to the first online debate between candidates and citizens  in Mexico.

This election opens opportunities for both the politicians and the citizens in different areas. With the exponential growth of the networks, the engagement  and number of potential voters can be amplified.   Moreover, a correct use of the Web 2.0 tools and a crisis management plan for social media can prevent a serious damage of online reputation.  Additionally, the candidates themselves must learn to use these tools in order to communicate with younger generations that might be apathetic and disappointed with politicians, but are 24/7 online.

* The growth of internet users in Mexico is quickly accelerating, being Facebook, YouTube and Twitter the most used social media sites (SNS). Thus, the Internet and SNS could have been key subjects for the candidates campaign strategies.  We must not forget, however, that unlike the American population during the Obama’s campaign, the majority of the Mexican population has no access to Internet, and the mainstream media companies are still the most important source through which people receive their information.