Candidates squander the power of the social networks, expert says

Santo Domingo.- For Web social networks analyst Melvyn Perez the candidates in the current electoral process haven’t adequately used virtual spaces for their political marketing, and lack proposals instead. “Despite the social networks’ importance to attract votes and promote the politicians’ platforms, they haven’t obtained adequate benefits.”

Perez, upon analyzing the political panorama in the social networks, affirms that the campaigns’ field teams focus on making noise and reveal decentralized strategies, which in his view results from a clear absence of leadership.

The experts said it’s so easy to make contact in the network, that a politician should be concerned with attracting new voters, convince those undecided or in the best of cases conquer those of his adversary.

Perez, showing candidates’ statistics in the social networks, stressed that few campaign field teams generate new content in Twitter, because they use it as if they were on a motorcade, repeating slogans.

The expert took part in the panel “Use of the Internet and the Social Networks in the Dominican electoral campaign 2012,” hosted by the Dominican Political Observatory (OPD) and the Global Foundation Democracy and Development (FUNGLODE).