The election cycle never fails to see public spaces spontaneously fill up with political messages. Banners and TV advertisements are costly for the political parties, but now money is also being funneled into social media.
Yle asked the parliamentary parties, how much money they were spending to buy visibility on services like Facebook and Twitter. Some of the political parties said they’re investing only a few thousand euros into visibility on Facebook and Twitter. In contrast, the Social Democratic Party say they may even end up splashing out a six figure sum in the lead-up to the election.
Money can buy you love... or at least "Likes"
The SDP, whose 1.5 million euro campaign budget also happens to be the parliament’s largest, is a big spender on social media. Of the parties that revealed their funds earmarked for social media, the SDP spent most. Originally the social media allocation was seen as a normal element of the overall budget however, an apparent rise in “Likes”, “Shares”, views and “re-Tweets” has led the SDP to consider a larger investment.
“The share of the total budget was in the tens of thousands,” says party secretary Reijo Paananen. “But now that the results obtained are encouraging, it may be that we break the 100,000 mark.”
Paananen claims that SDP content has reached some 2 million people in the last couple of months, adding that it’s therefore a worthwhile investment for the party.
The National Coalition declined to provide information on its social media budgets. However, it’s unlikely that money hasn’t been pumped into gaining an audience on such channels. This is evident from the tens of thousands of views that were received as soon as the NCP released its campaign video on Wednesday. The Green League released their own clip at the same time, but attracted a lot less hits.
“We didn’t put any money into advertising that video. Since we have more followers on Facebook, it can be concluded that the NCP is mounting pretty substantial video advertising investments,” says Green League campaign manager, Kirsi Svir.
Social media expert: A small investment won’t be enough to bust you out of your bubble
Most parties’ social media budgets are quite modest in relation to their total 0.5-1.5 million campaign budgets – a few thousand to upwards of ten thousand euros. Social media organisation Kurio’s director Jari Lähdevuori is surprised at the small amounts.
“A 2-3 percent share of the cake is really very small, if you take into account how big Finnish social media coverage is today,” states Lähdevuori.
Economic researcher Taloustutkimus states that 66 per cent of voting-age Finns use some kind of social media service.
Lähdevuori suspects that being a scrooge when it comes to social media may backfire for some parties – if not in these elections, then in the future.
“A small effort may see the message remaining inside the party's own bubble. If you are trying to look for new voters, such an investment won’t allow it,” he says.
However, he also adds that money alone doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere. The message should be designed to suit the specific media and campaigners must be careful not to irritate those the very same voters they wish to woo.