Study Finds Most Social Media Users are Registered Voters

Courtesy of AdAge

Here is an interesting fact:

88% of social media users are registered voters, according to a new study by Digitas, a digital agency based out of New York, and as reported by AdAge.

This again underscores the important role that social media will play in the 2012 presidential election, as Obama tries to recreate the success he had in the medium during his 2008 election and the Republicans try to reach the same level of success.

While may seems significant to some, others are skeptical of how much this matters, noting that the bigger challenge is getting these users to actually vote.

Yet, the Census Bureau notes that 85-90% of registered voters do actually vote when it come to presidential elections.

Social media played a huge role in Obama’s campaign and as the medium has grown popularity and been further integrated into our daily experiences in the last three years, so too we should expect its influence to increase in the coming election.

After all, according to an August 2011 study by the Pew Research Center, 65% of U.S. adults now use social networking sites.

This means that social media users, who are also registered voters, account for over half of the U.S. population.

And yet despite the explosion of growth that social media has seen, and the numbers of registered voters who are using the medium, 40% of those users don’t expect candidates to have some kind of social presence.

It seems ludicrous that a candidate would not have some sort of a presence and I doubt that any candidate would be so foolish.

The question then, is how the candidates will use the ever-changing medium and who will find a way to connect most successfully with voters this time around. 

Obama has the upper-hand as the seasoned social media veteran, but as platforms are constantly changing there is always a chance for someone to come in and upstage him.