How social media is affecting the youth vote

Nearly half of 18 – 25 year olds haven’t decided who to vote for, according to a recent think tank report.

This generation’s values don’t pertain to the traditional ‘left’ or ‘right’. They believe in self-accountability for social-economic standing (very Tory) but are primarily concerned with living costs, affordable housing, unemployment and the NHS (traditionally labour).

While a large chunk of the middle-class and older people are distracted by smaller party policies, the youth vote is shaping up to hold crucial sway in the election – so long as they vote.

Politicians are long-established on social media (it’s rumoured David Cameron’s facebook page costs more than a grand a month to run), and YouTube ads allow American style ‘attack’ campaigns as it’s outside the law of tv political advertising.

But most parties simply spiel the same messages with near identical execution to traditional media on social. Nothing innovative is going on. What is interesting is user generated content. Packaged in a nicely digestible mash-up, this David Cameron rap has more than 5M views.

In order to avoid political bias, here’s a parody piece for Ed Miliband too.

And, for good measure, an autotuned Nick Clegg. Which reached no. 32 on the iTunes chart.

This is the kind of thing that goes viral – currently unachieved by any party. For many, user generated content is the primary source for political information as they ignore television, don’t own radios and are leaving facebook.

May’s election has been deemed the first social media election. As generation Y matures, and with all hope ignores Russell Brand’s advice on voting, they could well move the UK towards a more accurate version of democracy. On twitter, the people dictate the conversation.