Does social media help candidates in politics?

Help fo 587 000 fans on Facebook and 330 posted videos at Youtube was not enough to John McCain to become the president of the USA.

Help of 3 650 000 fans on Facebook and 1827 posted videos at Youtube was enough to Barack Obama to become the president of the USA. He had also Flickr, Twitter, Linkedin and all possible social network and services accounts.

There will be presidential elections also in Slovakia in 4 months. Let´compare the two most possible candidates in online space:

-> The current president, Ivan Gasparovic. He has no Facebook site and 8 videos at Youtube.

-> His rival, Iveta Radicova. She has Facebook fan site with already 7300 fans and growing and 11 videos at Youtube.

According to US model status Iveta Radicova should will win the election. I am not sure about it but definitely paying consistent focus on these services by posting speeches, react to fans or at least became a friend with them may bring additional % of voters. Today maybe only the minority, but those, which may decide.

If interested, another interesting politics marketing lessons you can find in Seth Godin´s post.