Social media in an election year

Vote for me! For who? For what? Precisely! It's election time folks, so join us for an exciting evening of social media-savvy politicians who will talk the place of social media in campaigning and democracy. How do they see it working for them? More importantly, how do they see it working for us, the prospective voter? Will we see more of them and their fellow party members on Twitter and Facebook? Come along and find out from our awesome panel.

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Panel

Jacinda Arden

Follow @JacindaArdern

Tweet to @JacindaArdern

Auckland Central Labour MP whose twitter bio says she won't tweet what she had for breakfast but we’ve discovered she will tweet about lunch.

First tweet: "learning to use twitter and eat lunch simultaneously. hope i can get the food off my screen!” (March 2009)

First Facebook update: Campaigning amongst Expats

Gareth Hughes

Follow @GarethMP

Tweet to @GarethMP

Green Party list MP who was once arrested dressed as Ronald McDonald. Likes scuba diving. His twitter motto is "Connect, construct, contribute". First tweet: "I'm on Twitter! Woohoo!" (March 2010)

First Facebook update: Good causes sometimes call for embarassing costumes

Vikram Kumar

Follow @vikram_nz

Tweet to @vikram_nz

Well the Internet party has yet to be registered but it certainly has a lot to do with the internet. And so does Vik. Before joining the Internet Party he lead Mega and before that it was Internet NZ. That’s a lot of internet. So we invited him along.

First tweet: "Goodbye Yammer, hello Twitter" (June 2009)

Scott Simpson

Follow @ScottSimpsonMP

Tweet to @ScottSimpsonMP

Scott’s one of National’s newest MPs to join Twitter. He tweets a lot of photos proudly showing all the exciting things happening in his Coromandel electorate, like the new L&P flags in the streets of Paeroa and visits from Whangamata-bred World Junior Surfing Champion Ella Williams.

First tweet: Hello Twitter.... Looking forward to getting to know you (Dec 2013)

First Facebook status: Scott Simpson is marching against the Electoral Finance Act on Sunday (Mar 2008)

Latest from Facebook

Mia Garlick

facebook.com/mia.garlick

Follow @miakgarlick

Tweet to @miakgarlick

Mia is the head of policy for Facebook in Australia and New Zealand and will talk about the role that social platforms like Facebook play in elections.