Social media in political public relations: The cases of the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Socialist Party (PS) in the 2009 parliamentary campaign

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how Web social media can be used in different ways to create more personalized or more impersonal messages in political public relations campaigns. When everyone is awakening to the potential of these social media for political communication campaigns, it is necessary to find alternative strategies to spread our word and distinguish ourselves from our competition. At this point, it is important to define the targets of persuasion and public relations; in addition, the manner in which a public relations campaign can be helpful is yet to be established, as well as the most adequate social media to be used.