VANCOUVER - It's been four years since British Columbians last went to the polls, when Facebook and YouTube were still in their infancy and long before most people even knew what a Tweet was.
But with the campaign about to begin for the May 12 election, political parties and other groups have already started on the virtual hustings, setting up social-networking accounts and producing low-budget ads designed to get out the vote.
The two main political leaders -- Premier Gordon Campbell and NDP Leader Carole James -- have Twitter accounts, many candidates have joined Facebook and online ads are already popping up.
While most B.C. politicians are new to online electioneering, it's a phenomenon that's growing with every civic, provincial and federal campaign waged across the country.
"It's a necessary marketing tool these days for anything, and because of that, political parties and interest groups are crazy if they don't use it," says Kathy Cross, who teaches about political communication at Simon Fraser University.
"As people's interest in news, especially with young people, switches over to the Internet, then there's more creative use of it."
B.C. politicians say the web figures prominently in their campaign plans, as they try to mobilize supporters and get their messages out to possible converts.
Along with social networking and video-sharing websites, parties are encouraging supporters to forward news releases and announcements to their friends, send questions to their candidates and participate in what the Liberals are calling "digital town halls."
If they aren't online, says Cross, politicians run the risk of seeming out of touch.
But at the same time, they can appear inauthentic or even boring if they aren't using the web or social-networking sites in the way seasoned -- and often young -- Internet users do.
"They know they need to have a Facebook page, but when there's no socially networked content, then it looks a little out of place," says Cross. "That's not using it to its full potential, and of course (it's) giving it the opportunity to be ridiculed by people who are Internet savvy."
Stephen Harper's Facebook profile, for instance, includes a long biography written in the third-person and mostly contains links to government or Conservative party websites.
Barack Obama, who has been held up as the gold standard in online campaigning, posts video messages and filled out the interests in his profile, listing his favourite movies and TV shows. While it might not be written by Obama himself, Cross says it looks more like an average user's Facebook page -- and that makes it more effective.
In B.C., James apparently dictates her own Twitter posts to a staffer, who then puts them online for her, but they are mostly predictable partisan attacks against the premier.
Campbell, on the other hand, takes a more personal approach, posting about things like how much fun he had at the Juno Awards and rarely mentioning politics.
Gerry Scott of the NDP says the party will be expanding its online presence during the campaign. He says the web is a way to reach a broad range of potential voters, from young people to seniors.
"All the different aspects of online campaigning are certainly getting bigger and more intense," he says.
"It's not as slow to do, it's not as expensive to do, and it's a little less formal, a little less polished."
Third-party organizations such as unions and business groups are also moving online, in part because new restrictions on advertising spending in B.C. have made cheaper Internet advertising more attractive.
For example, a website called Vote Smart BC, run by a group representing family-run construction businesses, has been trading shots with the NDP.
Vote Smart released an online video featuring an NDP lawn sign hiding under a paper bag, supposedly reflecting embarrassment about previous NDP governments. The NDP countered with its own online video attacking the organization.
And a local branch of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union produced a crass YouTube ad that lists a number of over-the-top claims such as "Gordon Campbell eats children" and "Gordon Campbell tried to kill your grandma."
A narrator says those might be a little harsh, finally settling on "Gordon Campbell hates you."
The ad quickly spread through blog posts and forwarded email, and traditional media quickly picked up on it, giving the union a level of exposure that would otherwise be very expensive.
"It was done deliberately to be provocative to draw attention to it," says union president Andy Ross. "Your message has to be a little edgier and a little quirky to make it stand out from the mass of the other stuff."
