Presidential candidates focus more on SNS campaigning
By Lee Kyung-min
With only a week left before the May 9 presidential election, five major candidates are increasingly devoting their campaigns more to online efforts than off-line, Tuesday.
Using social networking services (SNS) is an ideal means of communication with voters, according to campaign offices, as each candidate can exercise full control over which stories to tell along with viewer-specific visual effects.
Campaigners emphasize strengths and downplay weaknesses of each candidate through SNS.
The candidates have dozens of campaign workers and strategists devoted solely to managing SNS accounts.
Frontrunner Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has 503,000 likes on his Facebook page so far. Every new post gets at least 2,000 likes and 1,000 new comments instantly.
Moon unveiled two maps, both called Moonsters, for StarCraft: Brood War, once a considerably popular online game among gamers in the 1990s, using him as a main component in the game.
The rather out-of-touch idea to most non-gamers drew huge popularity among those in their 30s and 40s who are nostalgic about their past love of the game almost 20 years ago.
Moon posted a Youtube video after holding a small group meeting, Monday, in a coffeehouse in Seoul with girlfriends and parents of men who are currently serving their mandatory military duty.
Moon also has
, a website that explains his campaign pledges in detail. The site goes into detail on pledges specific to regions, gender and socio-economic groups. More than 2 million have visited the site.
Ahn Cheol-soo of the People’s Party uses Facebook Live to communicate with voters, fully capitalizing on his past experience in which he rose to stardom among young voters after holding talks at universities.
Ahn recently live-streamed his street campaigns using a virtual reality (VR) technology called “Kang Cheol-soo TV 360VR” in Seoul, Daejeon, Gwangju and North Jeolla Province.
Hong Joon-pyo of the far-right Liberty Korea Party is also gaining traction by what could be considered pandering to voters in their 50s and older.
He recently gained a nickname “Hongca-cola,” a portmanteau of his last name and coca-cola, the popular carbonated drink, with his remarks appealing to older and conservative voters. His statement also drew popularity for having the same refreshing feeling of drinking a carbonated drink for them.
The nickname came after he said “Let’s not be ashamed. Let’s not hide anymore,” apparently targeting senior citizens who have been subject to harsh “ageism” for supporting former President Park Geun-hye who was removed from office following the massive corruption scandal.
He uses the same closing messages on Facebook with the catch phrase “The free Republic of Korea will be protected only after voting for Hong Joon-pyo.”
His campaign strategy is aimed at effectively offsetting an earlier controversy in which he was accused of conspiring to rape a woman by helping his male friend when he was a university student. Calls mounted for him to immediately withdraw the candidacy, but he stood firm not responding to what he called a “youthful mistake.”
Meanwhile, Yoo Seong-min of the Bareun Party, whose poll numbers are decreasing, is receiving major support from his daughter.
His daughter, dancing to a song after making a speech asking for voters’ support for her father in Sinchon, western Seoul, had 220,000 hits on Youtube.
Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung has posted new footage with new messages every day on her Kakao Talk account under the name of “Haru (a word translated into English as “daily”) Sang-jung.”
The friendly and personable image in the videos is appealing to voters who are used to seeing her rather strong, aggressive mannerisms shown in the debate.