Ghana 2012 Elections: How our politicians can use social media and the internet to reach larger audiences

As we get into the thick of our elections, it is important for political parties and groups understand and implement online strategies that can help build fame and acceptance for their candidates.

Creative people are some of the first set of people to understand the true power of the Internet. Take YouTube for example. Since its inception, music mega-stars like Justin Bieber and Psy, the man behind the latest music and dance craze Gangnam class, have used the power of Youtube to connect to a worldwide audience.

In the same vein, Ghanaian politicians can use Youtube to share information, knowledge and experiences in ways that were never before possible. YouTube is a truly 21st-century platform for political engagement, breaking down traditional barriers by connecting voters around the country with both incumbent and aspiring government leaders.

Here are 3 crucial reasons why every political party should maintain a strong YouTube presence:

1. Numbers: In 2011 alone, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views -- that's almost 140 views for every person on earth, with 4 billion of those views delivered per day. This presents an opportunity for politicians who constantly need to communicate their vision to large numbers of voters.

2. Reach: In addition to helping to reach large numbers of people, the YouTube platform will help politicians connect to more people across different countries. This is particularly useful to countries where a large number of nationals reside or travel abroad.

3. On demand: Because traditional TV operations are governed by schedules that determine what viewers see at every time of the day, YouTube content is always available throughout the day. So even in the case where most people miss the live broadcast, they can always go back to see the video. Here are three things to note when working on your YouTube campaign:

Build your audience by engaging them: The most successful user constantly say that the more they interact with the YouTube community and create videos in a dialogue with their audience, the more views and subscribers they get. Converting viewers into subscribers is the key to wider distribution -- it's a solid base of thousands of views for any newly-released video -- which is why the most-viewed user partners on YouTube tend to be the ones with the most subscribers (and ultimately make the most money). To increase subscribers, upload responses to other popular videos, request video suggestions, comment meaningfully on other people's videos, and add annotations encouraging viewers to ask questions and subscribe.

Use YouTube tools to maximize exposure and learn what works: you can also increase view counts by using free Youtube tools to program their channels strategically. Some users have used YouTube Insight to recognise the pattern in their views and decide when to upload new videos. You can use such waves of traffic to ride out their channel's momentum: surfacing new content to users on days when you have the largest audience accelerates your view counts at a rate more likely to qualify your video as one of the most popular that day or week. Simply uploading a bunch of videos in one day is rarely the best way to increase views; bulk uploads can turn off your audience, making them less likely to watch any of the videos you uploaded at that time.

Partner with others and cross-promote: You're not the only channel trying to find your way on YouTube. Team up with others who have similar content and overlapping audiences, and collaborate. Create videos together, have video-to-video conversations, and direct traffic to each other's channel. It works: tens of thousands of people will subscribe to both the channels.

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