Twitter tsar or a step too far?

The news that Labour MP Kerry McCarthy has been given the job of improving the party's use of innovative tools such as Twitter and Facebook underlines just how seriously political parties are now taking the social media revolution.

Clearly, the ability of social media tools to reach out to prospective voters, particularly in the younger age bracket, through multiple channels of communication has not been overlooked. Indeed, whilst I feel that traditional doorstep canvassing sessions are still very much here to stay, the emergence of such technologies as crucial to the election winning formula cannot and should not be underestimated.

In conjunction with this, organisations are increasingly waking up to the benefits of multichannel communication to excite prospective customers, announce major contract wins and keep the internal workforce up to speed with industry trends.

A step too far? Nonsense. After seeing countless first-try blogs transform into powerful media outlets with armies of readers and previously unknown Twitter users becoming cult hits, I can confirm that social media is here to stay. 

For now, I’m eagerly awaiting the appointment of the first Lord of LinkedIn and Secretary of State for YouTube, just two appointments that may not be so far away.