Politics, Social Media And The Digital Campaign Landscape [INFOGRAPHIC]

Collectively, President Obama and the Republican candidates have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns. The online advertising spend for this election has increased seven fold since 2008, with the bulk going into display advertising, email and paid search.

But it may be the candidates’ use of a relatively inexpensive medium – social media – that pushes them towards victory in November.

Barack Obama, of course, used Twitter to great effect in his 2008 campaign, and his tally of (almost) 15 million followers both places him amongst the micro-blogging network’s elite, and gives him a tremendously powerful tool whose reach and impact dwarfs each and all of his rivals combined.