IMAGE MANAGEMENT OF POLITICIANS ON FACEBOOK AND CITIZENS’ ELECTORAL ACTIVITY
The functioning of politicians in the public space is connected with the necessity of building and managing the image, presenting opinions, views, reporting activities and building relations with the electorate in order to mobilise it to electoral activity. The key to success is to reach voters effectively. Among many communication tools available, the importance of the Internet and social media in particular is constantly growing. It takes over other communication channels’ functions and enables direct contact with the voter. However, in order to use the potential of the most popular social media in Poland – Facebook – and effectively manage the image, one needs to know its character and rules governing this environment. Unfortunately, politicians’ knowledge on this subject proves to be rather poor, which translates into the quality of their communication with voters. Research has proved that politicians who know how to use this tool achieve much greater reaches (regardless of the number of those entitled to vote) and build stronger relationships with voters, which translates into the electorate’s behavior during the elections.