In this age of Twitter and Facebook, there are politicians out there who are using social media as an integral part of their communications strategies.
They're just not running for office in Burnaby.
Ask Peter Chow-White, professor of communications at Simon Fraser University, for his assessment of social media use in this Burnaby election campaign, and his first response is this: "Quiet."
Not to say that local politicians are behind the times - but, well, maybe they are.
"I feel like I'm looking at 2000, 2002 right now," Chow-White says. "It feels like Burnaby hasn't quite caught up."
On a broader scale, social media use has increased enormously since the last municipal election, in 2008, when there was barely a tweet to be heard.
"What's new about Twitter this year is it's become the social media communication avenue of choice," Chow-White notes.
But that trend tends to hold more true at higher levels of government, with federal and provincial politicians having embraced the idea that social media needs to be a part of their communications strategies.
To a large extent, Chow-White notes, how extensively politicians are using social media depends upon their constituency and which media is the most effective way to reach that constituency.
"In Burnaby, the Burnaby NOW becomes and important place to be seen," he notes.
Which isn't to say that Burnaby candidates are completely invisible.
Some local candidates are on Twitter. Chow-White mentions Carrie McLaren of the Greens and Harman Pandher of the BCA as two of the more active and visible presences, and I'll add to that list Jim Favaro and Jeff Kuah of TEAM Burnaby.
But, with the exception of McLaren - who is an established presence on Twitter - the others are new arrivals and still, at this moment, facing very low follower counts. Thirty followers, or sixty, isn't going to take a candidate far in getting their message out.
The same is true for the parties in Burnaby. TEAM Burnaby, the Burnaby Citizens Association and the Burnaby Greens all have Twitter feeds - but, with 40, 25 and 153 followers respectively, the impact of their tweets is relatively limited.
What most of them are still missing out on is the chance to use Twitter as not just a way of disseminating their own publicity but a way of interacting with voters.
Chow-White points out that one of the selling points of social media is that it offers an opportunity for voters to interact with the candidates and parties in the same forum that they're disseminating their message.
But he says that doesn't seem to be happening in Burnaby - when a candidate (or, for that matter, a reporter) posts something using the #bbyelxn hashtag, it doesn't generate feedback and discussion the way that similar tweets in the Vancouver race are doing.
"It says to me there's not a whole lot of interaction going on," Chow-White says.
My Twitter monitoring over the past couple of weeks convinces me that he's right about that. The one exception I'll make is for the Burnaby Greens, who are engaging in discussion on their feed - and for candidate Carrie McLaren, likewise.
"The Greens themselves are a little more forward thinking," Chow-White agrees.
But the general lack of interaction on Twitter between voters and candidates indicates that there's a demographic that's missing in this election.
"It says a lot of young voters aren't engaged for some reason," Chow-White says, noting that means voters in their teens, 20s and even 30s. "This can be a sign of leaving people out."
The same holds true to a large degree on Facebook. Many candidates have a Facebook presence, but most seem to fall into one of two categories: many friends and little action, or lots of action but few friends or followers.
All three parties again have a Facebook presence, but again, follower numbers are limited.
On the individual front, there are a few parties who are using Facebook well - I'll single out Baljinder Narang, BCA candidate for school board, as perhaps the single most successful example - but, as an overall picture, it doesn't appear that Facebook is a key component of anyone's campaign communications strategy.
Chow-White expects that by the time the next municipal election rolls around, in 2014, it's likely that the situation will be quite different.
It can't help but be with the speed that communication and media are evolving.
"The switch to social media in particular is quite akin to the switch to TV in the 1960s," Chow-White says, noting that mainstream media will still play a role, but social media will increasingly add to it.
For the moment, however, it doesn't look like a candidate's presence or absence on Facebook or Twitter will be a deciding factor in Burnaby come Nov. 19.
Then again, I've been wrong before.
"We'll see what happens in terms of votes," Chow-White says.
Just don't hold your breath for that brilliant tweet to be the make-or-break moment of the campaign in the meantime.
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