Sankt-Petersburg, Russia, November 13, 2017: Smartphone with icons of social media on screen on green wooden table. Smartphone life style smartphone. Starting social media application whatsapp, viber, facebook, instagram, twitter, pinterest. Photo taken in Business center November 13 2017

As midterm elections draw near, lobbying firm PUBLiCUS Asia in a report underscored the use of digital platforms will play a vital role for candidates vying for seats, with Facebook and Twitter emerging as the third top sources of information.

In their 2019 Social Media Intelligence Report on the May 2019 elections, PUBLiCUS Asia said that 67 percent of a pool of 28,442 interviewed voters nationwide owned a smartphone, with 60 percent owning a social media account.

Users of Facebook and Twitter rely on these social media platforms about the government, leaders, politics and current events.

Television is still the voters’ top source of news on politics and current events, with a reliance of 86 percent of the interviewed voters nationwide. Listening to the radio followed.

More voters in the National Capital Region, at 27 percent, prefer to use social media as their news source rather than listening to the radio, only at 22 percent.

In particular, Facebook remains the country’s most commonly accessed social media platform, with 28 percent of the total interviewed voters nationwide accessing it more than five times a day.

The chunk is bigger in Luzon, where 52 percent of a weighted pool of 31,598 interviewed voters use the platform more than five times a day, while 20 percent access it three to five times a day.

As for importance, 40 percent of a weighted pool of 13,264 interviewed voters nationwide said that internet-based news is important for them, with 35 percent saying that it’s very important.

PUBLiCUS Asia said that there are 61,843,728 total registered voters for the 2019 midterm polls, with 55.9 percent of the nationwide voting population in Luzon.

Overall, seventy-six million Filipinos are internet users, translating to a 71 percent penetration rate, according to a global survey by We Are Social.

It added that over two million joined the top used platform Facebook since its 2018 report at 50 million. Moreover, 72 percent of the penetration rate are active mobile social users.

PUBLiCUS’ social media and midterm elections survey showed that Christopher “Bong” Go topped the 30 senatorial candidates in terms of exposure.

PUBLiCUS is a Manila-based political consulting firm with core competencies in lobbying, campaigns, competitive intelligence, strategic communication and capacity building.