Will Toronto’s Race for Mayor be a Social One?

Yesterday, the campaign to become Toronto’s next mayor officially started – a 10-month affair that will cost major candidates at least $1.5-million.

The big question is how much of a role social media will play in a race expected to attract a number of strong candidates. With union and corporate donations recently banned, Toronto’s mayoralty hopefuls must rely on individuals for financial support – something that may prove difficult given the economic conditions and the bitterness still felt by many voters over the garbage strike last summer.

Right now, the candidate with the most social media cred seems to be Rocco Rossi, who has an active Twitter presence and a Facebook Page with 5,101 fans. Of course, Rossi used to be president of Beer.com so you’d expect him to be somewhat Web savvy.

In addition to using social media to raise campaign money, another interesting angle will be if social media can do anything to get more people to vote. Over the past few elections, turnout has been an abysmal 30% to 40% so there’s a major opportunity to leverage social media to get out the vote.

So, let’s see which candidate successfully and effectively embraces social media in the coming months, and whether it will help a long-shot such as Rossi to post a surprising victory.