“Using technology is important, especially in trying to engage the younger voters, but the old school method of ground work and meeting people still needs to be done if you want to have any traction with voters,” he told FMT.

He said campaigning on the ground was especially important when it came to canvassing for rural votes.

Noting that politicians on both sides of the divide had been talking about the rural areas as the key battlegrounds in the 14th general election, he said: “You need to use traditional ways of reaching out to rural voters. Yes, certain segments of the rural electorate are connected to the internet, but a huge chunk of them, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, are not.”

Faisal warned, however, that traditional campaigning methods would work only if the initiative had been taken long before an election.

“The ground work needs to have started well before the election year so as to create a grassroots presence and so that voters don’t think you’re just there trying to fish for votes,” he said.

“It needs to be done through the traditional methods, including creating new party branches and attracting new members. You could recruit members online, but it’s still better to do it face-to-face.”

Since these traditional methods needed to be initiated well before an election, he said, it was understandable that any newly established party intending to contest in GE14 would lean heavily towards using social media.

“A party like PPBM, for example, will need a lot of resources and a lot of time to create a presence through traditional methods. With the advancement of technology, it can speed up the process.

“If you have the technology to reach a wide range of people in a short period of time – although it might not be as effective as meeting people face-to-face – then you should use it.”

PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil said he agreed that being on the ground was still important.

“The reality is that social media alone – although it’s a very important part of the arsenal – is not enough for us to communicate with the electorate,” he told FMT. “We’ll still have to rely a lot on communicating face-to-face through events.”

He said PKR gravitated towards using the internet to disseminate information because Barisan Nasional controlled most of the traditional media.

“What is very useful about social media is that it gives political parties – or even people offering consumer products – direct access to the market. They don’t necessarily need to use television, radio or newspapers.

“I think it’s very frightening to the powers-that-be that they no longer hold the monopoly on information, and you can see the government responding by making threats against people it accuses of spreading so-called fake news.”