By Melony Roy

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The election season is underway and social media now plays a bigger role in how candidates campaign.

Alex Torpey, one of the youngest mayors in the country, was part of a panel discussing social media this week at the National Constitution Center. He successfully used social media in his South Orange, NJ campaign. But, why was it so effective?

“All the analytics of how many likes you get and how many RT’s (retweets) you get on twitter, it’s so scientific at this point. At the end of the day what I found was just that people were able to talk to me and we were able to have an honest, frank conversation and it wasn’t just filled with talking points”

Both President Obama and the presumptive republican candidate Mitt Romney communicate and participate in most if not all social platforms. The top three being Twitter, Facebook, & YouTube.