Kevin Rudd social media campaign gearing up on twitter, Facebook and YouTube Getting strong now. Kevin Rudd lifts weights for breakfast television in a Kevin 07-style stunt. KEVIN Rudd is starring in viral videos, chatting with fans and virtually kissing babies on social media in what appears to be a digital publicity push echoing his famous "Kevin "07" Prime Ministerial campaign. A week after Prime Minister Julia Gillard revealed her plans to connect with female voters by showing her softer side on social media, former PM Rudd has been winning fans online by posting family pictures to Instagram and joking with voters on Twitter and Facebook. His growing popularity on social media could translate into a grassroots movement to win him back the top spot and comes as as Rudd supporters claimed there is a push within his ranks to challenge the Prime Minister before the end of March. In an election where both contenders are suffering from record low popularity polls, commentators say Mr Rudd's social media strategy could make the difference in the event of a Labor leadership showdown. Of the 20 videos uploaded this year to Mr Rudd's YouTube channel - a key publicity plank of his 2007 campaign - 15 have come since the January 30 election announcement, racking up more than 11,200 views. Clips of Mr Rudd meeting and greeting Brisbane shoppers, hanging out with uni students at a beer and lawn bowls event in Coorparoo and celebrating Chinese new year with a family yum cha lunch appear to be getting the thumbs up from users. One video shows Mr Rudd calling the NT News in response to a tweet. "Can't wait until you are back as a Prime Minister," commented one user, while another wrote "without Rudd, the Labor is gone." Mr Rudd has also been gaining popularity on Instagram, where recent photos of him larking about with Qantas check-in staff and Skyping with his baby grand daughter Josephine on an iPad have scored dozens of "likes" and positive comments. "Kevin the people of Australia need you to stand up and fight for us, please get the leadership back before we sink," wrote one user, while another commented "Time for one last challenge before September?" On Twitter, where he has almost 850,000 more followers than PM Gillard, Mr Rudd has been tweeting an average of 12 times a day, sharing photos of Josephine and daughter Jess, chatting with fans about Johnny Cash and choc tops and even wishing one 18-year-old a happy birthday. Senior lecturer in technology and electoral law at Queensland University of Technology Peter Black said Mr Rudd's use of social media could be seen as an effective way of positioning himself for a leadership showdown. "The strategy that Kevin Rudd seems to have to adopt if he wishes to become leader and Prime Minister again has to be seen as a grassroots movement whereby he's more or less tapped on the shoulder by the party rather than directly agitating for change," he said. So he's able to use social media to once again remind his colleagues in an indirect way that he is very popular, that there is a lot of support there and that he would be able to do better at an election than Julia Gillard. Social media is one of the indicators he is probably relying on to be able to build that momentum.