Political Social Networks: Candidate Sites

Our politics and social networking series continues with a focus on the tech savvy candidates who have decided to host their own social network or work within an existing social network to communicate with their supporters. Perhaps the most well known of these is Barack Obama with his own network, but even unexpected candidates have harnessed the power of the social web.

Barack Obama's MyBarackObama network harnesses the community of the internet to power a grass roots online movement without being attached to an existing social network. He has chosen to offer a limited set of functions. I'm sure this makes the business of moderating and running the forums easier on his staff, but it somewhat disappoints the social networking “purist” in me.

On the Obama site you are able to organize fundraising campaigns, keep a basic blog, meet other Obama supporters online, post events, make groups and generally create you Obama “neighborhood”. All in all it isn't as if it is censored, it's just that your options are limited in how you can use the site.

Of course, I know how hard it is to keep a site running, with no down time, and to moderate forums and keep discourse civil is another insurmountable task. Even so, the candidates have to spend their time wisely on the campaign trail, and social networks are now part of the campaign trail, like it or not. That means that they have to keep their network laser focused on their message and their grass roots efforts and not distracted by petty bickering, which means a limited functionality forum.

Candidate Mike Huckabee has gone for a more DIY approach to social networking. Instead of creating his own, or even creating a larger group on an existing network, he has chosen to join other people's existing groups. He has spent a lot of time becoming a participating member of various social networking groups run by his core voting block, from gun lovers and site of the extreme right wing to groups run by home schoolers and tax reformers. His diligence in actual participation showed in the Iowa caucus results, where he and Obama placed in the top slots for their parties.

Candidate Chris Dodd found himself overwhelmed by the sheer number of accounts he had set up on existing social networks. This is a refrain the Profy community can relate to, with accounts on seemingly every social network. He and his staff solved his problem by signing him up on a social network aggregator to keep track. They chose aggregator MyLifeBrand and made his networks public there.

Ron Paul's campaign found immediate traction as the darling of the blogosphere. He has been active in a variety of ways online since he first started his run. Only recently has he added a social network aspect to the mix, however. You can see his social networking efforts at RonsPeople. And don't forget Rudy Guiliani in all of this. It may come as a surprise that he was an early adopter of the social networking benefits to politics, with TeamRudy.

Not to be out done, Hilary Clinton launched her own social network on the MyGrito platform, here. She joins Obama in having an openly bilingual site, though I'm sure the other candidates will follow suit soon, since the Hispanic vote is one of the largest “unclaimed” sectors of this election year. John Edwards has opted for the multiple existing networks solution, though he created a page on his site dedicated to finding him online.

Has social networking changed politics? Somewhat. I think the bigger changes are still to come. The main change has been to make the candidates and their views accessible to the masses. People who might not normally have read political news or paid attention to speeches and talking points are finding it easier to follow now that it is so easy to integrate into their already full online life. Huckabee and Obama seem to be doing the best job at translating their online presence into real world votes. Ron Paul's 10% turn outs have been a surprise to the candidate's supporters, specially in the wake of his colossal popularity online. However you shake it, those online rallying cries have to turn into real bodies to get results - we aren't yet into the age of the online vote, though we should be.