My grandfather told me once, "never talk politics because it will only lead to many arguments and consequently ruin friendships and relationships – plus, you can never win." Maybe that’s why I’m not a strongly enraged political debater. Who knows? That being said, this post is not about Liberalism, Conservatism or anything in between – so don’t worry – I’m not pushing an agenda. It is, however, about how many politicians are finally wising up to the power of social networks.

The rise of social-networking sites is making the controlled, broadcast-style way of doling out political information totally obsolete.

Tom Gerace of Gather.com was quoted in this InfoWorld article saying:

“If you just play in the traditional media, you’re missing most of your audience today – not 10 years down the road, but today." 

Wow. Please excuse me for mixing religion and politics here, but I only have a one word response to that: AMEN!

Over the past few months, candidates have vowed to use the power of the Internet to communicate directly with voters. Internet and technology-savvy young potential voters – like MySpace’s audience of teens and young adults – are usually notoriously hard to reach.

Now, we see the birth of MySpace Impact, a channel on the popular site that allows this cherished demographic to “learn about the candidates and their stance on the issues that are most important to you, and to find out how you can show your support.” Oh yea, you can register to vote on the site as well.

Does this work? Well, Legacy PR “experts” specializing in traditional communication methods for an increasingly inattentive public hate the measurement thing. They always have. At AgencyNext, we like results and stats. So, let’s look at some metrics, shall we?

After doing a little research, I found some stats for one web page of a particular candidate one month after the site was launched:

70,000 members signed up
4,000 blogs were started
3,000 fundraising pages were created
2,400 groups were formed

You can be the judge.

A wise man once said - “Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.” While this still remains true, it looks like social networks are redefining the dexterity needed to use those objects.

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