Well I logged into facebook yesterday (for the first time in over 48 hours…I was due for a fix) and at the top of my News Feed was a sponsored block promoting the upcoming ABC Presidential debates which are apparently being co-sponsored by facebook. I would expect a standard sponsored News Feed item that we have seen rolled out over the past few months that promote upcoming movies or sponsored groups for brands like Wal-Mart and Pepsi, but this new semi-module was one of those promotions that only shows up every few weeks that users actually have to delete from the home page, it is not part of the News Feed so it remains static on the page until you remove it.

This means that, at a minimum, the 18.4 million adult facebook users in the US have now seen the ad (provided they have logged in since it went up) and surely at least a few hundred thousand of them followed the link to the application page, which I must say is actually pretty well made. It seems to me that ABC is getting a pretty good deal partnering with facebook…and it also seems that facebook is showing everyone that it can be grown up too. It might not be quite to the level that YouTube is yet as far as politics goes, but with the recent studies about people’s responses to candidate’s profiles, facebook finally seems to be getting serious about impacting the political scene in America. You only have to look as far as the “1 Million Strong for ____” trend that has exploded on facebook over the past year to see that users have been pushing the envelope to their peers and now facebook is doing its best to educate the masses…if this keeps up, my earlier views on the real effect of social media may soon prove to be antiquated. I hope that is the case.

The YouTube debates attest to the shifting demands of the younger voters, and so far haven’t really have a positive or a negative impact on any one candidate. (Note: the Republican debate is not scheduled until next month, so this might not be true after that) However, of all the other prime examples of social media’s impact, the outcome has been bad for the candidate in all but 1 example: The Obama facebook app. And of those negative outcomes, Giuliani’s and Obama’s mishaps were quickly brushed under the rug and forgotten about by the general populous. Only George Allen’s colossal collapse has had lasting effects on the political spectrum of the US: he had quite the margin over his opponent, but after this YouTube coup d’etat he began a swift downward spiral that lead to his defeat.

Despite all the buzz about the evolution of politics into a web-centric endeavor, so far the only real evidence of this comes from fundraising results and the huge amount of money that people are donating online. My guess is that more and more people are doing their banking, shopping, bill-paying, and donating online and this is just a natural shift of convenience for most donors. How many examples exist of a campaign really making positive change or causing a shift in real public opinion because of a movement initiated or propagated by social media?

If social media really has a huge positive impact of the upcoming presidential race, I’m wondering why we aren’t talking about the possibility of President Paul. Looking at any graph of online social presence, Ron Paul always comes in as either first or second. One of these graphs that I’ve encountered that I really like because it shows its own breakdown is this one compiled based on MySpace friends, YouTube subscribers, Eventful supporters, Flickr results, Facebook friends, and Digg pages:

I am a huge supporter of online social media and social networking tools, but I’m unconvinced about their effectiveness up to this point. There hasn’t been any evidence that Ron Paul’s huge online popularity has resulted in much of a real-world rally or surge in support. So far, campaigns have not used these tools as real campaigning venues but have instead resigned to use them only as a way for current supporters to show their support in an online world. The problem is that these people have already made up their minds. Sure, it is good to make sure that your supporters are vocal about their support, but the entire purpose of a campaign is to expand your support base, not just corral the base you have.

It is time for campaigns to branch out, grow their brands, actively pursue new supporters, and energize the ones they have. This won’t happen by more of the same-old-same-old. The buzzphrase in the blogosphere these days is ‘Openness’: whether this is referring to sites like facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Hi5 opening up their platforms to independent developers, corporate CEOs blogging about their companies (or just life in general), or the need for a portable online identity, Openness has become the battle cry of the web-faithful.

Along this line of thinking, it is time for candidates to open up. While I understand that candidates surely have busy lives: trying to run the country in Washington, while at the same time convincing a few million people that they should like you well enough to entrust the next four years of our country in your hands. Sounds pretty daunting…but when was the last time anyone so much as trusted a stranger to watch a cart in a grocery store? How can you trust someone with the country when you don’t know things like their favorite food or what color car they drive?

It might not seem like it would matter all that much what someone’s favorite food is, but after you learn that little fact, that person becomes a little bit more human in your mind. Candidates are people too, and it is about time that they started showing that to the world. Look at most candidates’ facebook or MySpace profiles and you will see that they are rigid, pre-canned compilations of a stump speech. I don’t think it would kill them to take 5 minutes out of a day and fill out their profiles by themselves…because I know that a candidate wants to fix Social Security, I don’t need them to include it is their ‘Interests’ section of a profile. I would much rather learn that one of them loves watching Olympic curling or some other obscure fact that I didn’t know before.

This goes beyond just profiles…Obama’s twitter updates read more like a press release than an insightful look at the campaign trail. Maybe I’m demanding a bit much, but it seems like he could take 30 seconds of each day to update on everyday life rather than a staffer throwing out the press event of the week. I will praise the Obama camp for at least showing up to the social media party…even if they are dressed a bit funny and don’t quiet fit in with the cool kids, at least they came out to say hello.

The bottom line is that campaigns are dropping the ball in the social media world and whoever picks it up will have the chance to really change the way we deal politics in America. That day is coming though it will be a long time before retail politics totally gives way to online identities, if candidates will put a bit of personality into their online presence maybe they will be able to actually reach out and pull in some new supporters. All those independents in the US already see the public face of candidates every time they turn on a TV or read the CNN RSS feed…they don’t need a second helping of the same thing everywhere else they look.

Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang for the tweet about the above graphic.