Facebook gets political

While searching for social networking blogs, I came across a political blog called Left in the West, Views from Dry Land Democrats (http://leftinthewest.com). The post (http://leftinthewest.com/index.php/2006/09/15/among-students-tester-in-a-walk/) I was linked to focused on Facebook's (http://www.facebook.com) role in the upcoming Senate race in Montana.

Apparently, Facebook has added a new feature for election purposes. Through this feature, students are able to share their thoughts and opinions on political candidates. Students from Montana have been actively utilyzing this new feature (http://montana.facebook.com/election_pulse.php) which has caused many involved to head on over to Facebook and take note of what the college students have to say.

Unaware of this new feature, I decided to head on over to Facebook to familiarize myself with it. I arrived at the page titled the Election Pulse which lists senate races in numerous states along with polls voted on by college student facebook members. Each candidate's name is represented with a link. Curious as to where the link went, I clicked on candidate Tom Kean's name from my home state of New Jersey. To my surprise, I was directed to a facebook profile of Tom. His profile was comprised of basic personal information, photos, notes, and bulletins of support from facebook members. Tom, along with many other candidates who are running for senate at the present time, have created facebook profiles as a promotional tool to market themselves to college students in hopes of gaining their support for election time.

Personally, I think that was a pretty genious idea on the part of the candidate's PR team. The majority of college students today are apart of the Facebook world. Interacting with them directly through this social networking site will most likely significantly contribute to their campaigns. Using Facebook as a promotional tool has proven to be incredibly successful due to the large number of students who have been participating through the Election Pulse as well as visiting the candidate's individual pages.

Do you think Facebook is serving as a beneficial promotional tool for political candidates? Leave a comment stating your opinion!