What’s social campaigning got to do with it?

In 1984, singer-songwriter Tina Turner asked “What’s Love Got to Do with It” in her breakthrough solo album. This year, political observers find themselves asking the same thing about the massive infiltration of social media into political campaigns—“What’s Social Campaigning Got to Do with It?” As we see it, the answer is pretty simple for candidates running for the U.S. Senate: the difference between winning and losing.

You don’t have to look far to witness the power of social campaigning. The January special election in Massachusetts demonstrated the success of social media and other tools. His technology-driven messaging and fundraising activities fueled Scott Brown’s upset victory, in part. While many campaigns are probably familiar with Facebook or Twitter, there are many other applications that need to be incorporated into a winning effort.

Campaigns are successful when the candidates socialize with their supporters and target voters, but it will not be enough for campaigns to craft a powerful message and push them through the traditional media channels.

What then are the implications for candidates that want to be the victor on Nov. 2, 2010?

In the 10 states where leading political prognosticators deem the Senate seat a “tossup” (Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania) an analysis of social media tools being employed by the various candidates from Jan. 29-Feb. 6, 2010, revealed some striking results.

While most candidates appear to have embraced the most well-known social media tools—such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube—and e-mail sign-up and a grassroots action center, there is varying utilization of other important web communication tools that could prove especially helpful in a tight race—namely blogs, Digg, Flickr, LinkedIn, SMS/text messaging and widgets, just to name a few.

“Today’s environment is a place where candidates and causes cannot simply push messages anymore,” summarized Marc Ross, principal and founder of 2ndSix, a leading social-media consulting firm. “Candidates and causes must do and act. They must engage, connect and interact with voters across every platform, channel and device. As candidates and causes seek to do and not just push, the end users and message recipients should not be able to differentiate between online and offline—this is the place your campaign needs to be.”

According to Ross, highly competitive campaigns will need to participate directly in conversations with voters and provide them with more meaningful value exchanges.

The Senate race in Colorado provides a perfect example, where incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet—who must first survive a primary challenge—faces a tough general election matchup. Bennet’s vulnerability is evidenced by the primary challenge of Andrew Romanoff, as well as competitive nature of three Republicans vying to challenge him—Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, Ken Buck and Tom Weins.

According to the latest poll released by Rasmussen Reports (Feb. 5), Republicans in Colorado are faring better than their Democratic counterparts—but for the most part, all signs point toward the Centennial State being a close election. While Norton is leading Sen. Bennet by 14 points, she leads Romanoff by just 7 points; meanwhile, Weins and Buck post small single-digit leads over both Bennet and Romanoff, but mostly within the poll’s margin of error. The bottom line is that this snapshot further demonstrates the need for candidates in this state to utilize every available campaign communication tool possible.