What’s social campaigning got to do with it?

There is probably no better example of harnessing social campaigning tools to fuel a candidate’s fundraising and support than in Kentucky’s Republican primary to replace outgoing Sen. Jim Bunning. Republican Rand Paul—a self-identified insurgent candidate modeled after his father’s presidential bid, Rep. Ron Paul—is showing early signs of waging a successful social campaigning effort. Paul outflanks his Republican opponent Trey Grayson at virtually every angle of social engagement and communications, because he is using SMS/text messaging, blogs, MySpace and LinkedIn. But even in areas where Grayson has embraced social media, Paul posts huge advantages, including over four times as many Facebook fans (21,935 vs. 5,305), nearly 60 percent more followers (2,764 vs. 1,793) on Twitter and 23,406 channel views on YouTube, compared to Grayson’s paltry 1,175.

This has clearly translated into cash for Paul, which is making his campaign that much more competitive. As of December 31, Rand Paul’s campaign had raised $1,774,651, with cash-on-hand in the amount of $1,304,190—fundraising numbers that reflect effectively using social media.

In two other states where there are no incumbents on the ballot—New Hampshire and Ohio—there are interesting races shaping up between the candidates.

In New Hampshire, two-term Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes will face-off against one of three Republicans trying to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Judd Gregg. Among the GOP hopefuls, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte appears best positioned to challenge Hodes, yet neither candidate is using SMS/text, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg or widgets—which is not a good sign for any candidate at this stage of the campaign season. Among the commonly-used social media outlets of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, it is really anyone’s game at this early stage; Ayotte holds a slight edge with Facebook fans (1,417 vs. 1,062) and YouTube channel views (290 vs. 263), but Hodes is holding his own on Twitter with 849 followers to Ayotte’s 715 followers. The New Hampshire Senate race provides an excellent opportunity for either Hodes or Ayotte to tip the scales in their favor by employing campaign 2.0 techniques.

Ohio provides yet another example where both candidates could be doing more to launch the social campaign strategies. The presumptive GOP nominee, former Congressman Rob Portman, is only utilizing some bare-bones social media tools; while Portman’s campaign is showing strong Facebook (4,018 fans) and Twitter (1,210 followers) numbers, he has thus far failed to incorporate YouTube, SMS/text, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg or Widgets. To his credit, all the following are also being used by his campaign: a blog, Flickr, email sign-up and grassroots/action center.

Fortunately for Portman, his two rivals in the Democratic primary—Jennifer Brunner and Lee Fisher—appear similarly situated with their weak social media strategies. Brunner has 2,208 Facebook fans, compared to Fisher’s 2,817 fans; Brunner has 1,286 Twitter followers compared to Fisher’s 806 followers; and both have nearly the same number of YouTube channel views (585 vs. 518, respectively). While Brunner is using SMS/text and a campaign blog, Fisher is a rarity in that he’s using Digg—but neither Brunner nor Fisher has embraced MySpace, LinkedIn or Widgets.

With Senator Evan Byah’s surprise retirement announcement, it is still too early to tell how social media could impact the Senate election in the Hoosier State. But one other race to watch is the primary battle brewing in Florida between Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

Rubio has come out of nowhere to best Crist by 12 points in a recent Rasmussen Report poll. His success is fueled, in part, by his strong deployment of Social Campaign strategies since he entered the race which was once considered a political coronation for the popular governor. In just 10 days, Rubio’s campaign raised over $720,000 from 8,000 donors—which amounted to a virtual campaign attack on Crist’s support for President Obama’s stimulus package last year. The success of the money bomb was embodied in its use of numerous social media strategies—including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and viral marketing by other conservative candidates and activists.