Is social networking having an impact?

Over the last few months I have been doing hands on research to see what affect social networking can have on a candidate running for election.

I approached a friend, who decided to run for office for the first time and offered to manage her website and establish social networking sites.

Some positives for the experiment and negatives for the candidate:

• She was relatively unknown in city, small business women who had a few book keeping accounts and worked part time.
• She had never run for office before.
• She was running against another first timer, but his family was well known in the city.
• She was running as a Republican in what was predicted to be an election which would be dominated by the Democratic Party. The results are now history…

She already had a website so I:

• updated the format and added widgets to make it sticky (provide a reason for people to return)
• Added a poll to involve guests
• We placed recent updates on the main page to alert visitors of changes
• Included pictures of events

I also created a social networking site on Facebook and created a Twitter Account. The sites were updated at least three times a week to keep them fresh and current.

The results were amazing. Although she lost as a result of the state wide democratic sweep her district had one of the closest races for state representative. All three republican candidates lost the election to their democratic competition in her city. Here is how the results played out: District 22: 30 point spread, District 77: 11 point spread, District 79: 49 point spread. Yes you guessed it my candidate was in district 77 and the only candidate with a website and incorporating social networking tools.

My experiment demonstrated that when you add social networking tools to what you are doing there will be an impact on the results. It is easier for people to find, research, and stay connected with you and what you are doing.

Will Social Networks put "Social" back in Communities?

I imagine most communities are like the one I live in, which means residents are becoming more and more distant even though they live in close proximity. We have buildings with 18 or more units together and residents do not know and may not have ever seen people who live two stacks over. You may wonder how this is possible when you live in such close proximity to your neighbors.

I spent a while trying to understand why out of 166 families in our community I probably know about 20 by name and another dozen by sight. The rest of I could pass in the street and never know they were my neighbor.

What I came up with was:

• Our schedules have gotten busier,
• most of our entertainment is delivered right to our home,
• many of us have been taught to fear the unknown, so it is no wonder we do not know our neighbors.

We travel to and from our homes less frequently, we are able to be less social and still meet others and enjoy ourselves.

Can the internet and social networks turn this around? It is no secret that social networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and others are connecting people from around the world. Why can’t sites like these connect you to the person next door?

Social Networks are taking on new life

The next generation of social networking is emerging and freeing us from the strangle hold and open nature of the top social networks. The new social networks sites actually let us create our own social networks where we can choose to only open the network up to a select few.

What does this have to do with planned communities? If social network sites connect people from around the world, why not to connect the person right next door. With this new generation of online social networks you can create a custom site that is only open to your residents of the community and their families. A private social network eliminates the spam, unwanted contacts from complete strangers, and the fear of predators.

Experts are predicting that most businesses, families, and other groups will have their own social network within the next 5 years. Using these new software sites, this just may become a reality sooner than they believe.