Social Network Update IV - Get Active

It's Monday, so that means it's time to check in with Barack Obama's progress in the world of social networking. Today, I figured we could take a look at how easy it is to get involved in offline campaign events using the tools and information found on each of the social network services. Since online organization is only as useful as its real-world effects, organizational power matters. As usual, we'll consider Facebook first.

FACEBOOK

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Facebook's two most popular Obama groups engage in some useful division of labor: "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" serves as the campaign's information repository, while the newer "I Endorse Barack Obama, and I'm Telling My Friends!" is more geared towards explicit calls to action. Naturally, this leads to different sorts of action opportunities found in each group.

Visitors to "One Million Strong..." will find, tucked among the seemingly endless rolls of links towards the official site, opportunities to engage in all of the volunteer actions found on Obama's own social network site. From phonebanking to donation matching, no form of help is left unrepresented or unsanctioned. In fact, that may be the one knock against this group's usefulness. All of the links found here point users towards Obama's own site, reducing the Facebook group to an unnecessary middleman. While this makes sense from a political organizing standpoint, offering some Facebook-exclusive opportunities would go a long way towards justifying the existence of this group past its use as an advertisement for Obama's (in this case) rival network.

Over at "I Endorse...", things are a little more grassroots-y. Instead of focusing on the volunteer opportunities already available on the official campaign site, "I Endorse..." is more concerned with Facebook-based activism and endorsement. To this end, they provide guidelines for Facebook messaging campaigns, create unique events for each Democratic primary contest, and offer state-specific door hangers and graphics that feature their endorsement message. While these efforts might not reach the same amount of people as the official campaign communications (EDIT: As of April, the membership numbers of the official group versus this one are close to the 10-to-1 range), they represent an interesting approach to delivering unique action opportunities. Say what you will about MoveOn.org, but their mobilization efforts are always worth talking about.

CARE2

Things on Care 2 are... not much different from things on Facebook, at least in regards to activism opportunities. Aside from linking to official campaign events, Care2's largest Obama group currently offer no organized activism opportunities on behalf of the candidate. Personally, I'm a little surprised by this, and wonder exactly why an active community like Care2 doesn't have a more energized, organized Obama fanbase. Is it something about the idealism that makes the idea of actual campaign politics unappealing? Or is it something about the candidate himself? Does anyone out there have any ideas?