A look at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees' (a.k.a. AFSCME) social media strategy. Of particular interest: slides six through ten on how this fall the union group made use of Twitter, act.ly petitions, Facebook, Google ads, and email to assist House Republican Leader John Boehner in his quest to find "the first American to talk to who's in favor of the public option." He indeed found a few, he admitted.

What has surprised Jim Gilliam most in the three months since he launched act.ly, the rather clever Twitter petition gizmo that, with a few clicks, creates a pivot point for tweet-based social action? Good question! And one I put to Gilliam, now that act.ly has 589 petitions and 16,000 tweet "signatures" under its belt. Firstly, says Gilliam, the extent of the public ardor over all things Twitter shocked him. I knew people liked Twitter, he says. "But I didn't really quite grasp how much people loved Twitter. There's this thing about Twitter that is just fundamentally different." Beyond that, Gilliam says that while politicians have been slow to engage with and react to act.ly drives (meaning those petitions to Barack Obama, Chuck Grassley, or Stephen Harper above might not move mountains anytime soon), he's been amazed by the ability of insanely targeted petitions, when tied to a particular moment, to get a response from organizations, individuals, and most especially businesses...