Last Wednesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty held a "town hall" meeting on Facebook, marking the first time that a politician used Facebook for a live outreach event.

The 30-minute Q&A session was not positioned as a major headline-grabbing event --- the purpose was for the Gov. Pawlenty to endorse other Republican congressional candidates from around the country. But the town hall event quietly marked a significant milestone in the evolution of online campaigning and citizen outreach.

As the chosen platform for the live, interactive event, Facebook clearly emerged as a full-fledged contender for the preferred place to break news, hold rallies and conduct real dialogue with constituents and voters. In past elections television debates, local town halls, radio call-in programs and YouTube have all featured prominently, as candidates sought the most advantageous media to broadcast their messages. The 2004 and 2008 election cycles even saw candidates take to the late-night TV talk shows to make major announcements, all an effort, of course, to reach young voters, generate buzz and appear to be up (or is it "down"?) with the latest cultural trends.

Last week's event is the latest indication that Facebook belongs on the media map of every elected official and political candidate. Gov. Pawlenty saw his Facebook fan numbers surge to over 35,000 from around 31,000 in the days before the event, a campaign spokesman told OhMyGov. The extra boost in fans places the Minnesota governor among the most popular political figures on Facebook --- only 3 members of the U.S. House and 4 Senators have more Facebook fans than Pawlenty. (See more FB count stats here)

Fan counts on Facebook are just one gauge of outreach on the social networking site, of course. Also important is how engaged those fans and other visitors become. Pawlenty's town hall scored well on this account too.

During the 2 days last week when Pawlenty was promoting the town hall, he received 1,039 "likes" on posts related to the event and 527 comments, for a total of 1,566 citizen "touches." Not all were unique, to be sure, but it's a nice base of activity that, remember, gets broadcast to all of his fans' friends too. The town hall had over 1,000 confirmed guests.  

Gov. Pawlenty, who is widely believed to be readying a 2012 run for president, got an additional uptick in coverage by being the first to experiment with the Facebook town hall. "Surely somebody already did this, no?" was our reaction on hearing the claim, but a Google search shows that Pawlenty pretty much owns the "Facebook town hall" keyword phrase. (Attention all 2010 candidates: now would be a great time to jump on this bandwagon.) 

The particulars of the town hall were unremarkable, but seemingly effective for Pawlenty's base. The governor kicked off the town hall with an opening statement, then answered questions submitted as participants watched via a live video stream. At one point the live feed went down momentarily, prompting comments such as "My stream is slow" that suggested the governor was moonlighting as a Flomax rep.

Simple, effective outreach

The range of questions posted on his Facebook page ran the gamut from sensible to downright strange.  One participant offered this suggestion and question on how to solve Minnesota’s budget problems: “Two large oil fields have been discovered in North Dakota and Montana – how can Minnesota profit from oil in North Dakota?”  We assume that T-Paw, as he likes to be called, took a pass on that one.

Overall, the post-town hall meeting comments on the Governor’s Facebook page were overwhelmingly positive. From Roberta Folino: “very good town hall meeting and I actually had my question answered,” and from Patty Rosehill: “good beginning – looking forward to more of these town hall meetings.” Of course, keeping a positive spin on developments is made easier on Facebook since only "fans" can comment on your page.

“Gov. Pawlenty wants to use the latest technology and social networking tools to talk with more Americans about the issues facing this country,” said Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant before the event. “This will be like a regular town hall, except we’ll be able to take questions from around the country thanks to new online tools.”

Pawlenty himself thought the meeting was a “blast. I think we should (have) more Facebook town halls in the future. Thanks to all who participated and we’ll do the best we can to get more questions in during future events.” That should be good news for T-Paw followers.