The Congressional Management Foundation recently announced their 2011 Golden Mouse Award winners (PDF), which awards grades to over 600 congressional personal and committee websites.

Member and committee websites were graded by CMF on a 5.0 scale based on ten key metrics: usability of website; timeliness of content; breadth and depth of information on issues; constituent services and casework information; promoting accountability to constituents; legislative process information; district/state information; floor proceedings information; availability of diverse forms of content; and availability of diverse forms of content channels.

Senator Mark Begich (D-AK), and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) won top honors for the Senate and House awards respectively, while Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was found to have the best leadership website and the House Education and Workforce Committee's website won the committee field.

And while it is certainly important to recognize those who are taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by their public websites, those sites alone are no longer the main stage of online communications. When the CMF turned its gaze towards Congressional use of social media the results were rather striking.

CMF found that platforms like Facebook and Twitter have exploded in popularity among congressional members in the past two years. In 2009, according to CMF, a mere 21% of Congress had Facebook accounts while only 18% was on Twitter. Just two years later those numbers have jumped to 81% and 71% respectively. That kind of growth is explosive; there is simply no other way to describe it.

Of course, merely having a presence on social media is not the same as maintaining that presence. CMF found that 65% of those with a Twitter account tweeted at least once a week, whereas 73% updated their Facebook page at least weekly. As CMF is showing, members of Congress are not just signing up for social media accounts...they are actively embracing the technology as well.

Among the members of both houses of Congress with what CMF deemed to be either a "Platinum" or "Gold" level website very few seem to have a high social media profile. Excluding members of Congressional leadership, only one member of the House with a highly rated website was among the top sixty most popular members on Facebook according to OhMyGov Media Monitoring.

Expanding the scope to Twitter, once again we see only one member honored by CMF with a "gold" designation among the sixty most followed House members on Twitter.

Over on the Senate side, the song remains much the same. Only Senator Mark Udall (D-CO), whose website was rated "gold" by CMF, was among the top fifty most popular Senators on Facebook. Things were slightly better when it came to Twitter, with three Senators among the top fifty most followed honored by CMF.

When it comes to CMF honorees garnering buzz on social media, we once again see those with great websites not exactly a hot topic of conversation. Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) is the fifty-second most mentioned member of Congress on Twitter, or the most talked about House winner not named Paul Ryan or Nancy Pelosi. In the Senate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was the most tweeted about CMF winner in the Senate. Of course being the forty-fourth most talked about Senator on Twitter isn't exactly a career defining accomplishment.

A great website is not of much use to anybody if it isn't being properly promoted, and there is no better engine for promotion on the web than social media. Having a cutting edge website is just half of the battle for these members of Congress; the next step is reaching out to constituents and driving traffic to their sites. Social media is a key factor in driving that traffic; the sooner these members realize that, the sooner they will take that next step in online growth.