Blasting The Message: How Scott Brown Used Social Networking Tools To Win In Massachusetts

There’s been a lot of news about how Republican Scott Brown used social networking tools to help his campaign against Democrat Martha Coakley for a crucial Senate seat in Massachusetts. But amid all the talk of Twitter and Facebook, a slightly less sexy but still powerful tool has often been overlooked — the campaign’s groundbreaking use of Google to drive volunteers and voters.

Beginning Thursday before the Tuesday election, the Brown campaign began what’s known as a Google network blast, an advertising tactic that floods Google content network Web pages in a particular geographic area with display ads from one advertiser.

“If you were in Massachusetts, pretty much all day every day you would see a Scott Brown ad,” a Google spokesman said, adding that earlier ads encouraged people to volunteer for the campaign, while later ones focused on getting out the vote.

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