I’m seeing a lot of buzz about how social networking sites like MySpace are going to affect voter turnout in the coming presidential election. Basically, the ability for candidates and special interest groups to enter into more of a dialog with young voters thanks to web 2.0 should ideally equal higher turnout. But who knows…

People in my age group may remember this logo from MTV - back when they actually played things called videos:

But the vote was not really rocked back then. In fact, I vaguely remember the elections in my youth having record low voter turnout. So it remains to be seen if these kids that are “getting involved ” online really enter the polls come November or even primary season.

This got me thinking about social networking and word of mouth marketing as part of next generation CRM initiatives. This stuff is in no way a science. You can’t simply put a banner ad on MySpace and be a cool, hip brand. In fact, it will probably backfire. And of course, there is no direct translation between cool factor and dollars.

For example, I love these ads as much as anyone:

But I will never own a mac…

Brand culture is tough to understand and infiltrate, and even harder to change. We are still very early in the learning curve in this 2.0 world of ours.