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The Issue Two campaign leveraged Facebook to repeal a controversial state senate bill that sought to ban unions from collective bargaining, or negotiating labor contracts with the state.

One pro labor union effort, We Are Ohio, is conducting a little market research on its Facebook page, asking:

How did Facebook pages like We Are Ohio and Stand Up For Ohio help you find out about Issue Two? How did you use them to help veto SB5? Were you asked to help We Are Ohio through Facebook? Did your recruit your friends?

We scanned the nearly 200 comments (so you don’t have to), and it seems two Facebook features were most often cited by fans.

Share

Fans say they used the We Are Ohio page to share messages and information about the effort with their friends and to stay up to date on the campaign.

The engagement must have paid off, because the We Are Ohio Facebook page grew to more than 100,000 likes over the course of the campaign, with nearly 23,000 people talking about the effort. Stand Up for Ohio had more than 130,000 likes.

Targeting

Micro-targeting specific voting blocks on Facebook, a tactic digital strategists have told us is key this year, seems to have done the trick in Ohio.

Not only did the Issue Two movement have a central Facebook page, but individual pages were developed for specific constituencies: Students, veterans, and different regions of the state, such as We Are Ohio Southeast.

How did Facebook affect some of the other local ballot initiatives that got national attention, such as the reproductive rights question in Mississippi?

There isn’t a lot of data on Facebook yet, however, a newspaper in Mississippi summed up the grassroots effort to defeat a pair of “personhood” measures that would have banned abortion and many forms of contraception.

According to the Jackson Free Press, Michelle Colon, the founder of the Hell No movement, said she started her own Facebook campaign because no group in the state seemed to stand against personhood supporters.

Many other Mississippians did the same thing once the state Supreme Court ruled that the initiative would be on the ballot. Hello No’s Colon says that grassroots surge reassured her in recent weeks that the initiative would fail. Hell No accumulated nearly 900 fans on Facebook.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

These five initiatives — in Ohio, Maine, New Jersey, Georgia and Mississippi — have both pro- and anti- campaigners on Facebook organizing pages, events or viral messaging.

Voters across the country have faced a total of 34 ballot initiatives in 2011, as seven of them have had other election dates scheduled, yet only the aforementioned five questions have had Facebook campaigns.

It seems odd that any political campaign in the U.S. wouldn’t show up on Facebook, since the site is becoming a mobilizing and advocacy tool for campaigns at the local, state and certainly, the federal level.

One reason for the absence: Many ballot efforts are hyper-local. The issue itself may be hard for the lay public to understand, therefore, hard to communicate to a broader audience.

And some of the issues not showing up on Facebook target voters who, believe it or not, don’t use social media. Examples: rural areas or impoverished neighborhoods.

Creating a Facebook page on a hot-button issue, such as the right of labor unions to bargain, known as Issue 2 in Ohio, or the Mississippi vote over “personhood,” makes sense because the issue is compelling and controversial.

There are strong feelings on both sides of the issue, tailor made for using Facebook to share links, encourage friends to get involved, and get out the vote.

Any movement can benefit from using Facebook. Here are a few suggestions of Facebook tools to employ in your next campaign.

Video

Some high-profile ballot efforts are using video ads to mobilize supports, such as Ohioans’ use of firefighters to advocate against Issue 2.

Campaigns can identify a group who will be affected by their measure, and humanize them through video.

And with the new technologies available today, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a slickly produced ad.

An ad could be as simple as using a computer’s webcam to capture an advocate talking coherently about an issue, that can be posted to Facebook.

Paid Ads

Depending on the size and budget of a campaign, Facebook’s paid ads — especially sponsored stories, which perform the best –are a great way to advocate for a cause or candidate in your friend’s news feeds.

Events

Some of the ballot initiatives have created simple Facebook events to remind voters to go to the polls tomorrow, asks them to RSVP.

Other friends can see whether you plan to vote, and may decide to follow your example.

Share

Facebook’s sharing capabilities are so valuable for campaigns. Sharing a link of a recent news story is a cost-effective way to educate friends about an issue. Or suggest a page for your friends to like.

Simply enabling someone affected by the measure, or with deep knowledge on the issue, to post a comment on a Facebook page is an effective tool to educate and inform your friends about an issue.

Subscribe

The new subscribe feature on Facebook is a transparency tool that enables the average voter to get updates from elected officials and journalists without becoming friends.

Voters can follow a journalist writing about a local school board measure, or a local or statewide elected official to learn how they plan on voting on a particular bill.

Apps

Don’t forget about applications introduced during previous elections — it’s never too late to install one on a Facebook page, like Don’t Forget to Votewhich spread like wildfire last year.

This chart from Ballotpedia details the major ballot initiatives of 2011. Here’s a look at just some of the other measures up for a vote tomorrow.

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Here’s a look at Facebook campaigns for ballot questions in Georgia, New Jersey and Mississippi.

Georgia

More than 100 city and county governments in Georgia will vote on November 8 to expand sales of packaged alcohol on Sunday afternoons.

Supporters of the ballot question has a Facebook page called Support Sunday Alcohol Sales. Jackson and Paulding counties in the state each have Facebook pages in support of the law.

Alcohol ads are currently prohibited on the social networking site.

New Jersey

New Jersey voters will decide whether sports betting will become legal later this month.

Yesterday, Governor Chris Christie announced his support for the betting referendum. Another supporter of the ballot question has created a Facebook public event, Vote Yes on Sports Betting in New Jersey.

Mississippi

A controversial pair of initiatives face Mississippi voters next week, starting with the question Should the state constitution grant personhood to fertilized eggs?

The issue has widespread consequences for reproductive rights and medical research in the state.

Unfortunately, the anti-abortion campaigners have more fans on Facebook than the pro-choice supporters are, although the latter show more engagement.

On the pro-choice side, Hell No on Mississippi 26 and 27 has a very busy page with more almost 700 fans and is aligned with another page, Parents Against MS 26, which has 1,229 fans. On the anti-abortion side of things, the page Yes on 26 has over 13,212 likes.

Both sides are using Facebook to share videos, links to newspaper editorials and stories, post comments from supporters and organize before the vote.

Are there ballot efforts in your community that have a presence on Facebook?

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