HeadCount.org released a report last week, noting the surge in popularity the G.O.P. is rounding up in social media networks. The battle over which party rules in the social media sector has been going on since the days of the presidential election. With the Democrats having used social media successfully as a marketing and outreach tool, the Republicans are hoping for a second chance with the current pre-election season.

HeadCount looked at Facebook and Twitter numbers, only to find that certain Republican figures were gaining on their Democratic counterparts. This led to a deeper investigation of the G.O.P.’s social media presence, turning to a number of outside interests to link their social media favor.

“Republicans have about four times as many Facebook Fans as their Democratic counterparts, and five times as many Twitter followers. It’s a social media landslide,” the organization posted, going on to say “One thing that didn’t surprise us though – social media activity is still oriented around music a lot more than politics. That’s why we still believe music is the best tool to reach young Americans and create a national conversation around the election.”

We suspect that the surge in Tea Party popularity could be a major factor in this. But while the Democrats utilized social media and had a handle on it, the likes of which hadn’t been seen before, we can’t forget the significant impact the Ron Paul brigade had online during the primaries. The Tea Party is made up of a very similar demographic, though an updated twist on early tactics would be a much higher conversion rate at the ballot box.

Nevertheless, conservatives are hopeful for the way social media efforts are shaping up. Now that people are comfortable with social media as a mass communication tool, there are new standards aligned with parties’ affiliations on the social web. Data from social networks is being used in real-time manners for gauging a party’s appeal, and the Democrats have continued their efforts for building out web-based portals, claiming trials in transparency. But has this been enough? Sean Hackbarth thinks the Democrats have abandoned the social media sector they once turned to for voting support.

The political energy is on the side of Republicans and conservatives. Democrats haven’t been listening to them. They passed a stimulus bill that hasn’t worked and an unpopular health care bill. They also feel the mainstream media isn’t speaking for them either. So they look to the internet to be heard. Now, with tools like Twitter and Facebook it’s easy for people to speak their mind and connect with people who feel like they do.

Democrats are in power, and they end up having to actually govern with can depress the base. Also, the party in power ends up being more conservative with embracing new communications tools. It’s not a surprise the GOP is winning the social media war.

It seems that HeadCount is stretching a bit far on this one, and the new measurement tactics for mere fan counts on sites like Twitter and Facebook are becoming less and less relevant for analytics purposes.  Real-time trends are overtaking much of the social media metrics interests, and even they have a growing number of issues.  Conclusions reached through real-time trends have the potential to misinterpret snapshots of data, and can even be abused on the publisher level.

Nevertheless, such trends are an important step towards the development of standard social media metrics, particularly as they relate to engagement and end-user call to action.  The Huffington Post is jumping deeper into the political pool with the inclusion of real-time election boards, powered by ViralHeat.