5 social media questions 2012 will answer

The 2012 race marks the first time a new type of high-level campaign staffer — the digital director — had a seat in the top tier of the presidential campaigns as well as most major congressional races. In the case of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, theirs were senior staffers with significantly more input than ever before and multimillion-dollar budgets. Nearly every major Senate race had a prominent social media guru, too. After November 6, the political world will start looking back to see how it worked and what might change next time.

Here are five burning questions to be answered once the votes are counted:

1. Was social media worth the hype?
2. Which social media channels mattered most — and least?
3. What becomes of Obama’s much-vaunted e-mail list?
4. Speaking of e-mail, is it still the king of online fundraising?
5. Where does mobile fit in the campaign ecosystem?