As we round the corner on election season, we at Inside Network are excited to announce the launch of the 2012 Election Tracker monitoring fan growth and marketing reach on Facebook for electoral campaigns.

Inside Facebook’s 2012 Election Tracker will begin by tracking Facebook activity for presidential primary candidates and current elected officials, and will add data for 2012 house, senate, and gubernatorial races as candidates for those races are announced. Data presented at the Election Tracker will be continually updated leading up to Election Day 2012.

As Facebook’s reach surpasses an estimated 150 million users in the United States, more entities, including political candidates and current officials, are leveraging the platform to connect directly with their constituencies. The Election Tracker is meant to shed light on candidates’ efforts in social media, and to introduce a tool for further analyzing the role of Facebook on the campaign trail.

As the nation’s pundits and opinion pollsters gather data to make predictions for the 2012 election season, social media may prove to be an important framework for evaluating candidates’ influence amongst key demographics that are increasingly engaging with brands, and each other, on Facebook.

The Election Tracker is produced in association with Facebook and can be found at http://elections.insidefacebook.com.