Politics aside, the campaign connects two new resources detailed below that employ Twitter to promote and maintain their cause. These resources are free and can be used by anyone with a campaign to call attention to:

Twibbon is the easiest and most powerful way to promote awareness of your cause on Twitter. The service overlays a small icon (candle and NO WAR banner in the footer of the example image above) that you create, onto supporters’ profile images to create what they call a ‘Twibbon,’ making an “impactful” online statement. The user’s Twitter account automatically tweets to let everyone know about their new affiliation.

Act.ly Petitions co-developer Jim Gilliam says, “I saw Clay Johnson’s post last week about Twitter being the future of email marketing. I’ve always found it’s easier to show than to explain, so I built a petition site (with Jesse Haff, the designer from Brave New Films) that takes full advantage of Twitter.”

Here’s how it works. You sign a petition by tweeting it, and other people can sign the petition just by re-tweeting it. There’s no need to go to the act.ly site, except to start a petition. If you are re-tweeted, you get credit for the referral, and will show up in the “Smokin’ Recruiters” link on act.ly.

The Act.ly site also has beta versions of…

Retweets
Have something you want a lot of people to tweet? A link, pledge, thank you, you name it.

Events
Start one event in your town, and watch it go viral as people host their own events all over the world.

Yes, of course you can use these tools to promote your products, your business and your public awareness campaigns. Advertising using social media is simply a new type of public awareness campaign. Right?