If you’ve somehow remained unconvinced that social networks can profoundly affect people, organisations and businesses all over the world, then there were a few social media campaigns that during 2009 that probably grabbed your attention. Forget the frantic rush to log-in to Facebook and un-tag yourself from a Christmas party photo, something much bigger happened this year that will should pave the way for even more powerful campaigns in the future.

Whilst there are of course much more important issues that the UK Christmas number 1, the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against The Machine to the top of the charts ahead of the X Factor winner is perhaps the biggest demonstration yet that social networks can have a fundamental influence. Part time DJ Jon Morter started his Facebook group as a ‘bit of a giggle’, but the campaign went stratospheric when comedian Peter Serafinowicz urged his 268,000 Twitter followers to join in and  “Killing In The Name” went on to sell over  50,000 more copies than Joe McElderry’s The Climb.

“Oh bloody hell!” was Morter’s modest reaction when the result was announced and he went on to add: “I think it just shows that in this day and age, if you want to say something, then you can.” It’s true that social networks have given normal people a platform that until now has only been available to traditional media owners. However, a quick browse through the millions of user-generated groups on Facebook shows that many people want to say something, but only a small proportion of them have a genuine impact outside of Facebook. The fact that there are over 1,100 user-generated “Joe McElderry” groups tells you something.

The fact is, you still need to start with a good idea. A social network can’t cause a storm on its own if the idea isn’t new, imaginative or shared by enough people across the network. Just because everybody has a voice doesn’t mean they have something meaningful to say, and the far-reaching amplifier of a social network isn’t going to change that. The value of strong ideas hasn’t changed, but the speed and efficiency of their deployment certainly has.

On a far more serious and potentially world-changing note, the role of Twitter during the Presidential elections in Iran showed how a social network can give a voice to people who genuinely need it.  Whilst the Iranian Government was cutting communication from the outside world by banning journalists and TV crews, citizen journalism thrived on social media networks. Twitter helped spread conversations about the truth of the elections and how tens of thousands of people were protesting: something that the Iranian government were denying. Others posted photos of protests and disorder on image-hosting sites, and scores of amateur videos on YouTube helped the rest of the world see violence on the streets of Tehran. The majority of this information would not have been seen outside Iran without the use of social networks.

So what next? Which powerful ideas will social networks help spread during 2010? With a general election on the horizon, anybody with a strong enough point to make could potentially have an impact on the result locally or even nationally. Although the Conservatives now run their own Twitter feed, you can’t help thinking it’s far more likely that relative ‘nobody’ will manage to generate more attention. Whatever happens, you can be sure that social networks will play their part.