Guest post by Minter Dial @mdial on social, transparency and politics using the recent French Presidential election between Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande as a case study The paths of social media and politics would seem to be inextricably linked. Politics has proven, in many countries, to be a great way to “democratize” social media, or the other way around. During the Arab Spring, social media helped inspire a change in regime. In the US, social media clearly contributed to Obama’s success in 2008 and the presidential campaign certainly brought a big lift to the likes of Twitter. On the other hand, the most recent digital marketing campaigns of the two finalists of the French Presidential election, Nicolas Sarkozy and…