Facebook Updates

I’ve been monitoring how often certain campaigns update their Facebook status.

Flu.gov updates about 4-5 times a day.

Komen for the Cure only updates about once a day if that.

Interesting.

If you are friends with flu.gov, ostensibly you already are aware of the H1N1 epidemic.  So this begs the question: why so many updates?  Is this overload?  Maybe, but if flu.gov using Facebook as a key one-way communication tool, then it is getting key information to those who have asked for it.

Komen, on the other hand, is clearly using their Facebook page for online community purposes.  There are far more friends publically posting to the Komen page.  So they don’t really need to give constant updates.  (They use Twitter for that.)  When they do give an update, it’s pretty good information, whereas, flu.gov updates so much that you could kind of zone it out.

Initial Investigation of How Campaigns Are Using Facebook

What Strategy? will be looking at some of the tools used on the Internet today to get the message out. Let's see Facebook in action

Looked at two political campaigns and one cause:

-DC's Mayor Adrian Fenty (sadly, starting his campaign already)
-Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) (campaigning it up this year)
-DC Vote (campaigning, and until a Constitutional admendment, will always be campaigning)

All three Facebook pages followed a pretty standard Facebook tab layout with content on the Wall, Info, and Photos. Some common threads:

-Each page prominently led users to a webpage.
-The photos sections did not inundate you with photos but selected only the all-star pictures.
-Able to see other supporters (standard, of course, on Facebook).
-Each page used the “updates” feature to tell supporters about recent activity. Often these updates included links to other webpages or stories.

Nice touches:

-Fenty had a YouTube tab which allowed you to easily watch key interviews and videos of him (like his appearance on Meet the Press).
-Fenty used a Notes tab to post his extensive bio. But he also had a nice little RSS feature configured for the notes section so that supporters can learn of new info that he puts there—which will most likely be infrequent.
-The profile picture on the DC Vote page is the same as the advertisements that are running around DC right now on the subways and busses. Good integration!
-Fenty had a nice link to the “schedule” section of his DC Govt page so that you can always learn what he is doing, in theory. (He’s been taking a lot of unscheduled trips lately however).