techPresident - Understanding Candidate Facebook Groups - Comments

Thank you

Fred Stutzman — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 15:56:17 -0500

Thank you for the kind words David! Best, Fred

Excellent post.

David All — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 21:28:48 -0500

Great research Fred. You've identified groups that I hadn't even heard of, most notably and interestingly, the Anti-Hillary facebook group.

Thanks,
David

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David All
The David All Group
http://davidallgroup.com
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Groups

Fred Stutzman — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:44:21 -0500

Tobin, thanks for that important clarification. I also wish Facebook would let you sort group results by popularity...with the emerging importance of groups it would seem wise for FB to spend a little more time on the product.

Good job on your work, BTW! SFBO is an inspiring organizing achievement.

Great Post

Tobin Van Ostern — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:22:22 -0500

Million Strong for Barack is a great group, and one we (Students for Barack Obama) have worked with closely. Just one factual note for your blog though. Any group with more than 1,000 members cannot message all the members of the group. It's an annoying aspect of Facebook, but one they seem unwilling to yield on right now. That's why with our group we moved to feature a website very quickly so that our 60,000 facebook members could transfer into a real facebook group.

Overall, one of the strongest points to these facebook groups is that they allow people to hear about the candidate's and it is a fantastic way to spread the word amongst the younger generations.

~Tobin

Understanding Candidate Facebook Groups

Fred Stutzman — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:28:43 -0500

So what made Aregbe's group special? Just as in the case of Ben Parr's "Students Against Facebook News Feed", the success of the group was somewhat arbitrary, but there were factors that contributed to its success. First, Aregbe's group was properly timed. He created it the day after Obama's video "A Message from Barack" made its way around the web. Unlike the inevitable campaign announcements of Edwards and Clinton, Obama's announcement was a pleasant and noteworthy surprise to many. This, combined with the connected nature of Aregbe (his day job is advising college student government) made his timing and placement perfect. The message moved through his network (via Facebook news feeds) like wildfire, quickly arriving on the growth path that has let it to its success today. To boil things down a little more, this was a 1) perfectly-timed message sent to a 2) primed audience by a 3) maven/connector.