Time Magazine had this to say two years ago: “In the ‘90s, the message was Rock the Vote. Now it’s time to Facebook it. Politicians will be able to buy profiles on networking site Facebook.com accessible to its 8 million members.”

“Networking site” feels like a tame description now; with more than 90 million registered users, “phenomenon” is more apt. Anyone under the age of 78 may be feeling the social pressure to join the Facefad and anyone under the age of 28 who is not on Facebook has been living in a cave.

Originally designed to connect university students, Facebook’s clean white pages, ease of use, continual updates and ability to connect one-to-one, and one-to-many has made it very attractive to adults all over the planet.

Facebook is a place that encourages individual expression, and that is a very handy world for politicians to get their grubby mitts into. Gone are the days where people kept their preferences close to their chest. Many happily plaster their choice in political leadership online, alongside their sexual preference.

While in New Zealand it’s been a rather one-sided Facebook contest in the build up to this year’s election, internationally, politicians up with the play have to be on Facebook these days. It’s been a fiercely active battlefield for recent Labour leadership elections in Britain, and for the democratic leadership and presidential race in the US.

Facebook isn’t just for the western world; a quick flick through the site’s Political Search will take you to Yasser Arafat‘s page (with 2,848 supporters), Ernesto Che Guevara’s page (with 5,144) and Nelson Mandela’s (at 28,249).

Lessons from the US have shown that online is vital in the new race for votes – more adults will learn about election candidates from the internet than newspapers. Plus Facebook enables politicians to engage with voters one-to-one – what they used to do before the onslaught of mass television campaigns.

Facebook is not the only social networking site but it’s become the place for politics: allowing candidates to organise events, rally people together, discuss issues, engage in policy debates, and in Barack Obama’s case, raise some serious cash.

The people’s army
To succeed online, politicians must engage with the philosophy of the networking sites they happily take advantage of.

Facebook is all about forming networks and sharing information between like-minded individuals. If a politician doesn’t understand this, they’ve failed at the first challenge and might as well stand in a corner of the web waving their party pamphlet about.

No one understands this better than Barack Obama, who hired Chris Hughes, the 23-year-old co-founder of Facebook, to run his online campaign. Early on he organized events at universities attended by thousands of supporters who were mobilised via Facebook.

He also created an Obama ‘application,’ allowing supporters to get up-to-date campaign information and ‘find or create a local Obama group’ enabling people to organise supporters in their nearby town or school.

And surprisingly, people did it. Obama’s official blog said: “For those who have touted the conventional wisdom that young people don’t care about politics, there couldn’t be a better testament to the energy and enthusiasm of young people today. One million Facebook users have made clear that not only are they engaged with the political process, they are ready for change to come too.”

Clive James said of the US campaign recently: “It gives new meaning to meeting and action – modern and young. Obama’s money, huge quantities of it, came from mobilising vast numbers of small contributors online. He has a people’s army with 1.2 million volunteers, 8000 affinity groups and 30,000 events.”

John trumps Helen
Back home, University of Canterbury political science associate professor Jim Tully says social networking sites were becoming increasingly important in New Zealand, as elections have become more “presidential in style”.

Already John Key is storming ahead on Facebook with 4,961 supporters, versus Helen Clark who has 1,870.

The rest of the New Zealand politicians are floundering in the face dust, even Voldemort beats them all with 777 supporters. (See the table below for full details.)

By Angela Barnett

So what’s in it for the pollies, anyway? The easiest way to keep people informed on Facebook is to make them a friend – meaning they get automatic newsfeeds every time you do something new.

Politicians need a clever way to achieve this without looking desperate, i.e. accepting hundreds of strangers as Facefriends.

Obama got around this by creating his specialist application – John Key is not that smart, and he along with Jeanette Fitzsimons are the only New Zealand politicans who allow friends. I requested Key’s FBfriendship on June 23rd, and eight hours later I got a reply: accepted. Key’s site is managed by a whippersnapper from his communication team whom I’m sure was really the one doing the accepting at 10.27pm.

I sent the same request to Fitzsimons and five weeks later, she declined me. After getting over my initial rejection I decided this was wise – all of Fitzsimons’ 116 friends are genuine and I am a bogus Facename with no photo or details.

I wouldn’t let me be a friend either; whereas Key has no discretion. Fitzsimons’ downfall is that she is not registered as a Facebook Politician so nameless people, like me, cannot become supporters if they want to – hence her total FBsupport is zero which does not reflect reality.

PM’s excuse: ‘too busy’
Helen Clark’s page is managed by a fan and you can feel the difference between hers and Key’s. I cannot get a news feed from her page so have to check in myself; but the annoying thing is, she usually hasn’t been up to much.

There’s nothing about Clark’s postings that are specifically for Facebook and everything there can be found in other mediums (cardinal sin number one for a Facebook politician).

There are three topics on her discussion board: one of them, started by Clark in February – asks for opinions on the best Labour policy. There are 35 postings from people but she has never checked in again or made further comment (cardinal sin number two). Her Facebook page is just another faceless web page.

A spokeswoman for Clark said she was “too busy” to check her Facebook site. At least Key pays somebody to make him look “not busy”.

Key gets it that he needs to listen to his facefriends and potential voters - something rather unusual for a politician. He responds to comments on his wall in video blogs with transcriptions underneath: “I’ve put up a new video that responds to some comments. First up, I’ll respond to concerns raised by Donna Cole about tax cuts.”

Getting a note in my newsfeed that Key was tagged in a photo album makes me go and look at the picture, then read about the event he was snapped at. Or seeing Key has added the ‘Send Good Karma’ application to his profile makes me check out whether he’s got any (turns out he has a bit of karma).

None of this activity is about political policy, but it’s human. And that’s what people like to know about their leaders.

Phil Noble, from Politicsonline.com said: “New media can provide a richer window on who these people are. That is its great strength. It works when it’s warts and all.”

Could Key mobilise a bigger landslide, like Obama, if he went further with Facebook and online electioneering? I suspect he’s not interesting enough. Obama is a special case, potentially the first black president is much more motivating than a millionaire ex merchant banker.

However if Key keeps up his current Facepace, he’ll be winning the online election. Actually, judging by the number of supporters he’s got; he’s already won it.

The Facebook phenomenon can be powerful. Last year the Facebook group, Support the Monks in Burma saw membership explode to 405,984 in less than a month (100,000 individuals joined in one day, that’s over one every second). The group mobilised protest marches around the world, on the same day, generating immense support for the monks – all done via Facebook.

Should your business be there?
It’s a world of individuals all standing on their own small white page wanting their moment of fame; showing off about how many friends they’ve got, sharing intimate details and voicing opinions.

It’s possible to gauge the tempo of what people are doing, what they find funny, how they speak to each other, as millions upon millions of gullible people have their entire profile visible to everyone. It’s a place to engage one to one, or one to many, and is the perfect sandpit for politicians to play in. But do you need to Face it if you’re a business?

Facebook offers the following categories a business can exist under: place, products, services, stores, restaurants, bars and clubs, organisations, politicians, non-profits, TV-shows, films, games, sports teams, celebrities, music and websites. None of the pages under these categories gather friends; they gather fans, members or supporters.

The most popular film is Sex In The City (308,226 fans) indicating the sort of people that sign up to be Facefans. These pages are light in substance and seem to be a numbers game, gathering fans; they will never replace reliable online resources like www.imdb.com, where every film ever made is listed.

All the major global organisations are there under non-profits – Greenpeace, UNICEF, Oxfam – but these Facepages don’t replace their official websites – and all link to them.

Sadly the restaurant with the most fans is KFC (64,246), again reflecting the tastes of your average Faceperson.

Some products have a Facepresence but it’s hard to tell whether the pages are the real thing – for instance Nokia and Apple’s iPhone have considerable fan bases but I suspect the pages weren’t created by the businesses that produce the products; it’s very easy to set up a page and anyone can do it.

If you have a loved brand or iconic business then it pays to create your own Facepage before a random fan does. For instance The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) has two pages: one with 15,900 fans and another with 10,763 fans.

Both look official, the only difference is that the latter posts detailed information about what’s currently on exhibition and subway directions. The former is just a giant wall for fans to rave and who knows how many of the 15k fans realize they’re not on the official MOMA page. It’s quite hard to tell the difference.

As a business, it’s important to keep abreast of Facebook; you shouldn’t ignore a 90-million-member movement. But it could be like Myspace was five years ago – where many businesses set up yet another webpage they had to monitor and update – and how many benefited (unless their business was bands)?

Facebook product and service pages are fan based, not business based. It does no harm being there, it’s a very handy way to gather support for events, but it is a phenomenal fad; something will replace it in the future.

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