I have already done a couple of blog posts about the state of the major party’s Facebook pages, here and here. I thought it was time to do so again. I will follow this up with another post on John Key and David Cunliffe’s pages.
Firstly, Facebook have changed the lay out of Pages again, so the screen grabs on this blog post will look a bit different to the earlier ones.
Greens:
Since the last post in April, the Greens have gained 4733 new likes, or an 11.8% increase. Though it is interesting that of these 4700 likes, 2000 of them have come in the last week. Having looked at the graphs that Facebook now put on the likes tab of pages, that show the trends of new likes, this is not that uncommon, for the number of new likes to be rather up and down. The Greens have had a couple of posts lately that have gained a large number of shares, so this may explain why they have had a jump of 2000 likes recently.
Labour:
Labour have climbed from 12,676 to 14,860, an increase of 2184, or 17.23%. The main difference, apart from the numbers, between the Greens and Labour, is that labour have only gained 242 new likes this week, and looking at the graph, it has been reasonably constant, so instead of coming in huge leaps, with quiet periods in between, the Labour Party’s growth is more constant. Though they still lag far behind the Greens, who still hold the position of the most likes on a party page.
National:
National have broken through the 10,000 barrier, and now sit on 12,922, up 3214, or 33.1%. So they have had the second biggest raw number increase, and the largest percentage increase. But they still lag behind the other parties. However, I suspect this is indicative of the focus that National place on the John Key brand. Which works great when he is sitting at over 60% approval ratings in the polls, but when he leaves, or his brand becomes tarnished, the party ends up in a situation where their brand is focused on him, and the social media presence in other areas is found significantly wanting.
New Meteric:
Facebook have added a new, publicly viewable, metic on Pages. It gives an insight into what type of people are the most engaged with a page. I am not sure how accurate it is, but I am making the assumption that each page will be as accurate or inaccurate as the others, so it is a fair metric to use.
What I find most interesting about this is that it is the National Party that has the youngest age group in its most engaged stats. So despite the party having an image of being supported by old people, the have more young people engaged with their Facebook page. Now this may have been caused by a single post recently, so I will endeavour to keep an eye on it and see what happens in the coming weeks and months.
