Michele Bachmann's Army of Facebook Activists -- Now Bigger Than Palin's!
Michele Bachmann may have the biggest army of social media activists as she bids for the Republican nomination for president, according to a survey of by Fangager, a market research consultancy. The survey also suggests an interesting question about Newt Gingrich's "fans": If Gingrich has 1.3 million Twitter followers, then why has he only managed to get 142,679 friends on Facebook?
Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., has 53,488 "active" Facebook fans, according to Fangager, more than any other candidate including Sarah Palin. Palin has a larger total Facebook fanbase -- 3.2 million fans to Bachmann's 438,545 -- but only 0.8 pecent of Palinites are actively engaged with her Facebook account, Fangager says. (Plus, Palin hasn't announced yet.) Of Bachmann's fans, 12.2 percent are active.
Mitt Romney also has more Facebook fans than Bachmann but, like Palin, a smaller proportion of them are "active" on the web. Bachmann's fans have also made more posts on her Facebook page -- more than 14,000 -- than anyone else.
The results are curious because, as Palin has proved repeatedly, being able to mobilize a large army of supporters on the web is fast becoming more important to election campaigns than the ability to organize door-to-door campaigners (click to enlarge):
One of the Republicans grappling least successfully with Facebook is Gingrich, despite his avowed passion for all things future-y. Even Herman Cain has more total friends, and more active friends, than Gingrich. Gingrich claims he has more than six times the number of Twitter followers than all the other candidates combined. Gawker claims he bought them to make himself look more popular, and that 92 percent of his followers are ghost accounts. Fangager's analysis of his Facebook friends bears out Gawker's scoop: Gingrich just isn't that popular in social media.
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