Facebook fans fail as a measure (Singapore GE2011)
I was intrigued by the data my friend Pat Law posted on the GoodStuph blog on the Singapore General Elections results. She proved that even if a party had the majority of Facebook Fans, it didn't equate to the actual wins. Logically it should work. What you support as a fan you should be voting for in reality. But I think the biggest distinction here is the barrier to entry. To be a Facebook fan is amazingly easy and mostly brainless. You click a button and it's done. Most people don't even think about it and many others support it even though it has little or nothing to do with their constituency. But for the actual vote, you only get one shot in five years. You only get to vote for the candidate(s) in your constituency. It's also a difficult choice compared to the frivolous click on Facebook.
So I tried to look at the data from a different point of view. Borrowing data from Pat's earlier post, I put side by side the actual Facebook Fans vs. Actual Votes.
Assuming that everyone who was a Facebook Fan also went to the polls, that's 173,754 Facebook Fans out of a total 350,916 Actual Votes. About 50%. This is even more surprising when you consider Pat's conclusions because a 50% sample size is often more than enough to indicate a fairly accurate trend. But in actuality Facebook Fans fail to be useful indicators. In fact, from the above data, the party with lower Facebook Fans to Actual Votes percentage won.
It seem clear that Facebook Fans, however buzz-worthy they are, have little to do with gaining results. I'm wondering if the same is true for product companies. Do more fans equate to greater adoption?
