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View Full Version : Political Postings Risk Social Media Alienation




Tyler_Durden
03-21-2012, 02:51 PM
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008915&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

I know it's not GRC, but wanted to share before it gets filed away to an obscure sub-somewhere.

In addition to spreading the message in person with co-workers, clients, colleagues, clergy, friends, strangers, my primary care physician (true story), neighbors, etc, I try to spread knowledge and info via my 225 Facebook "friends." It's very subtle and usually only includes great articles or graphs with factual information (such as receiving most military donations, study showing least media coverage, study showing Paul's the only one with a plan to balance the budget, etc.)

I generally only receive responses/acknowledgements of Ron Paul related posts from 3-6 Facebook friends = 2% of my total Facebook "friends."

Additionally, I now receive less responses to my non-political posts than I did prior to my political-related postings, which began around Oct. 2011. So, I'd say that in general, my political related posts have resulted in social media alienation. Do I care? No. It was just worth mentioning.....

Philosophy_of_Politics
03-21-2012, 02:57 PM
I've lost friends since my Online Social Media Political Activism.

Eventually what happens, is that they hear something that's happening in our government/economy. Then they message me asking me what I know about this or that.

Enlightenment isn't something that happens all at once.

PolicyReader
03-21-2012, 03:46 PM
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008915&ecid=a6506033675d47f881651943c21c5ed4

I know it's not GRC, but wanted to share before it gets filed away to an obscure sub-somewhere.

In addition to spreading the message in person with co-workers, clients, colleagues, clergy, friends, strangers, my primary care physician (true story), neighbors, etc, I try to spread knowledge and info via my 225 Facebook "friends." It's very subtle and usually only includes great articles or graphs with factual information (such as receiving most military donations, study showing least media coverage, study showing Paul's the only one with a plan to balance the budget, etc.)

I generally only receive responses/acknowledgements of Ron Paul related posts from 3-6 Facebook friends = 2% of my total Facebook "friends."

Additionally, I now receive less responses to my non-political posts than I did prior to my political-related postings, which began around Oct. 2011. So, I'd say that in general, my political related posts have resulted in social media alienation. Do I care? No. It was just worth mentioning.....

I've had a largely similar experience (I usually only post about issues, or about how all candidates compare) and I've had a marked decrease in social media activity due to my refusal to "Santorum" my posts (i.e. pretend fallacious things put on my wall are accurate/not comment when I see something misrepresented as fact on my page).

While I've seen a net decrease in activity (and friend count for that matter) I've seen a net increase in actual conversation of substance within both my feed and my wall. The ratio of responses to "this new legislation has serious implications" vs "oh look a bunny" is much closer to equal than once it was (still the "bunny" gets more attention :o but at least it's more balanced )

In my own direct experience, more than any bias for or against a given issue(s) or candidate(s) those 'networked' to me seem to have a bias for the trivial and against the meaningful. 'Picture of a sunset with "believe in yourself" typeset over the bottom' lots of positive comments, shares, likes, etc., an infographic of any kind, lower response, much lower share rate and a 1/3 chance of snide comments :P

Conclusion: If American Idol were running for office it would get more votes than any of the actual candidates even tho it's a TV broadcast and cannot in reality hold office. :p

WilliamC
03-21-2012, 04:37 PM
I never had much in the way of friends to begin as I've always been one to speak my mind about how I see the world, so I never noticed.

I have noticed that I see the world far differently than most folks I've known though ;)