If Facebook is any indication, I am a lot like many candidates. I like The Eagles and Garth Brooks, so does Mitt Romney. I like Stevie Wonder, so does Barack Obama. I watch Seinfeld whenever I can. Apparently so does John McCain.
It is interesting to look at all the remaining candidates’ Facebook sites. They all look the same. You cannot change the design too much on Facebook.
Pages like Facebook and MySpace provide the candidates with an unlimited amount of free advertisements and publicity to young people, so the question is: Who is doing the best job with this much free space?
What’s on the page
It is interesting to see what each candidate to decides to put on his or her individual page. While Romney, McCain Obama and Huckabee all have their favorite music on the page, Clinton and Paul don’t mention any of their favorite songs.
I think it is interesting to see Romney’s diverse music interests. He lists everything from The Beatles and The Eagles to Garth Brooks and George Strait as his favorite music. I don’t know if this is an attempt to relate to his Republican supporters or not, but it is an interesting diversity.
Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton have the least to say about their personal interests as people. Clinton gives people a paragraph about who she is. Ron Paul mentions his life experiences, but he doesn’t give a lot of insight into his life.
Opposite of that are Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Romney gives a long list of favorites from all his songs to all his favorite books. I don’t know if he is trying to show his education but, like his songs, it ranges from Huck Finn to The World is Flat.
Obama tells his audience he likes Stevie Wonder and SportsCenter. He lists many books. His favorite quote is from Martin Luther King Jr. He also likes playing basketball.
Link it to me
Each of the candidates’ have links to other websites on his or her Facebook pages. All but Clinton has a link to his or her MySpace page. Obama, Romney and Paul have a link to a student page. I think that is an effective way to reach young people. If they are on the Facebook page than they probably want to support the candidate.
Ready for my headshot:
The photo of each candidate on both MySpace and Facebook are interesting. Huckabee and Obama use campaign buttons as photos on Facebook. McCain uses an esteemed, more professional photo on both the Facebook and MySpace page. It is a dark suit in a professional setting. Hillary goes with an intimate black-and-white photo. She is smiling and very happy in the photo. Romney goes with a relaxed look in both shots. On Facebook it is just his head and he seems to be sitting around and smiling, looking very buddy-like. On MySpace he’s in a yellow parka walking in the snow. Ron Paul is smiling on Facebook and giving a thumbs up.
Paul on MySpace
One of the most interesting parts of the candidates’ MySpace pages is that Ron Paul is the only one who has music on the page. The song is Ron Paul talking about issues over hip-hop music. I don’t know if it makes me want to vote for him, but I cannot get the song out of my head.
Who are your friends?
Barack Obama has the most friends on both Facebook and MySpace. He has 357, 929 friends on Facebook and 253, 985 on MySpace. Hillary Clinton has the second most friends on Facebook with 88,566. Ron Paul has the second most MySpace friends with 125,987. Clinton is actually has the fourth most MySpace friends with 40,762. McCain has 42,052 friends on Facebook, fifth most, but the third most MySpace friends behind Obama and Paul. Mitt Romney has the fewest Facebook friends and the second fewest MySpace friends behind Mike Huckabee.
Among top friends, Obama’s top friends are all states that support him. Romney has his wife as his top friend and his sons are right behind her. Huckabee has his wife at number one also, and Ohio, Ohio for Huckabee and Teenagers for Mike Huckabee are among the other friends.
McCain has an unusual top friends list. A man named Patrick is his number one friend, but you cannot see his page. Most of his friends have pictures with McCain.
Ron Paul has an unusual top friend. MusicLoad at MusicLoad.com. I clicked on that page and the first notes mention voting for Ron Paul today. Ron Paul is its number two friend. The Foo Fighters are also one of Ron Paul’s best friends.
So what’s here then?
Looking at al the pages, it seems like Obama, Paul and Clinton are doing the best job at utilizing these pages. The Democrats have more friends than the Republicans on the page. I think the fact that four Republicans remain and only Democrats have a lot to do with the numbers, but the closer we get to November it will be interesting to see how the Facebook and MySpace campaigns affect this election.
