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Today’s election day in Wisconsin, where most of my Facebook network resides. I’ve been watching my mini-feed in fascination as various friends update their status with who they’re voting for. Could Facebook be the secret weapon that’s turning out the youth and creative class vote this year?

In particular, watching status updates come in today show that in some ways, Facebook’s core functionality is more effective in reaching other users than any application: it’s word of mouth, plain and simple, except that it’s delivered to networks of people at a reach and speed that no mere "I voted" sticker can manage. To say nothing of the fact that few of said stickers indicate for whom you voted, an endorsement that can have more meaning for young people than all the Kennedy’s in Massachusetts.

Just looking at my own feed today, here are some of the status updates I saw (names blurred out for privacy reasons):

Could Facebook, because of it’s natural ability to broadcast messages, addictive nature, and near ubiquity be a stronger mover of votes than offline social affiliations, like unions or churches? Based on the results we’ve seen from youth turnout this year, along with the growth potential as these networks age, more members of the creative class already post-college begin adopting it, and the number of people attending college increases, I’m betting that that’s the trend we’re going to see in this election and the ones that follow.

And it’s a trend that that I, for one, welcome.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Current Affairs, Marketing, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.