Politico’s Facebook fan page isn’t great, but it’s not horrible either.
The page has over 4,000 fans. Considering their circulation and reach, that doesn’t seem like much.
The page is pretty active, but sporadic. Some days will see five or more posts, while other days don’t get posts at all. The posts get a fair amount of comments and “likes” from fans of the page, but it’s not an overwhelming kind of thing. The comments are usually pretty intelligent and don’t stray into the crazy territory.
It seems like Politico is doing everything right: they post stories at good times, the stories they post are compelling, and yet, they don’t seem to have a huge Facebook following.
Their Info section is well done, with links to their best pages (Click, 44, the Arena). Their photo page could use some work — it only really has art by their cartoonist. On the other hand, Politico doesn’t really have a lot of unique photography, and that’s not what they’re known for.
The Notes section could use some work. They seem to have tried to start posting top stories of the day, but the last posting was a month ago. Their Discussion section is also pretty dead. There are only a handful of discussions going on and I wouldn’t even call a one post a “discussion.” Their Events and Video sections are empty.
It’s unclear why the fan page is so unpopular. It may be because their reporters don’t really interact with readers in the comments. If I were to comment on a particular story and the reporter responded directly to me, I would be really excited, and probably comment all the time. But readers only have themselves to interact with.
I would recommend more interaction with readers, a beefed-up discussion section, more videos and events posted, and a daily Note with the top stories of the day. I would also recommend they post more stories more often, and make sure they’re the top stories of the day.
