5 ms·

State Department bureau spent $630,000 on Facebook 'likes'

125 points by stfu 13y ago

LoganCale 13y ago
Why are politicians and the government seemingly so incompetent when it comes to the value of digital products and services? This puts me in mind of politicians who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign website that has nothing unique or difficult to make it worth so much more than any other website.
- meepmorp 13y ago
  Large businesses do similarly dumb things with digital products and services. There's nothing I see here that's specific to government, except that there's a publicly published report detailing expenditures and problems, which you generally wouldn't see in business. And, frankly, without reading the actual report (which the OP doesn't link to) it's hard to know if you're getting the whole story here. The Washington Examiner is a right wing publication, so it's not hard to see where they might selectively present details to paint this in a negative light. Not saying that they are distorting things, but absent a review of the original document, it's something to keep in mind.
  - wam 13y ago
    It looks like the document is included in the article in a PDF viewer. Sometimes those don't show up because of ad-blockers. The Examiner does tend to cherry-pick, and it's definitely worth reviewing the document. I searched the doc for "facebook" and it looks to me like the broader goal was engagement, not "likes" as an end-all. They were working off the assumption that more likes meant more engagement, and during that campaign, people started to realize and point out that it wasn't happening. And to that end it appears to be a waste of $630k. But it's not the case that they just blindly wanted more likes because it feels good. (The article doesn't say that, but a lot of people think about "likes" that way). Facebook and Twitter are legit ways to reach international audiences, for example, to disseminate propaganda / information (depending on how you lean).
- loceng 13y ago
  It's not their money, they're not accountable. They don't have to check with each voter in their region "Is spending this money okay? Can I go ahead with it?" - sure, it might slow down things a bit - but that's a good thing, and people would be more involved and more aware.
- ihsw 13y ago
  > Why are politicians and the government seemingly so incompetent when it comes to the value of digital products and services? It's not accidental: their PR departments are filled with slackers and their budget needs to be spent. They're going for the lowest-common-denominator with the cheapest cost and the least amount of effort, which is par the course for non-essential government spending.
magoon 13y ago
Executive branch.
danso 13y ago
Jesus, I can only imagine what they spent to develop their FarmVille territory.
- dakrisht 13y ago
  They have people on salary playing FarmVille
TomGullen 13y ago
What a horrific waste of money
- CPAhem 13y ago
  Your tax $ at work...
- alex_doom 13y ago
  As opposed to how they usually do business?
VladRussian2 13y ago
that begs a question - how probable that FB has provided "inconspicuous" services to government recently such that the payment for the services would preferably be disassociated from the services and look like a stupid actions of a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats instead?
Zarathust 13y ago
So a like is worth around 0.25$
quackerhacker 13y ago
This reminds me of the IRS' $60k Star Trek themed YouTube campaign [0]. Does this frivolous spending of tax payer money get categorized under marketing expenses or operating losses? [sarcasm] [0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297934/IRS-apologizes-making-spoof-Star-Trek-video-criticized-wasting-taxpayer-dollars.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297934/IRS-apologiz...
clientbiller 13y ago
Haven't they heard of fiverr.com?
jmduke 13y ago
An honest question: is there a rational reason to get upset about this but not about other State Dept. marketing/PR efforts? This number is a small fraction of the State Department's overall budget and it increased their engagement from 100,000 likes to 2 million. I feel like the title invites a kneejerk reaction, but its entirely possible this was the best way the State Department had to increase their accessibility.
- joejohnson 13y ago
  Give me $600,000 and I'll double that 2 million likes to 4 million likes. Does that add any value for end users of the State Dept. (i.e. taxpayers)?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    end users of the State Dept. (i.e. taxpayers Given that the State Department is the authority that issues visas for travel to the US, operates embassies and so on, a lot of the end users are not taxpayers.
    - anaptdemise 13y ago
      Who else is paying them to promote themselves? It isn't the immigrants. So yes, that makes the tax payer the benefactor of their operations. So how does the State Department benefit tax payers by having friends on FB? Why does anyone care about fans/friends on facebook. Such a waste of our societies capitol.
- MikeCapone 13y ago
  "I feel like the title invites a kneejerk reaction, but its entirely possible this was the best way the State Department had to increase their accessibility." Developing a presence on social media, sure. Buying "likes"..? I'd need to see a convincing case that this helps in any way. To me it sounds like a way of 'juking the stats', as they would say in The Wire. A way for the people who created the social media program to report to the higher-ups that "things are working really well, see, we have millions of people liking us and using our pages!"
shortformblog 13y ago
Here's the page in question: https://www.facebook.com/democracychallenge https://www.facebook.com/democracychallenge There's definitely engagement happening on here. 2 percent of 2 million people is still 40,000 regularly engaged people. And on top of that, the algorithms probably had an effect on their engagement—they regularly had posts that gained 5,000+ likes as of last year, though the number has slowed down significantly. The question is, was it worth the cost as far as exposure and marketing goes? Did it reach the audience it was looking to reach? It may have, at least for a while. Based on this 2011 press release that trumpets its 80% user base under the age of 24, they were clearly trying to reach young adults, no matter what the IG says in his report: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/03/159381.htm http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/03/159381.htm It may not have been worth it in the end, but I get wary when I see standard-issue "government waste" stories like this, because what often happens is that the truth is somewhere in-between.
- scottkduncan 13y ago
  Great comment. As someone who works for the U.S. government (all opinions here are my own!), one of the most frustrating things about working there is the extreme sense of risk aversion in trying new things. If you stick to the status quo and don't rock the boat, even if what you are doing isn't effective you won't run into any difficulties. However, the second you try something new and it fails (or just doesn't live up to expectations), allegations of waste and incompetence follow. In the private sector, how many companies have spent millions trying to figure out how to make social media work for their businesses before finding an approach that delivers results? If government doesn't have the same flexibility to experiment, it will never figure out how to harness some of these new tools and will end up being relegated even more than it already is to using obsolete approaches and technologies. Ideally government would have the ability to rapidly try new, small dollar projects with the expectation that many efforts would fail but a few would succeed and end up contributing to a new way of doing business. Unfortunately the institutional bias towards big, safe, and old-fashioned approaches is reinforced each time an innovative attempt at something new is perceived as falling short.
  - shortformblog 13y ago
fotoblur 13y ago
Doesn't social proof constitute a valid operating expense when you're in the business of peddling BS?
alex_doom 13y ago
Lot's of $100 hammers I see.

125 points by stfu 13y ago

Why are politicians and the government seemingly so incompetent when it comes to the value of digital products and services? This puts me in mind of politicians who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign website that has nothing unique or difficult to make it worth so much more than any other website.

meepmorp 13y ago
Large businesses do similarly dumb things with digital products and services. There's nothing I see here that's specific to government, except that there's a publicly published report detailing expenditures and problems, which you generally wouldn't see in business. And, frankly, without reading the actual report (which the OP doesn't link to) it's hard to know if you're getting the whole story here. The Washington Examiner is a right wing publication, so it's not hard to see where they might selectively present details to paint this in a negative light. Not saying that they are distorting things, but absent a review of the original document, it's something to keep in mind.
- wam 13y ago
  It looks like the document is included in the article in a PDF viewer. Sometimes those don't show up because of ad-blockers. The Examiner does tend to cherry-pick, and it's definitely worth reviewing the document. I searched the doc for "facebook" and it looks to me like the broader goal was engagement, not "likes" as an end-all. They were working off the assumption that more likes meant more engagement, and during that campaign, people started to realize and point out that it wasn't happening. And to that end it appears to be a waste of $630k. But it's not the case that they just blindly wanted more likes because it feels good. (The article doesn't say that, but a lot of people think about "likes" that way). Facebook and Twitter are legit ways to reach international audiences, for example, to disseminate propaganda / information (depending on how you lean).
loceng 13y ago
It's not their money, they're not accountable. They don't have to check with each voter in their region "Is spending this money okay? Can I go ahead with it?" - sure, it might slow down things a bit - but that's a good thing, and people would be more involved and more aware.
ihsw 13y ago
> Why are politicians and the government seemingly so incompetent when it comes to the value of digital products and services? It's not accidental: their PR departments are filled with slackers and their budget needs to be spent. They're going for the lowest-common-denominator with the cheapest cost and the least amount of effort, which is par the course for non-essential government spending.

magoon 13y ago

Executive branch.

danso 13y ago

Jesus, I can only imagine what they spent to develop their FarmVille territory.

dakrisht 13y ago
They have people on salary playing FarmVille

TomGullen 13y ago

What a horrific waste of money

CPAhem 13y ago
Your tax $ at work...
alex_doom 13y ago
As opposed to how they usually do business?

VladRussian2 13y ago

that begs a question - how probable that FB has provided "inconspicuous" services to government recently such that the payment for the services would preferably be disassociated from the services and look like a stupid actions of a bunch of incompetent bureaucrats instead?

Zarathust 13y ago

So a like is worth around 0.25$

quackerhacker 13y ago

This reminds me of the IRS' $60k Star Trek themed YouTube campaign [0]. Does this frivolous spending of tax payer money get categorized under marketing expenses or operating losses? [sarcasm] [0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297934/IRS-apologizes-making-spoof-Star-Trek-video-criticized-wasting-taxpayer-dollars.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297934/IRS-apologiz...

clientbiller 13y ago

Haven't they heard of fiverr.com?

jmduke 13y ago

An honest question: is there a rational reason to get upset about this but not about other State Dept. marketing/PR efforts? This number is a small fraction of the State Department's overall budget and it increased their engagement from 100,000 likes to 2 million. I feel like the title invites a kneejerk reaction, but its entirely possible this was the best way the State Department had to increase their accessibility.

joejohnson 13y ago
Give me $600,000 and I'll double that 2 million likes to 4 million likes. Does that add any value for end users of the State Dept. (i.e. taxpayers)?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  end users of the State Dept. (i.e. taxpayers Given that the State Department is the authority that issues visas for travel to the US, operates embassies and so on, a lot of the end users are not taxpayers.
  - anaptdemise 13y ago
    Who else is paying them to promote themselves? It isn't the immigrants. So yes, that makes the tax payer the benefactor of their operations. So how does the State Department benefit tax payers by having friends on FB? Why does anyone care about fans/friends on facebook. Such a waste of our societies capitol.
MikeCapone 13y ago
"I feel like the title invites a kneejerk reaction, but its entirely possible this was the best way the State Department had to increase their accessibility." Developing a presence on social media, sure. Buying "likes"..? I'd need to see a convincing case that this helps in any way. To me it sounds like a way of 'juking the stats', as they would say in The Wire. A way for the people who created the social media program to report to the higher-ups that "things are working really well, see, we have millions of people liking us and using our pages!"

shortformblog 13y ago

Here's the page in question: https://www.facebook.com/democracychallenge https://www.facebook.com/democracychallenge There's definitely engagement happening on here. 2 percent of 2 million people is still 40,000 regularly engaged people. And on top of that, the algorithms probably had an effect on their engagement—they regularly had posts that gained 5,000+ likes as of last year, though the number has slowed down significantly. The question is, was it worth the cost as far as exposure and marketing goes? Did it reach the audience it was looking to reach? It may have, at least for a while. Based on this 2011 press release that trumpets its 80% user base under the age of 24, they were clearly trying to reach young adults, no matter what the IG says in his report: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/03/159381.htm http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2011/03/159381.htm It may not have been worth it in the end, but I get wary when I see standard-issue "government waste" stories like this, because what often happens is that the truth is somewhere in-between.

scottkduncan 13y ago
Great comment. As someone who works for the U.S. government (all opinions here are my own!), one of the most frustrating things about working there is the extreme sense of risk aversion in trying new things. If you stick to the status quo and don't rock the boat, even if what you are doing isn't effective you won't run into any difficulties. However, the second you try something new and it fails (or just doesn't live up to expectations), allegations of waste and incompetence follow. In the private sector, how many companies have spent millions trying to figure out how to make social media work for their businesses before finding an approach that delivers results? If government doesn't have the same flexibility to experiment, it will never figure out how to harness some of these new tools and will end up being relegated even more than it already is to using obsolete approaches and technologies. Ideally government would have the ability to rapidly try new, small dollar projects with the expectation that many efforts would fail but a few would succeed and end up contributing to a new way of doing business. Unfortunately the institutional bias towards big, safe, and old-fashioned approaches is reinforced each time an innovative attempt at something new is perceived as falling short.
- shortformblog 13y ago

fotoblur 13y ago

Doesn't social proof constitute a valid operating expense when you're in the business of peddling BS?

alex_doom 13y ago

Lot's of $100 hammers I see.