MyDD :: Rock the Vote & Stephen Colbert Group Register 4,000+ Voters...And Counting

Rock the Vote & Stephen Colbert Group Register 4,000+ Voters...And Counting

by ChrisKennedy, Tue Oct 30, 2007 at 05:22:15 PM EST

Cross-posted from the Rock the Vote Blog

The media has been touting the phenomenal growth of Stephen Colbert's Facebook group, which was created by high school student Raj Vachhani after Colbert announced his plan to run for president in South Carolina. In a mere eight days the group boasted a million members, and is currently shooting above 1.2 million.

Aside from an amazing membership count, this pop culture phenomenon has made a real political impact: more than 4,300 members have registered to vote via the group since Vachhani added a link to Rock the Vote on Thursday night (Oct. 24). That's about one registration per minute.

In fact, Rock the Vote's online registration capability is open to everyone. Sign up for a free account to track voter registrations through your own blog or website. We'll generate an embeddable registration form (aka "widget") that you can customize with a logo, and you'll even have access to the list of people you register so you can remind them to vote on Election Day.

Sound cool? Try it out. We would love to hear your feedback, too. Of course, you can always post a simple link to our online registration page if you prefer.

Tags: rock the vote, stephen colbert, facebook, widget, voter registration, long tail (all tags)

Permalink :: 2 Comments :: Post a Comment

Wait, that's you! (none / 0)

Like, I didn't think I'd see you posting on MyDD. That's cool.

So that comes out to a .4%ish action rate. Granted many of these people are already registered, which makes the action rate higher in reality, and given that there has been no ability for the group owner to push people to registed, that is all self-directed action. That's even more impressive to me.

Follow Texas Politics at Burnt Orange Report

by KTinTX on Wed Oct 31, 2007 at 12:39:00 PM EST

Re: Rock the Vote & Stephen Colbert Group Regi (none / 0)

Hey :)

The action rate is a little bit higher because by the time our link was added the group was already at about 700,000 members. If we assume that no members re-visit the page that's an action rate of 0.8% (we're up to 5,100+ registrations), but since a percentage of members probably came back to the page it's more likely to be in between our two estimates.

Yeah, I think this registration technique has been extremely effective on both cost (free) and speed (six days). Also it should be noted that 98% of the registrations are between 18 and 29, which is Rock the Vote's target demographic.

Also true that the group admin hasn't been able to promote registration other than the link. BUT Facebook has plans to remove the messaging limit for groups with more than 1,000 members by December or January. At that point he can send out a message to the group members promoting registration and probably generate a huge spike.

by ChrisKennedy on Wed Oct 31, 2007 at 08:18:45 PM EST

You are not logged in.

In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.

If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.