As part of our special report on social media use in the 2011 civic election campaign, reporter Julie MacLellan examined the social media use of the three main parties in contention - the Burnaby Greens, TEAM Burnaby and the Burnaby Citizens Association - as well as the Burnaby Parents' Voice slate that's running five candidates in the school board race.
Here's how she ranked them - from top to bottom.
1. BURNABY GREENS
The Burnaby Greens are the ones who have Twitter figured out: it's not just a place to post your own information, but a way to interact with the community, and they do that better than anyone else in the campaign.
Along with posts about their own campaign activities are interspersed conversations with community members and businesses, and a nice feature of the page is links to daily blog posts about various issues (most recently: how to increase voter turnout, how to vote, celebrating Bike to Work Week and more).
Because their Twitter feed is focusing on the community as well as on their campaign, it comes across as less overtly "partisan" than the other two main contenders, which is likely to make it appealing to a broader range of followers.
That fact is reflected in the numbers: with 154 followers, they're leading the Twitter count among parties.
They're following 486 people and have tweeted 89 times.
On Facebook, the Greens have two presences: a "profile" as Burnaby Green, and a "page."
Using a profile isn't my preferred method, since it requires people to send a friend request in order to interact rather than simply "liking" a page. (However, they're quick to accept friend requests.) At last count, they had 71 friends.
Their Facebook profile isn't quite as varied and interesting as either TEAM Burnaby's or the BCA's pages, since the posts on the wall are basically just their tweets. I'd like to see more visuals - links to more photos, videos and other information.
Their Facebook "page," however (search for them as Burnaby Municipal Green Party) is a little livelier, with an opinion poll and a couple of event listings. It is, however, a bit unwieldy to have to visit two locations for all the information.
The page is only liked by 11 people.
The verdict: Far and away the best on Twitter, but a little weaker on Facebook, I still give the overall edge to the Greens over their opponents for their focus on community interaction.
2. TEAM BURNABY
TEAM Burnaby has an active Facebook page at www.facebook.com/TeamBurnaby.
It had 55 "likes" as of the writing of this, and the page was largely being populated by posts from candidates.
A big plus for prompt response to visitors' posts: a message I put up on the page was returned almost instantly by candidate Jim Favaro. Since the whole point of social media is its immediacy, it's good to see the party and its candidates embracing the idea of instant contact.
A nice feature of the TEAM Burnaby social media campaign is a series of YouTube videos introducing the candidates - all of which are well filmed (outside of Burnaby City Hall and the Burnaby school district offices, a nice touch), and all of which emphasize the candidates' various connections to Burnaby. The videos are linked via both Facebook and Twitter.
TEAM Burnaby also tweets at @TeamBurnaby.
Its very active tweet stream (120 tweets to date) is varied, including links to news stories, YouTube videos and voting information, as well as retweets of candidates' and other community members' posts.
The party was also making good use of the #bbyelxn hashtag to keep its tweets in the conversation.
It has 39 followers and is following 64 people.
The verdict: It was a close call between TEAM Burnaby and the BCA for second spot. I give the nod to TEAM Burnaby for the YouTube videos and for the ease in finding them, thanks to their username.
3. BURNABY CITIZENS ASSOCIATION
The Burnaby Citizens Association is also active on Facebook - search for their page at BCA-Burnaby Citizens Association 2011 Election Campaign. (Memo to BCA: Saving an easy-to-find username for the page would be a good idea.)
It had 137 "likes" as of the writing of this.
Several pluses to this page: The party and its candidates post a great deal of information, including links to news stories, events and general voting information, and it appears to be quite interactive. (A technical downside is that the wall does not accept posts from individuals; you can't leave a message unless you specifically comment on an existing story - allowing posts on the wall from those who have "liked" the page would make it more user-friendly.)
It's also tweeting, @BCA2011Election, and has tweeted 55 times.
Its tweet stream is active but focuses largely on tweets about the campaign and retweets of candidates' posts. It could benefit from more interaction with the community - more following and retweeting of Burnaby groups, businesses and community leaders (other than those affiliated with the BCA).
The party is making good use of the #bbyelxn hashtag.
It has 26 followers and is following 63 people.
The verdict: If the BCA made itself a little easier to find and opened its Facebook wall to commenting, it would be a closer fight for second spot.
BURNABY PARENTS' VOICE
This small group that's running five candidates in the race for school board is clearly an "also-ran" in the social media department. Although they've set up a Facebook page, as of Monday morning it had only one post by the page - saying "Vote for us on Sat Nov. 19!" and one by a visitor (me, looking for candidates). It also had only three followers.
Two candidates, Charter Lau and Gordon World, have individual Facebook presences, but neither had responded to my friend request.
They could not be found on Twitter.
The verdict: Social media will definitely not be a factor in this group's campaign.
* Note: All numbers accurate as of Monday morning, Nov. 7. Due to the nature of social media, totals will likely have changed by press time. To comment on this story, visit Julie MacLellan's blog - use the link off the home page, or check under the Opinion tab.
