The Young PAP with its highly successful Facebook fan page of less than 3,400 fans

In his interview with the Chinese newspapers, Young PAP Chairman, Comrade Teo Ser Luck made an interesting comment about how Young PAP has managed to network with the people using their Facebook page, and how successful they are, regardless of the traffic. Yes, apparently the fan page traffic is not important to them.

大选临近蓄势待发　政党及论政网站争夺网友“眼球”
Source: Lianhe Zaobao

张思乐指出，他并不以加入的人数多寡来衡量行青团Facebook 的成效，成功与否的关键在于网站上提出的课题是否能掀起讨论，而这些讨论又是否具有建设性。他对于行青团的Facebook 至今所取得的成绩感到满意，觉得支持者之间的互动性很强，也经常看到一些具建设性的看法，而行青团也会把这些意见向上传达给决策者参考。

Translation in English, thanks to a friend of mine:

"Teo Ser Luck pointed out that it is not the number of fans for the Young PAP Facebook fan page that is used to measure the effectiveness of the page. The success of the Young PAP Facebook fan page is measured by whether the topics posted on the page have arouse discussions, and whether these discussions are constructive. He is very satisfied with the successful result of the Young PAP Facebook fan page, and feels that there is much interaction between the supporters, and he sees some constructive comments, which the Young PAP will convey to the policies makers."

While in social media, we learned that it is all about statistics, so much so that you can even add Google Analytics to your Facebook fan page to track your traffic, like how you track the traffic to your websites. We thought that it is important to measure our fan page conversion rate, to know our ROI in order to understand how effective our strategy is and where we should make improvements.

This is the very first time that I know of somebody who is satisfied with a Facebook fan page "liked" by less than 3,400 fans and thinks that this is just the amount of interaction that is necessary. But hey, even Subway Singapore has eight thousands over fans!

Mr Teo also feels that there is much interaction between the supporters, and he sees some constructive comments. With that in mind, I took a look at the latest discussions on the page and some of the comments...

Post: Comrade Yi Shyan Lee (Chai Chee): "The National Wages Council’s recent announcement made the same call: there is a pressing need to raise productivity to ensure that wage gains are sustainable. In this respect, wage increase should lag productivity gains in the long term."

Sinha Shekhar: Is productivity related to education? Don' think so. But it makes a good research topic.

CK Tom: What population sample are you looking at? Does this include your maid?

Annie How: obviously Russell Teo, the de facto roti-prata man here, who is an expert in twisting his words & misleading ppl, can really speak many tongues, including 'gay' as a language...No wunder robox & him can click!!!

Sinha Shekhar: Am sorry I can't comment on the companies misusing the immigration policy. But the thing is that "We are talking about thousands and thousands of people coming to Singapore. There are black sheeps in every industry. They may misuse the trust bestowed upon them by the government. As a citizen, its our duty to inform the authorities about such misdeeds. I always believed in "Top dollars for top dogs". If not we may not get the right person forthe right job. For Singaore so much is at stake.

Nilesh Sahita: Sinha - are you saying that as a taxpayers we are paying million dollars to our beloved ministers and is it my job to monitor and report misuses? Are you telling that immigration department should not have comprehensive surveillance / audit department for this?

Hmm... not sure if these are the constructive comments that will channel all the way up.

Anyway, the number of "like"s and quality of discussion on the page aside, I suppose the fans for the Young PAP Facebook fan page has a more crucial question in their minds: Will this fan page be closed? As record has proven that once the going gets tough, the not-so-tough gets closed.

YP to close 2 Facebook pages
Source: Asiaone.com

THE youth wing of the People's Action Party (PAP) is consolidating its online presence in a bid for better control over its new media message.

The move by Young PAP (YP) comes two months after a spate of high-profile spats between YP members and netizens.

Tomorrow, two of its Facebook pages - YP Network and YP Community - will be closed. Only the main Young PAP Facebook page will remain up.