Facebook Group Created to Build McCain Facebook Group

Talk about meta. Can one Facebook group be created for the sole purpose of fueling friends on another group? Republican Web strategist Patrick Ruffini set up his “John McCain Facebook Challenge” group just for that. “The point of this group is pretty simple: Get every Republican on Facebook to go to John McCain’s Facebook page (facebook.com/JohnMcCain) and become a supporter.”

The group even offers supporter rankings (kinda like Bush deemed top fundraisers “Rangers” after his beloved Texas baseball team):

** State / Region / School Chair: Invite as many friends as you can from your personal network.
** Co-Founder – 200 invites.
** Founder – 500 invites.

Not surprising, there’s a very specific strategy suggested, involving posting the challenge group to your profile, getting added as a supporter on John McCain’s page, and sharing “McCain’s page with your friends (you can message 20 at a time or post to your profile) This keeps the movement growing by making it more likely to appear in your friends’ newsfeeds.”

I realize social networking sites have moved way beyond their original organic approach. It’s all about quantity rather than quality when it comes to the size of a group or number of friends. And I recognize that organizations and candidates want to use every means possible to get their message out and drive people to their sites to volunteer or donate.

Still, it all seems so contrived. I wonder what the actual measurable value of having more friends than Hillary Clinton’s Facebook group really is. Does it really drive more donations or signups or is it just another empty number?