In the News

There's a report yesterday from the Inspector General that says the U.S. State Department bizarrely spent $630,000 in order to increase the number of fans and likes they'd have on four Facebook pages.

Fans did increase from 100,000 to 2 million, which is pretty impressive -- I'm only up to 367 -- but my favorite part of the article is that "employees complained that the agency was 'buying fans'”  Gee, ya think?  But that is their biggest complaint??  That the State Department was buying fans?  I mean, call me crazy, but to me, the far bigger problem is that...the U.S. State Department spent a freaking $630,000 to increase to get more fans on Facebook!

Making the money even worse spent is that the IG analysis that few people interacted with the Facebook pages.  Only two percent “liked,” shared or even just commented on anything they read there.

The thing is, what makes this story all the more wasteful is that if they really wanted to save money, they could have just asked Mark Evanier to mention them on his website.