Point of View: Malawi President Joyce Banda’s Facebook page
On May 29, 2013 Facebook announced verified pages and profiles. The verification makes it easier for users to find “official” fan pages and “genuine” accounts and contacts of top brands, celebrities, government officials and other public figures.
Like on Twitter, verified accounts on Facebook will be denoted with a small blue icon with a check-mark in it. (See picture)
So far, the Malawi Head of State’s official Facebook page is not enjoying this feature because the patronage is on the lower side.
Some quick examples of verified Facebook pages one may wish to visit to observe this feature are:
- President Uhuru Kenyatta’s page: https://www.facebook.com/myuhurukenyatta (527,060 likes),
- Bill Gates, https://www.facebook.com/BillGates (3,918,164 likes), and
- Eminem, https://www.facebook.com/Eminem (70,637,996 likes).
My hope is that Her Excellency’s Facebook page shall continue to grow and be ranked and counted as the verified pages.
My second observation is the emptiness that President Joyce Banda’s Facebook Page is displaying.
If one wants to know more about any person and more so a president, surely they will want to see some biographical and other such information. This aspect, on President Joyce Banda’s page is deficient.
A comparison of Malawi president’s Facebook page with that of Kenya’s president:
- Uhuru Kenyatta: https://www.facebook.com/myuhurukenyatta/info
- Joyce Banda: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Her-Excellency-Dr-Joyce-Banda/325799237543309?id=325799237543309&sk=info
Reveals that the former’s link has more info and is more open, while the latter is overly conservative; sort of lighting a candle and putting it under a bucket.
My third observation is obvious to an uncluttered, techno-savvy and progressive mind.
The two links that I have listed above are, even at a glance, very different. The former is a standard Facebook URL for a page while the latter is a loo…….ong cumbersome address, not easy to memorise.
Facebook has a very easy setting in the Admin’s Configuration Panel that enables users to create a short username if a page has more than 21 likes. President Joyce Banda’s Facebook page has about 140,291 likes and this leaves me wondering what the admin, if he/she is paid; is paid for.
My appeal to the Administrator of President Joyce Banda’s page is that they should step up their game!
The page as it is is letting Malawi down. Unless this is intended, I will be surprised nay; shocked is the word, if the recommendations above are not effected soonest.
By the way, it wasn’t my intention to bring these observations on a public forum like this. But I was forced to.
The Administrators of that page, for reasons best known to them, seem to find responding to messages repulsive. Why exactly they exist and masquerade as Admins, nobody knows.
God Bless Malawi!
*Clement Magombo https://www.facebook.com/ckledo
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