Smoking group could increase in members quicker than Non-Smoking group

The Non-Smoking group is clearly in the lead and has the most members, but it appears that the Smoking group is actually increasing in members at a quicker rate than the Non-Smoking group.

Why is this? One reason why the Smoking group is gaining members quicker is because there are alot more members that have added the group application to their profiles. This application allows members to support the group they have joined by helping to make other facebook members aware of the group. For example, it is likley that your friends have the same opinions as you on the smoking ban and will join the same group.

The smoking group currently has more than 1000 installs of the application whereas the non-smoking group has around 500 - if everyone in the smoking group added the application it could change the member numbers significantly.

The links to the applications can be found on the homepage of this blog.

Smoking group matches non-smoking group

The group AGAINST the smoking ban is now matching the group FOR the ban in terms of the amount of members joining and is now recieving the same amount of members joining the group. For example, the graph below shows that the non-smoking group recieved 1689 new members whereas the smoking group recieved 1504. This shows that the smoking group is just about matching the non-smoking group which was not the case a few days ago.



Can the group AGAISNT the ban overtake the group FOR the ban?

Many members have said they think there are more non-smokers than smokers who use facebook. However, the graph shows that if the non-smoking group had started with the same amount of members as the non-smoking group in the first few days they would have roughly the same number of members. The group AGAINST the ban is still about one day behind the non-smoking group and would need to have a higher rate of increase in terms of member numbers if it is to overtake the non-smoking group.

Smoking group falling behind

One of the main reasons why the non-smoking group has a higher rate of increase in members is because they have invited more people to the group. The group AGAINST the ban were off to a good start and matched the increase in members until the 12th when members in the non-smoking group decided to invite more people to the group.



The group AGAINST the ban is about a day behind the non-smoking group in terms of member numbers which means it is still possible for them to overtake the non-smoking group. Some members have said that it's because there are more non-smokers which could be a factor but there could easily be more smokers on facebook who may never get invited to the group or hear about it!

It is evident at this point that members in the non-smoking group have invited more people to the group and have also taken part in dicussions and posted more comments which all contribute to the increase in members.

Member numbers during the first week

The non-smoking group Can we find 1 MILLION people that DON'T want smoking back in pubs? has reached the 1000 members mark and seems to be at least one day ahead of the smoking group Can we find 1 MILLION people that DO want smoking back in pubs?. At one point it looked like the smoking group were in with a chance of overtaking the non-smoking group in the 4th day of the race as the rate of members joining the group was higher than it was for the non-smoking group - the next day however, saw a massive increase in member numbers for the non-smoking group which still looks safe from being overtaken as you can see in the graph below: