Update II: By Monday, More than 26 million people have changed their Facebook picture to a rainbow flag. Here’s why that matters.. But, Were All Those Rainbow Profile Photos Another Facebook Study?
Update: Turns out that my contact got the numbers confused. 3.8 million people interacted around the decision on Facebook within the first hour, NOT that they turned their profile photos into rainbows. So sorry to have reported bad information, but impressive numbers still.
To help people show their excitement about today’s Supreme Court decision leglizing same-sex marriage throughout the U.S., Facebook created a Celebrate Pride page to let them layer a rainbow image over their profile photos. According to a contact at Facebook, “3.8 million people used the link and 10.1 million UNIQUE interactions in just the first hour it was live” — incredible. Correction: 3.8 million people engaged on Facebook around the Supreme Court decision about marriage equality in one hour, with 10.1 million unique interactions. Not all were celebratory, of course, but marriage supporters were clearly in the majority.
Among them was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, whose “rainbowed” profile photo soared toward 1000 “Likes” faster than any image she’d ever posted. Talk about tapping into a moment!
For a good look at more Facebook activity around the decision, check out Shaun Dakin’s list of the top-performing marriage pride posts, based on data from CrowdTangle. Here’s the piece: #LoveWins – The Best Facebook Posts on the SCOTUS Marriage Equality Ruling June 26th, 2015.
Hell of a day for Liberty and Equality, my friends.
– cpd