Hey guys! Welcome to Shama.TV. Today I want to talk to you guys about a question that I get a lot. You know people have a lot of issues with this. I have all these Facebook friends, I have all these followers on Twitter, but at the end of the day, do I really know all these people? How far do these relationships really go?
In the study of social theory, social capital, ties that we have through social networking are weak ties. You know, they are people that we don’t necessarily have to keep in touch with. Your strong ties are your colleagues, or your family, your parents, your husband, your wife, your kids, your nieces, nephews, whatever! Those are your solid ties. You know, those are your connections, often family, and very close friends. Your weak ties are a friend of a colleague, or a friend of a friend, or your mom’s second cousins 5th sister removed, or whatever it may be.
Here is the thing, with social networking sites they fact that we have so many weak ties over a period of time, can really help perpetuate our message, get our marketing message out there. We really can use these weak ties and create win/win situations with them. One of the things I want you to start doing is to stop thinking about why aren’t they more solid relationships or how to kind of build each weak ties into a solid relationship, because it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to know every Twitter follower there personally, you don’t have to know the names of the kids of all your 5000 Facebook friends.
If you will get ok with just, realizing that some ties, especially on social networking are going to be weak ties. That’s ok as long as your providing value and their providing value, and you are continuing to build a relationship, wherever it may lead.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Good thoughts Shama… love your Blog look its great.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Shama,
Great job on the video….I enjoyed it very much.
Also, Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, ‘The Tipping Point’ had further elaborated on the specific reasons why ‘weak ties’ are so powerful.
In the book, Gladwell was discussing the research of Mark Granovetter. Granovetter had found that when people were looking for a job, their ‘weak ties’ proved to be much more important than their ‘strong ties’. The reason this is the case is that your strong ties tend to occupy the same world that you do. They are aware of the same opportunities that you are. However, for things like new jobs, new ideas, new markets etc.(essentially anytime you need to be exposed to something new), your ‘weak ties’ are more likely to be of help.
Gladwell writes that:
“Acquaintances, in short, represent a form of social power, and the more acquaintances you have the more powerful you are.”
Again – thanks for posting the video.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Very good point, branching out can have more rewards than we can expect. Also like comment made by Scott. Makes a lot of sense to think broader than our local environments. Thanks for the continued great videos;-)
June 19th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Hey Shama – good quick video. I have made many useful and interesting connections through Twitter [even if I didn't 'get it' at first!].