DreamGrow Social Media

Dunbar: People limited to 150 friends, despite Facebook

Dunbar’s number is a limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable relationships. Relationships where an individual knows who each person is, and how those people relate each other. There is no precise value for Dunbar’s number, but it’s usually set to 150 and our brains just can’t handle more.

The advent of social networking sites has raised a question, if this number could be higher due to support from technology. Seems like a fair hypothesis.

Professor Dunbar set out to check that. Initial result show that people whit lots of friends maintain close relationships with only a small fraction of those. The Sunday Times quoted Dunbar:

The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world.

Another result from the study shows that women network better than men.

There is a big sex difference though … girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together.

Well, I quess we already knew that, but this suggest that women have a competitive advantage in an environment where more and more business is being done through digital channels and social networking. Combining that with the fact that women rule the social web makes me wonder what’s left fof men?

When thinking about the current state of social technology I still wonder if it can be made more helpful for maintaining bigger or tighter networks. My phone helps me to remember hundreds of phone numbers and even with that information I am able to remember the connections between different people. What would happen if the developers of Facebook or other social networks would singlemindedly focus on helping to increase the Dunbar’s number in their network. Would we perceive that social networking site as better, friendlier?

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Image credit Sanja Gjenero.

Seven Actionable Marketing Trends

Excellent! A collection of insights and ideas in relation to each of the before published seven actionable marketing trends.

Social media weekend: Seth Godin, relationships, marketing is dead

Another collection of articles for people who want to stay up to date in all things social. Seth GOdin has released agreat free ebook. Marketing will die. What is a relationship and 50 tactics for social media. Share and enjoy.

What Matters Now: get the free ebook from Seth Godin. Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up. Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. Seth’s new ebook will get you started on that path. A page from 60 great thinkers. (Download PDF now).

Be of service. Always. Excellence! Never an exception! If not Excellence, what? — Tom Peters in the ebook

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

2010: The Year Marketing Dies… (Subtitled) Or at Least Marketing as We Know It! If marketing burns to the ground in 2010, a new and more powerful marketing will rise from the ashes. The role of the new marketer:

• Won’t be merely to imagine creative messages but to fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience,
• Won’t be to plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar but to respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers,
• Won’t be merely to talk at consumers but to listen and engage one to one,
• Won’t be to build campaigns but relationships…

Clay Shirky: How social media can make history While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics. The same change is taking place in advertising and marketing. Control is an illusion.

Social media-powered show to hit Web. From creator of ‘American Idol’ comes ‘If I Can Dream,’ a social media approach to entertainment. If I Can Dream. Ehh… I had similar idea with my friend. Interaction, between characters across all social media in real-time. In addition to that regular TV appearances that are backed by YouTube and Hulu. This project seems to bypass regular TV. Ideas cost nothing, innovation is in doing…

Relationships Aren’t Universal. You, as a business, may have all the best intentions to forge a relationship with me, meaning that you want to talk with me, interact with me, get to know me better, understand my motivations and my personality and demonstrate that you value me as a customer, and hopefully give me lots of reasons to adore you and express that adoration publicly. I, however, may just want to get a discount, buy your thing because it suits my needs, and move on.

8 steps to social media goodness

It’s all about being human and engaging in conversation with other humans. We have done it for thousands of years and we really like it. That’s why social media is spreading like wildfire. Sir Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, said it best:

“I had (and still have) a dream that the Web could be less of a television channel and more of an interactive sea of shared knowledge. I imagine it immersing us as a warm, friendly environment made of the things we and our friends have seen, heard, believe, or have figured out. I would like it to bring our friends and colleagues closer, in that by working on this knowledge together we can come to better understandings.”

Location

Go where your audience is. People will not spend time on your site it’s not interesting enough. Most of us like to spend time with other people and this usually happens in social media sites so you have to be there.

Identity

Don’t try to hide who you are in social media. The key in social networks is that people like to talk to other people not some anonymous entities. Full disclosure is the best way to go. Be authentic, be believable, be you.

Connections

Concentrate on relationships with people and get involved in relevant discussions with consumers. Try to find and connect with those who have influence and authority in social media sites. But don’t forget others who are not “A-list”. Thousands of regular people might give you more stable audience than few A-list influencers.

Understanding

Use search to find out what your customers are talking about your brand, competitors and industry. Search Twitter, Facebook and Google Blog Search for relevant keywords. Set up Google alerts to get the latest news.

Give value

To be a successful in social media doesn’t always mean the number of followers, friends, or postings you have managed to get. It is more about trust and your reputation. Giving out consistent and useful information will help you to become an expert in your field.

Interact

Don’t use social media platforms as a new way to yell at people by giving out one-way marketing messages about your brand. Do not sell! Help, share, engage people, ask questions, give support, promote others… and then they will buy.

Long term

Building a following in social media sites will take time. It is not one-off campaign media. You may have a slow start. Just keep going. When you have accumulated enough value on your social bank account then your fans will pay back by spreading your message and buying your products.

Measure

In the end we want results. Some metrics to follow might be: incoming traffic from links, number of people subscribed to news feeds, members, fans, followers. How many mentions you get in the form of trackbacks and links to posts. Number of mentions in social media. Comments on blog and other social media posts. And the most important of all sales and leads.

What are the Social Media Rules of Engagement

It’s important that you have an understanding of the customs of Social Media. Although no hard legal rules exist, there are many good manners to follow if you want the vast crowds of the Social Media world to follow you.

• Give More Than You Take
• Respect
• Listen
• Respond
• Build Relationships
• Be Authentic and Transparent
• Do Not Become a Nuisance
• Collaborate
• Add Value
• Consider Opportunities in the Long Tail

via Social Media Rules of Engagement .