Social media's a party, but you gotta keep it low!

Social media as Google rightly puts it is a giant party; and to put it lightly it’s turning out to be a wankfest of immense proportions.

So called social media agencies and fad hunters are creating a state of near paranoia in pushing for growth by numbers. Hey hold on! Is social media about large numbers? Or is it about the likeminded coming together to communicate, share, work for a shared passion and create something in its wake?

I would tend to agree with Seth Godin’s of the world (read his take on social groups in his book Tribes), that it’s the latter. And the key to any social group is communication, so to that effect how can communication channels work when it starts emulating broadcast media formats of one ->many?

 Let’s take a look at our own social habits. It’s great to add new friends grow numbers and engage in fruitful communication with a group of likeminded people. But all this changes after we cross a threshold limit, 100’s for some 1000’s for others; somehow the communication channel begins to crumble beyond a size, the intimacy is lost and we find it difficult to keep track of the diverse set of comments, member movements, activities etc. While there are celebrities do have lists that runs into millions ( Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra etc) but you really have to ask yourself if they are really creating cohesive groups or using the social tools to broadcast? Can you imagine SRK responding to your critical analysis of his last movie and explaining his stance?

So here’s my plea to number hunters, get off those blinkers, take a step back and re-visit your strategy. Delve a little in the amazing world of obscurity in existence across the multitude of b/boards that are as old as the internet and definitely much older than the social fad. Maybe you will find your answers, I for one have always believed in my closed groups, its time you do too!

Posted via email from An idea, a day!