Nielsen Online’s newest report, Global Faces and Networked Places shows that in 2008, internet users spent more time on social media sites than they did emailing. Two-thirds of worldwide users currently engage in social networking and blogs, making them the fourth most popular internet tools- right behind search and portals. Since currently one of every eleven minutes spent online, is being spent on social networking sites, it has become apparent that these sites are more than a passing fad. Alex Burmaster, the study’s author said in a statement, “Social networking isn’t just growing rapidly; it’s evolving- both in terms of a broader audience and compelling new functionality.” The word “evolve” got me thinking- are there limits to how far social networking will evolve?
It’s no secret that online social networking and (for lack of better words) real-life social networking are different. But in what ways? To me the most obvious is friends. Until just last week, Facebook limited the number of friends an individual could have to 5,000. But really, is it possible to have 5,000 friends? If you actually had 5,000 friends, each day you’d have about 14 birthdays to remember. Clearly, no one actually has 5,000 people asking them for help moving into a new apartment or to drive them to the airport. The Economist cites Dunbar’s number when examining this phenomenon- Dunbar’s number of 150 represents the average size of a social group that an individual can reasonably be expected to maintain. The “in-house sociologist” at Facebook, Dr. Cameron Marlow found that the average number of friends that a Facebook user has is 120- pretty consistent with Dunbar’s number.
But what about those users with 700 friends? Those with 2,000? Here’s where online social networking deviates from real-life networking. Social networking allows individuals to increase and sustain their number of weak ties. If relationships can be divided into primary and secondary associates, we see that the number of primary associates on and offline remain about the same- humans aren’t built to sustain more than a few close ties. However, there is much more room online to grow the number of secondary associates.
For marketers, online social networking has the edge in terms of effectiveness in reaching a large audience. The weak ties that individuals form serve to give them access to more information and more people. Tools that allow these people’s friends to see what products they’re using and what information they’re seeking become more and more powerful with each additional “friend” that is added to one’s network. The viral nature of this medium allows marketers to break past the evolutionary restraints of Dunbar’s number and reach a much larger audience.
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