April 9th, 2009
by Kaili Hawley
With so many great social networks out there and new ones developing everyday it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed and lose one of the main points of social networking – Commonality and Community.
The cofounder of Facebook and creator of President Barack Obama’s online campaign Chris Hughes, in this months issue of Fast Company talks about the importance of commonality and community when it comes to both the real world and the world of social networking. Hughes says “it doesn’t matter if it’s a company or a campaign; you build around commonality. If it’s real people and real communities, then it’s valuable. Otherwise it’s just playing around online”
Keeping this concept in mind it’s not about how many “friends” the social network has; it’s about the strength of the community and the commonalties that the members share. When members in a social network have no shared commonalities those members become meaningless numbers that play no real part in strengthening and growing the community.
When it comes to “friending” I have two simple rules that I follow
1. I know them personally
2. I share a common interest with them and talk with them
Web Marketing Therapy Related Links:
- Create Your Own Social Network?: Yes We Can!
- Discovering, Building and Growing Community: Challenge and Opportunity
- Social Media Marketing Class: Learn Facebook, Twitter, and New Social Network Gink
- Twitter Drives More Traffic to Press Releases than Any Other Social Network
Emilia Doerr
(April 9th, 2009 at 12:39 am)
Great quote from Hughes! And I agree that knowing your community “personally” is important – though the definition of “personally” is most certainly evolving as we start digitizing our friends and communities!