If you’ve been following Social Media for the last couple of years you’ve heard a lot of talk about two concepts:

1. Develop a strong network of friends & followers
2. Create content that will be shared*

*Note how I avoided using the word ‘viral’

It followed that by doing the first, you would increase your chances of having the second happen. As a result, building a networks of friends became a goal, and people starting friending everyone they could on Facebook, and then friending the friends of their new friends. Here’s what my Facebook ‘Friendwheel’ looks like:

Here’s a similar one for Twitter:

With a thick, rich, dense network of friends like this, I should be able to push out an idea and have it bounce around like a pinball, hitting hundreds of people. But, before we get too excited, let’s examine our premise, that a strong network will help spread our ideas.  

So, how would this work in practice? Let’s take a look at my network and see how this may work.

DJ Francis

This is DJ Francis. He’s a blogger and works at Critical Mass in Chicago. We’re friends, and yet by some weird anomaly, we have just one mutual friend on Facebook. Between the two of us we know 1181 people (I have 847 friends, he has 334), with just one mutual friend for a total of 1180. I know just .003% of his friends. Or, expressed another way, we have a unique distribution of 99.91% of our combined friends. 

I’ll get maximum efficiency if I send a link to DJ, because the overlap is virtually non-existent. It further stands to reason that many of his friends’ friends will be unknown to me as well.

Here’s another example:

Kenneth Courtney

Meet Kenneth Courtney, he runs the super hot trend website, This Hearts On Fire. He’s on the cutting edge of music, art and fashion. Between us we have 1653 Facebook friends, but just one mutual friend! An incredible 99.94% unique distribution. Between myself and Kenneth, just two people, I can reach 1652 individuals.

Now, imagine I’ve got a story about an underground record label in NYC that is using Social Media. I can hit DJ and Kenneth and really hit a wide swath. Again, the chances that Kenneth and DJ have mutual friends, but those mutual friends don’t know me is unlikely.

DJ and I; and Kenneth and I have what is termed weak ties. Without a strong friendship support network, it would be very easy for us to drift apart. Only one friend could possibly invite both me and DJ (or me and Kenneth) to the same party. But in truth, it is these weak ties that have incredible potential. It’s critical that I mantain some sort of relationship with these guys. In fact, it’s probably more important for me to keep these guys as friends than some of my other “Facebook friends.”

Now, let’s flip this coin and look at it from the other side…

Meet Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications. Todd is a well-known blogger

Todd Defren

and PR professional with just about the same number of Facebook friends as I have. But we share 116 mutual friends – roughly one out of every eight. Now the chances that those 116 people also have mutual friends of mine is pretty high as well. Case in point, Todd and I are both friends with his SHIFT colleague, Doug Haslam. Doug and I share 142 friends. so, sure, I can share things with Todd, but the chances that it will travel beyond my own social graph is fairly unlikely.

Look how strong the bond is between me and Todd. One hundred-sixteen people can bring us together. And while this may seem a bit counter-intuitive, for spreading an idea DJ and Kenneth are actually more valuable.

Let’s call in an expert here. Mark Granovetter, in a piece called The Strength of Weak Ties, wrote the following:

“If one tells a rumour to all his close friends, and they do likewise, many will hear the rumour a second and third time, since those linked by strong ties tend to share friends. If the motivation to spread the rumour is dampened a bit on each wave of retelling, then the rumour moving through strong ties is much more likely to be limited to a few cliques than that going via weak ones; bridges will not be crossed.”

Granovetter wrote this in 1973! I strongly recommend you give this a read (warning, it is very academic). He also speaks about the phenomenon of Six Degrees of Separation, before it was even called that.

So, taking this back to the present, as a marketer or marketing communications professional, how should you be trying to leverage your social network to spread your blog post/website/YouTube video? Here are some tips:

A solar system, not a web

You want your network of friends to look like the Solar System. A planet of sports friends, a planet of music friends, a planet of science fiction friends. You’ll also have moons or asteroids of smaller groups. You’re the rocket ship that goes from one celestial body to the next, spreading the information.

Understand not only your friends, but their friends as well

All things being equal, if you have to choose between two people, choose the one with fewer mutual friends.  On Twitter, cross-reference who is following them with who is following you; on Facebook, check for mutual friends.

Identify different audiences for your content and target accordingly

In addition to cultivating a wide variety of friends (see planet analogy above), plan of targeting your pitches based on your friends’ interests. Don’t send the same email to your techno music buddy and your friend who lives in Detroit. Tell the Detroit guy that your content will be of interest to him, and his Detroit friends, and tell your techno pal that all his techno buddies will love it too.

I hope you enjoyed this post, now go share it with someone you don’t have any ties with.