Hoe het meeste uit sociale media te halen na het "150-koppige sociale media-experiment"

Een social media-experiment gebaseerd op Dunbar's theorie van sociale intelligentie .

In 2015 begon ik dit sociale media-experiment; proberen verbonden te zijn met 150 verschillende mensen op verschillende platforms. Dus ik kon het beste werk van elk van hen absorberen. Leer, verbeter, vind waarde en weerspiegel dit alles in mijn gemeenschap en mensen zoals jij die dagelijks deze blog lezen. Zonder er veel tijd en energie in te steken. Ik dacht toen aan een social media-experiment.

Waarom nummer 150 in een social media-experiment? Precies vanwege Dunbar's theorie van sociale intelligentie .

Het idee was om verbonden te zijn met mensen die kunnen overbrengen wat ik zoek. Afhankelijk van het digitale kanaal dat ze gebruiken en hoe uniek, behendig, waardevol en menselijk ze zijn op elk van de platforms waarin ze aanwezig waren. Het doel is om verschillende soorten "inzichten" te ontvangen op Twitter, op Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest of zelfs Facebook.

Hoe het uit te voeren - social media-experiment

Om dat te doen, gebruikte ik elke dag ongeveer 15-25 minuten om alle profielen die ik volgde op alle online platforms beter te bestuderen en te analyseren. De volgende stap was om patronen weg te gooien die zich in een ander spel bevonden dan waar ik naar op zoek was. Ga verder met degenen die een referentie voor mij en de gemeenschap zijn gebleven en voeg mensen toe met wie die resonantie zou kunnen bestaan.

Binnen dit sociale media-experiment verbeterde ik ook Twitter-lijsten. Op die manier kon ik de mensen die volgens mij goed werkten op de gebieden die voor mij van belang waren, beter volgen. Op dezelfde manier dat ik het deed met Google+ kringen. Ik heb ook geprobeerd de profielkaarten op Pinterest en de videolijsten op YouTube te verbeteren. Misschien waren het vreemde dingen die me aantrokken, maar ook kwesties met betrekking tot mijn professionele activiteit en levensstijl.

Belangrijkste bevindingen

The results I got from this social experiment appeared as I was reducing the circle. The connections become more human and more critical. And I received more value from the people I followed, more and more. This at the same time was helping me to have more time to connect with more and more people who asked me questions on Twitter or Instagram or connections on LinkedIn with issues in which to provide my feedback. On the other hand, finding the information that I wanted became a more accessible and comfortable process, since it was easier to locate those contents and those people. I was also using the lists on Twitter for exciting topics that I wanted to follow from time to time.

In fact, I was reaching conversations that I couldn’t contact because of the noise; back then — and now — this was helping me to remain human. Great.

Consequences

During the experiment, there were different reactions expected, like, “you unfollow me I’ll unfollow you." This means that the only value that contributed to that person was that @Israel_García was a reciprocal user or is it that our friendship (if it existed) vanished? I didn’t provide any value to this type of users. Instead, it was a number, or hopefully, a name. Still, many people only follow those who follow them. I guess that means they don’t have a television in their homes because the boxes don’t have cameras installed in their dining rooms.

The concept of remaining human has absolutely nothing to do with following who follows you. To stay human (human media) is to act as you would if you were talking to your best client (or worst) in your office.

Reciprocity?

All of this leads me to something that is not new. The damage that reciprocity does on social networks, which seems to be an act of education or friendship when it is an act of hypocrisy and falsehood.

Think about it, in real life you don’t make friends with someone you don’t know. You don’t associate with someone you don’t understand how they work or you don’t fall in love with someone you haven’t had sex with (honestly). Why then, in the online world do we need that feeling that we should follow who follows us? Friends, in this economy there are no rules. Some actions provoke reactions; there is a movement that generates friction.

There are some rules that are amplified in the digital space when there are few signals to follow, be your signal. You can do anything as soon as what you do does not harm, or threaten anybody, while remaining consistent and congruent with your moral and ethical principles.

Apologies

If at any time someone has been offended after being unfollowed without notice or permission. Yes, it is true that there were certain friends and colleagues that I notified before doing so. It was not my intention to hurt anyone’s emotions by breaking reciprocity. It’s not personal either. It’s understandable if you stopped following me or decided to be cynical about it.

The goal behind everything

And here comes the final goal. I continued working on each platform until I got to the point of where I am now. So far I have identified less than 50 users (brands, clients, people) who are essential. Whatever happens, of them 20 are irreplaceable. Then I continued reducing until I got to that number, mainly on Twitter and Google+, on Instagram, I already manage a smaller amount, almost nobody, but this is another story and another experiment. This means that there were around 30 users that could be in the rotation or not, depending on the connection and value that we provided each other. The challenge came especially on LinkedIn. Where the number of connections was more significant and valuable. Here I worked to drastically reduce my following base, only to be connected to collaborators, suppliers, customers, team, colleagues and little else, Facebook worries me much less.

I kept reducing everything until I get to the marked number, then I started rotations to connect with different people, receive new value, start new conversations and of course, create new opportunities.

What did I achieve with all of this?

The following:

• •Learnt how much emotion people and subscriptions deposit on the social web, check the real value of “connect" online.
• •Located more conversations that I couldn’t see before, in addition to taking advantage of the increasingly scarce, use that I dedicate to social media daily.
• •Served as a test to IG clients, the organizations that I advise and the people I work with and readers, to make better use of what we have in our hands.
• •Tested if the Dunbar theory is genuinely correct. Not so.

Do what you want (apparently)

This average social media experiment was only the beginning.

The rules as I said before are just an imaginary set of everything you want to try. Do you want to use the digital environment in your way? Do it. Make it useful, for you and for the people who come to you. If others say you are wrong, you are wrong, and there is no problem at all.

[This article appeared first on isragarcia.com]