Understanding the Value of ‘Friends’ in Social Media Websites
Most social media websites give you an individual profile page alongside the option of befriending other site users. The adding of someone as a ‘friend’ on a social media website is not just an empty gesture. Usually when you add someone as a friend, you’re giving them greater access to you through the social media channel.
For example, some Digg users set their message inbox as ‘friends only’, so you can only ’shout’ or communicate with other users through the site when they have added you as a friend. Only when someone on Twitter ‘follows’ or adds you, will you have the ability to send them private messages or view his/her updates, if they are protected.
In sites like Facebook, adding someone as a friend allows them to see more of your profile (depending on your settings). Befriending users on Youtube allows you to follow their rating and favoriting on videos, while also allowing you to more easily share content with one another.
In general, when someone adds you as a friend on a social media service, you gain some or all of the following benefits:
- Access to more data. You get to view more data on the user, some of which may be intentionally obscured from the public or other non-friend users. This allows you to network with the specific user in a more intimate and personal setting.
- Greater communication options. Depending on the social site, when someone adds you as a friend, they open up more avenues of communication. This adds a greater level of interactivity: you can connect with the person who added you through private/direct messages, instead of the highly visible public channel.
- Recommended content. When someone adds you as a friend (and vice versa), your activity or actions on the site may be recommended or ‘pushed’ towards the other person in some part of their admin panel or profile. This means that you’ll get greater visibility automatically whenever you use the social website.
- Greater Social Proof. An auxiliary advantage of having many fans on social media websites is social proof, especially when the social site itself ranks the users according to the no. of followers/subscribers they have. Popular and visible users tend to accumulate friends more easily than unknown users.
Basically, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain when someone adds you as a friend on any social media website. They are giving you permission to share messages with them while bestowing attention on your recommendations/actions within the social site.
If you’re trying to get maximum visibility for your message, develop a popular social profile that has a large amount of fans in order to take advantage of the innate advantage that comes from communicating with a large number of people at once through a specific action.
You can see this most easily in highly subscribed Youtube channels. A video can easily rack up over 10,000 views in one day if it is released by a highly subscribed channel owner. Similarly, marketers or web personalities enjoy increasing their Twitter fanbase because they benefit from the influence they derive from consistently wielding a large amount of attention.
Are There Benefits to Having Mutual Friends on Social Websites?
Image Credit: mario party
Depending on their level of particpation, some of these users will become part of your inner circle: the people you interact with the most on the social site. You’ll notice that you’re often talking to the same people on Twitter, Friendfeed or Facebook. More erratic or non-regular users will connect with you less, only when they use the site.
This brings to mind something that is rarely discussed by social media marketers. Are there benefits to mutual friendship on social media websites? Should you only befriend people who befriend you and make sure that you only have mutual friends?
There’s no simple answer for this question because it depends on two things: The infrastructure of the social media site and your goals or how you want to use the site.
Let’s use StumbleUpon as an example. Some have suggested that it’s important to only have mutual friends on StumbleUpon since there’s a friend limit of 200 users. I think that’s just a really limited perspective on how to develop popularity on StumbleUpon.
I don’t recommend this strategy because the only feature-based benefit that you’ll get from a mutual SU friendship is the use of the send-to feature on the toolbar. This option is not used by most active users, does not help to increase traffic significantly and is liable to be abused by spammers who send you multiple pages of content irrelevant to your interests every day.
Who you befriend on Stumbleupon influences what pages you see when you click the stumble button: this means you should try to add users who often stumble content within your field of interest, in order to improve your user-experience, regardless if they are friends or not.
What one needs to understand is that friend networks serve different purposes on each social media site so the value of mutual friendships will differ. This is something you’ll instinctively realize when you spend a lot of time on using each specific social channel.
Next week, I may talk about some friend network building strategies you can use. Feel free to leave a comment and pose any questions you may have!
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I particularly like Twitter for following people whom I admire (and who are making a good living from their business)…I love the insight it gives into what they are working on and how they are using their time developing their business….
Sandy
I tend to use Twitter too after moving full steam towards Pownce a couple of months ago. My use of Seesmic is picking up though.
Your mention of “more methods of communication” comes in handy for me, more times that not. I know if friends are going out on the weekend, when they are going, where they are going, and there’s multiple ways to keep in touch with them. Same goes or when traveling, especially when at conferences. And speaking of conferences, twitter is great for audience communication during presentations. urls get shared, important points get tweeted, and topics get further review.
Once again great post Maki, hats off.
There is one problem though. It’s kinda difficult to become friends with other people on these social media sites such as Digg and SU. I don’t know if it’s just more or is it hard to make friends on the social media sites?
Take Digg for example. I’ve been a member for hmm, lets say 4 months and I’ve made 13 “friends”, I didn’t yet dive in the pool of SU or any other social media site.
Does it really take that much time to build a nice amount of friends, or am I doing something wrong?
Seth Godin was commenting about the noise he is noticing online – he referred to Twitter in this discourse.
“…Lately, the noise seems to be increasing and the signal is fading in comparison. Too much spam, too many posts, too little insight leaking through. I don’t use Twitter, but I know a lot of Twitter users are feeling this. So are folks who go to too many conferences. And don’t get me started on victims of Blackberry cc: disease.”
Here’s the link to Seth’s full post: http://tinyurl.com/3zaylr
I was just going over my notes on social media, as far usage and goals.
I have come up with a list of about 10 sites, that i feel are relevant for my niche. As i realize i’m listed or registered with way too many, and i need to focus on a core few and become as you call it, a more complete contributer.
I feel i am understanding the strategics of it more, and also the real benefits of social media. As bloggers and net marketers who spend an ungodly amount of time online, social media is a fresh and welcome new tool. As humans we yearn to connect and are highly social beings. Social media is a natural evolution of the interwebs.
As for friends, i don’t follow everyone on Twitter who adds me, but those who i know somewhat. Also those who i really look forward to learning more about.
As for the other sites, i would say i got my NEW MEDIA start in Blog Catalog (a bloggers community) and need to return to it, as it is quite active, and i have a good base there. I plan to participate (and connect) there more again.
Jeez! this comment is turning into a book, i’ll stop here. Oops! Sorry. Good post.
Missy.
Having online friends is invaluable. As Maki states, you definitely gain more access to information.
I agree with Sandy & Robert, I use twitter more and more now, but as far as social media is concerned, no site comes close to the # of friends I have as on linkedin (fast approaching 7000). This gives me a great amount of access to information & guarantees that I continually meet interesting people. I also am able to see many more people & try to connect with others.
So MrCooker, it does take time to build. (I started on LI in 2006.) But remember, give & ye shall receive. ?B-D)<-<
Great article! I agree – a friend online is much different to a friend in the real world. However as much as I try, it is hard to highlight the importance of “online friendships” in the face of emerging social technologies to my girlfriend.
The largest barrier is climbing over the privacy hurdle, and outlining that relationships online provide an almost unlimited supply of information about other people, business opportunities, and networking in general. Benefits are not tangible, and accrue after quite a lot of initial involvement – so it is hard to buy in to from scratch. From a marketing point of view, it will be much easier to segment the market when they start identifying with certain cliques!
The downside? This has lead to random internet website spam all over network portals such as MyBlogLog – there are a bucket load of users on there that have profiles only to promote a website’s existence. In this case, the opportunity is wasted! Incidentally, today marks the 30th birthday of spam. Back then, it was an invitation to a exhibition of sorts – it’s changed quite a lot since then.
Hey doshdosh , great article! I am always looking for more information to help me to market better and more effectively. I really appreciate your informative posts- Thanks! :0)
Good article. I often consider these issues when “befriending” someone new. I have found that an intro from another friend helps a bit, in that they introduce you to people who they think will enjoy the others blog, artwork, etc… The people who I have met randomly thankfully have been great as well, pus or minus a few really odd birds. No harm no foul. Great topic, thank you, Veronica
I’ve had trouble bringing in people with social media sites and staying on my site. For example people who find me on stumble upon stay on my site for 17 seconds. It’s a little upsetting. Is my writing not good enough (that can’t be it), are the people who stumble me not looking for work happiness, or maybe I’m unlucky.
My social media prowess lacks much punch. I’m only an infant on most of these sites. I’ve only been tweeting for a month, my stumbling has been sporadic, and I don’t give enough diggs. A lot of it’s been my fault. My ADD kicks in and I want to do all of them in the same night. I need to be more consistent.
So there is your lesson. Pick one or two and master them then add another. Don’t be like me and try to get all of them going. Seth Godin keeps telling me only do what I can really sink my teeth into. Maybe now I will listen so I can do what this article says – create friends and increase my network.
Thanks Maki!
As always great post. Twitter has really cut alot of the “red tape” around social networ2234
I’ve also found Twitter to be one of the most useful adds when it comes to social networking and friends. It’s so wonderful to be able to see people’s thoughts and ideas in their own day-to-day lives.
My Question: I’ve had issues with adding people on socialnetworks and remembering them. At times, I feel quite bad when after a few private messages, I forget who they are..and have to go back and read our old conversations to jog my memory. Having thousands of friends on various networks does get a bit tedious, and it is time consuming at times. If there was a way to streamline this, that’d be highly beneficial. I imagine someone would be very flattered if I remembered them after only one instance of contact. How does Doshdosh deal with this?
Same with MrCooker, I dificult to make friends, may by i do wrong way. Offten i not browes other profile and request to be friend. For the beginer of social media like me, what do you think make request to be friend or waiting other request to your friend?
I Think be a friend with you is more benefit to me rather than to you. So if i request to be your friend , Are you accept my request Maki.
I hope you can understand with my bad grammer.(Sorry)
I appreciate the value and opportunity that social networking brings to the table… Im and insurance broker by day, a music producer by night, and an aspiring internet marketer in the early morning.. Ive always faced an issue with social networking though… a) I dont care about people that I dont know enough to be engaged virtually in their online lives… b) I dont have the time or patience between work, music projects, and websites to be spending the quality time needed to make an impact with social networking and bookmarking… c) did I mention I dont have the time?
It takes time to be effective, or to even get heard as a blogger, or just a regular person with something to say. I cant stand facebook, I use myspace strictly for music business networking and marketing.. other than that, I know what technorati is, I know what the concept is behind twitter, digg, stumble upon, etc…
I just dont have the time, and frankly dont care enough! anyone who needs to know what im doing, or how my life is going knows my phone number and email addresses… plain and simple..
not saying its bad though, just stating my situation!
cheers.
I’m really glad to see a post like this! There are many people on so called social media actually not understanding the importance of friends. All I can say is that they are missing the whole point of the term “social media”.
On the other hand, the people who tend to do this actually pose a very very big privacy issue. But the heart of the matter is that when you’re doing something – in this case, being active in social media, there are always few protocols you got to live by. And in this case, I’m a firm believer that the biggest contribution to social media success is social media friends.
Cheers!
My favourite site is BlogCatalog; I also use Facebook, SU, Digg and a few others but since I can’t do them all, I think BC is good because I am more likely to find people interested in blogging (and I also have some good laughs on some of the discussions!)
I love social media. I love to use digg..Its a good social media
I understand the concept of “adding friends and using them” to bolster my own profiles,but the thing is setting time to do all this. There are so many social sites to use which means potentially a whole lot of extra friends…how can I keep up with all of them?
Currently I manage a BumpZee community and spend way too much time on Digg. Internet Junkie may be right about BC and if thats the one working for him/her then cool…its best to stick with the social sites that work for YOU.
Really informative and useful advices are contained in this post. Thank you for sharing all this with us. I agree that building quality social-media “friends” may get you more productivity. To you or to your site.
I think if you can define what your intention and ultimate goal for using a particular social networking site, you will certainly be better equipped to make it work to your advantage. As you have said, there’s so many social media currently out there and I’m sure more to come, so find the one’s that work for you.
It seems like the use of social networking sites and the “new media” of information dissemination are at a bit of a convergence gateway-where some of the newness, and even value in that newness, may be stagnating a bit.
I believe this stagnation is, as we’re hearing it labeled, the “noise” that is interrupting the signal, if you will.
However, it is a gateway, and as a portal, it will continue to increase in not only viability for many unseen new uses, but for those traditional and contemporary uses as well.
Keep in mind that the contemporary and traditional come to be as new and bleeding edge become old school, while the gateways and portals that spawn those sharp edges and abrasive transitions continue to forge ahead, creating new (old) school traditions.
http://twitter.com/jesatiu is supposed to be a demonstration, in running format, of just how social networking and new media, with all of its intricate and useful strings and tangents, so to speak, bear the fruits of the newnesses like social media, when it was new…
What we see are new ways to view, understand and comprehend the world around us, our habits, our roles, our methods, processes and duties, our faiths, morals, ethics and the ability to manage our ecological surroundings, even those which encompass the mental, as opposed to the physical.
The social networking circles, the new media outlets, the publishing portals of increasing communication and the advancement of the human species is an experiment that has no control group, other than those we allow.
However, intrinsic to survival is individuality, as individuality is the creation of creation.
The creation of creation.
more to come…
http://omnipreserve.blogspot.com … and all the other posts and sentiments of the author.
I believe that the value of social media “friends” is different for each person, according to their personality. For instance, I’ve always been very introverted, so I never felt the need to go around adding everyone to my f-list, not even when I’ve been advised to do so in order to promote my sites. On the other hand, when someone adds me I feel guilty if I don’t add the person as well. Still, I often refrain from mutual addings.
I know you’re right. But then again, when someone adds me I always wonder what the person had in mind when they did it. It seems I’m too suspicious.
You are right, friends really important here. But you can create “fake” friends for your own business purpose.
One extra things social networking ‘befriending’ does is open the way to a real relationship. Which can boost your networking activities.
i think i have no difficulties to have friends online even i have to waive some of them coz they have no similar in mind and only trying to do perverts. i helped my friend makes snowballs for his sites and it works by build link friend from skype, facebook, multiply, msn, myspace, orkuts.
for me theres no said friends in real and friends on line. If they have the same ideas and mutual ones i called it friends. If its not i called it people that i know around.
Anyway it’s good to read ur articles for my knowledges. Thank you.
Social media friends can also make industry conferences like SMX a lot more enjoyable. At SMX West, I met in person a whole bunch of friends from Sphinn (Mike Dorausch, Tamar, Chris Winfield, Jordan K ettttttc.), SEOmoz staff and members (Hamlet Batista, Sean Maguire, David Mihm, Jeff Tirey, Jason Englert et ++). I was a newbie attending my first conference, yet it was highly enjoyable because I had the good fortune of having participated in social media prior to going.
As to befriending on Sphinn specifically, it’s kinda useless at the moment, but hopefully they’ll make sharing easier in the near future, and perhaps add other features like friend submission feeds etc.
I find it ironic that social media is theoretically about peer-to-peer sharing of content yet as internet marketers we’re focused on building up these massive profiles that turn our social media participation into mass media communication. Not that I’m criticizing that, as I appreciate the value of a broad reach for your ideas as much as the next guy, and strive for it myself. Just kinda funny how things have turned out after a few years of social media’s existence.
Really great post that has peaked my interest as a newbie in the social media. I have been putting my time into MySpace and enjoying it. I opened up with FaceBook and find that I do not go there. Maki, have you posted an article on the top 10 (or 15 or 20) social media websites and what their particular niche is; i.e. why join one over the other? That is something I’m trying to figure out right now. Where can I spend my time with the least amount of effort and get the most value? I have learned alot from reading the comments here. They are leading me toward investigating Twitter and BlogCatalog. Should it matter what your interests and business is as to which social media to join and spend time? Are there other concerns and benefits of one over the other? Thanks for the value that you add to my email box.
But why did you say about Digg at the beginning? It’s simply a social bookmark system. Or am I wrong?
Great post. Having friend or being friend just means that we give each other respect or with another word: esteem. This is what I’m interested in.
Really valuable information in this article. Being a new blogger, it is overwhelming trying to communicate, and being there are so many social sites to choose from! This really helps out! Thanks for such good information.
@ Michael D, Gab Goldenberg
Social media friendships facilitate and improve friendships in real life. I think you conference-going guys should know that well enough.
@ MrCooker
I don’t think its more difficult to make friends on Digg. A lot of friendships on Digg (or social media in fact) depend on you pro-actively performing specific actions such as contacting the user, voting his/her stories and participating as a user as well. You need to start submitting stories, digging content and making comments. These contributions provide an incentive for people to add you as a friend.
@ James Burchill
Thanks for the link to Seth’s post. Does social media create more noise? Not necessarily. I really think it depends on how you access the specific website or service. There are ways to minimize noise and maximize signal…
@ Missy Diaz
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on social media. I think limiting your participation to a few core communities is a wise choice. But remember to review the amount of exposure or benefits you are personally deriving from each site every now and then, just to make sure that you’re getting the ROI that you want.
@ eMarv
That’s a large amount of LinkedIn friends. I can imagine the benefits that come from networking within such a big group!
@ Quando
Spam or noise is a natural result of social places gaining popularity. You can see how noisy a crowded restaurant will become, the same with well populated social websites. Social media friendships can supplement or reinforce real-world relationships or they can remain virtual, providing you with a large amount of acquaintances, some of which may be beneficial in helping you achieve your personal goals. If you want to segment the market, it’s easy… befriend users who are the friends of people you trust.
@ Michelle, veronicaromm, Bash Bosh, minaslune
You’re welcome!
@ Karl Staib
First of all, it’s natural for SU users to stay for only a short while on your site since they are mostly in a ‘channel surfing’ frame of mine. They are constantly looking for new information. A lot of what holds their attention is not only content but site design as well.
Friends improve your experience of every social media website. You’re right, stick to a few websites from the beginning and then participate and use them actively. This will allow you to get an idea of how the site will benefit you in the long run.
@ Terra Andersen
If you really want to remember people on social websites, you can click through to their profile and check out their bio or any links to their homepages. Or you can record down your conversation in a file (organized by usernames) and then retrieve it when you are interacting with the specific person. Some applications like Evernote can help in this instance.
@ Tomi Yahya
I definitely think you should be pro-active and request someone to be a friend. People will usually not find your profile unless 1) you are a established web personality with some reputation (famous blog etc). 2) You are very, very active in the social media website (which I highly recommend doing but maybe difficult for some users)
@ MrBlue
I understand what you’re trying to say… time is always a scarcity. If you don’t have time, it’s hard to connect with others through social media, let alone use it to market your brand/website.
@ Nadeesha Cabral
Social media etiquette is not often practiced but yes I do agree that there are a few protocols or principles you should live by. For example, not aggressively spamming someone with messages once they’ve added you as a friend is one of them.
@ Internet Junkie
BC is great. I’ve visited it a few times and always found it lively with many active bloggers.
@ Caleb
I think you answered your own question. Find one more relevant to your interests, website and goals and stick to that. This is the recommended solution if you don’t have much time.
@ Karen Zara
I believe some users may have encountered your profile as well and so they added you as a friend. However, some of them may be spammers only looking for a way to promote their site/product so I can understand your reservations. The cool thing about social media sites is that you can simply choose to ignore/ban or report a specific user and cut them out of your network, denying them access to your profile or inbox.
@ Mary Gravelle
I think your interests and businesses matter when you’re using social media because they affect your participation rate. I think its good to check out several websites just to see if they are communities that you would like to spend time on. I do have a social news sites categorized according to general or niche topics:
48 Social News Websites: A List of General and Niche Social Media Communities
@ Dr Bardou
Well in Digg, users can communicate with each other through a ’shout’ system and participate by following and voting up the story submissions of their friends in order to decide what stories get on the frontpage. It’s not purely a social bookmarking site like del.icio.us.
@ sikantis
That’s another way of seeing it. Having someone add you as a friend and you adding someone as a friend is a demonstration of respect or esteem.
@ Everyone else
Thanks for your comments!
Social book marking communities, social book marking networks are driving force of today’s IT businesses. Really, good resource and I found your information very helpful. Thanks!! These communities help us expand out knowledge base as well as communication network.
Really, amazing collection and of great help, every time you see the result. Harvest result with social media websites.
Thanks!!!
This is a great article and in theory larger network of friends = greater influence. The big break down I see is that everyone is using these social media tools for their own self-promotion efforts so it’s hard to find “friends” who are going to actually pay attention to your messaging, they are too busy sending out their own. I am not dismissing the concept of having lots of “friends” on the social nets, I am just saying that a lot of these “friends” are not all that susceptible to your messaging.
Also with social friends (in social websites) people can raise their authority.
I completely agree with this post. You’re in a win/win by expanding your network. Particularly if they request the connection, chances are they’ve seen something that interests them… and isn’t that what social media audience targeting is all about. Visibility is key online and you’ve stated this fact quite well
You rock
Maria Reyes-McDavis
Well, it’s interesting for such sites like Digg, at least for me. I stopped using them quite sometime ago but I’m still getting friend requests.
But I started adding people on sites such as Twitter, for instance, but a bunch of people just drop a link and leave. If I wanted a link, I’d go to Sphinn or something so I would stop following them. I guess my question would be, “how do you determine who to add?” I know you mentioned you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, but wouldn’t the loss be potential spam?
Jay
Love your articles Maki. Look forward to a new one everytime.
I guess I’m of a different mindset. I’ve never been into social networking or social media sites to get ranked higher or more attention. And therefore, I’m pretty careful about making friends. Some things that happen when you get too many friends can be: overload of information, pandering for votes at social news site and content that’s not relevant to your interests. I make friends quickly, but weed them out if they fall into the above categories. Nothing irritates me more than people who become my friend only to send me IMs, tweets or PMs asking me to vote something up at Digg or such.
Thus, I’ve cultivated a sizeable list of friends who I follow on Mixx, Twitter, personal blogs and friendfreed – but it’s a list that was slow to grow and is (for the most part) a list of quality friends. Ones who share good content, don’t beg for votes and are overall decent people with good senses of humor.
Stumbleupon is different, of course. There, the more friends the better, as long as you are sure to pick friends (as you suggest) based on interests similar to yours. Doing so for any other reason will just make your stumbling experience poorer.
It was actually thanks to a few of my stable of friends that I found this blog. And I’m glad I did so. Nothing but great content, and a really clean and effective site design.
Great post, I usually have twitter and facebook open at all times. I still don’t fully understand how SU works. Another one that I’m getting into is socialspark.com
Simon
I heard about SU could bring good traffic to your blogs or site. But sadly because of this some people misuse SU by register a huge number of account and then stumble their own sites. This i’m afraid will results a decrease in quality for SU if they don’t find a solution to this.
in the facebook if i fill all the details correctly only if i give submit button plz give ur full name msg displaying …can u say some solution
… what is SU?….
thanks
I used BlogCatalog a lot and especially like the broadcast feature to communicate with my friends. Each time I have something interesting e.g. my new post, my friends are the first to know about it. I think social media offers us a new dimension to what would previously have been laborious or unthinkable on how to communicate to the same group of people.
Peter Lee
Work From Home Business Blog
Thanks for sharing. Great post.