A couple centuries ago, especially for the rural diasporas, communicating with somebody outside of your immediate family may have been a rare treat. Today about seven million people communicate with an average of 248 people per week via social media’s one-to-many communication capabilities.
It you just multiply those numbers together—7 million people, each with 248 friends—that’s something like 1.7 billion people, and somebody better at math than I will have to decide what the total combination of connections equals. More likely, though, there’s significant overlap.
These numbers come courtesy of Netpop Research via MarketingCharts.com. The 7 million totally wired represent the 7 percent of social media/broadband users considered to be “heavy” social media contributors.
The “Netpop | Connect: Social Networkers US” report found social networking among broadband subscribers has grown 93 percent since 2006. Among that 105 million American broadband users, the amount of time spent communicating with others online has increased as much as 32 percent as they sacrifice more “traditional” online activities, which have declined 29 percent.
While email is still the most-used form of online communication (and a one-to-one device, mainly), younger users focus on instant messaging, blogging, and tweeting. Among Twitters under 18, 72 percent said they tweeted daily, compared to just 54 percent of older Twitters.
But think about that first number again. It really is remarkable. The heaviest users communicate with an average 248 people weekly. Almost 250 people know at least vaguely what one person is doing at any given time because that person broadcasts it. The paranoid are quick to point out privacy and security issues, and the really creative might proffer nifty murder and alibi plots.
Think positive though. Broadcasting not too long ago was something only people with a lot of money could do. Only a very small number of elite were tasked with speaking to large groups of people on a regular basis and if an advertiser wanted to piggyback on that special designation, it cost a lot of dough.
These days, everybody has an audience and what used to travel slow and mangled through the grapevine now moves with accuracy and efficiency. In high school we didn’t stand on soapboxes and preach—we told a small group who told another small group, on and on. High schoolers today tweet to a large group of people, who tweet that information, if pertinent to the respective groups, verbatim to other large groups of people. It’s as if everybody has a megaphone in their back pocket now.
Boom. Viral. Potentially limitless exposure nearly instantly. But one thing remains: there must be a relationship first if one hopes to reach those viral heights. It also underscores the importance that your message be right on. Bad news probably travels exponentially faster than good news.
