Conventional thinking would have us believe weakness is a vice. But that’s exactly what you want in social media campaigns. Weakness is to your advantage. How is that so, you might ask? The proof comes from a study commissioned by The Spanish Ministry of Science.
Researchers found there are two types of links among groups in Twitter, ties and bridges. A tie is a member of Twitter with strong influence within a group, while bridges have weaker relationships and migrate between groups. The study found those nomads wondering between groups are more likely to retweet interesting and engaging information, and share between groups. On the other hand, ties, more active inside groups, are less likely to share information between groups, but more likely – highly, in fact – to share information among their group members.
Time Is Everything for the Weakest Link
Why is this so? Well, it comes down to time commitment. Bridges have more time to share information because they keep shallow relationships across groups, whereas ties are more involved with members of their group – relationship building is important to them, that takes more time, which leaves less time to jump between groups.
Communication research tells us why it’s important to rely on weak links. Whether networks of people occur online or off, the members are close knit and their communities are tied together by people called bridges, according to Granovetters theory, The Strength of Weak Ties. Inside each group ties are people with hyper-connectivity, while bridges have broad connections between groups.
As you build communities online, assess your objective. If it is to build a large community then identifying and relying on bridges to transmit your message from group to group, bridges are important. But if you’re in the mood to deepen relationships within an established group, ties are more like your best bet. Sharing information with them and their people will surely improve your foothold in an existing community online.
What Type of Information Should You Share
Can the type of information improve your connectivity? Yes.
Ties inside groups are busy interpersonally communicating with others more so than bridges, who maintain loose contacts and are less engaged in personal relationship building in networks. This means ties have less time to share new information with people they don’t know because they have less time to do so, while bridges spend less time communicating, which gives them more time to share information across groups.
Weakest links are shared by bridges, so arming them with relevant information will increase the likelihood of that content being passed along.
How Can I Find Bridges and Ties in Twitter
Finding people who act like bridges and ties is no easy task. Researchers use sophisticated methods that may be too costly, and too expensive. Here’s what I suggest. In life we often find those people who flutter between groups and seem to be well connected. We learn this through observation. As you begin building relationships online with people watch what they do, and tap into their list of whom they’re following. If their list has a diverse group of people, they are probably bridges. If you notice similarities in the profiles of people they follow, it’s highly likely that person is a tie – influential within a circle or two.
Finding bridges and ties is important to spreading information through social networks such as Twitter. To make your work easier, remember this. Communication is about moving people toward a goal, to do that understanding four basic rules of message develop is important. Here they are:
- Make your message relevant – People do not stop to think about situations unless they perceive that something needs to be done to improve it.
- Make your message impactful – People highly versed on an issue will more often seek out more information to find ways of getting involved.
- Give your message gravity – People respond quicker to messages anchored changes the reader to be a hero.
- Give your message a human face – People relate to people more than anything else. Because we share commonalities and similar life situations, a message that weaves those together is stronger and more apt to be shared.
- Make your messages timely – You never want to deliver a message at the wrong time because it won’t be receive with the same vigor