The Ties That Bind Us: Strong vs. Weak Ties

 

          
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Greetings,

     A lot of folks that I talk to about social media tend to get hung up on one thing: the term “friend.” They have difficulty clicking on the friend request button because the person is not someone that they would classically define as a friend. I can relate to this sentiment, but in order to use social media as a tool to build you business you need to lean into a discomfort and see these services for what they are: an opportunity to establish ties to potential networking contacts.
    

     Another Social Media Guru by the name of Shama Kabani who runs a site called Shama.tv pointed this out to me a while back and got me interested in the subject. Social Theory states that there are two major types of ties: Strong and Weak. The descriptors here are meant to help define your influence on these people’s decisions. So, strong ties would be your family and your close friends, and weak ties would be your acquaintances, colleagues, former coworkers, etc. 

     With those definitions in mind Social Networking sites are almost designed to establish and maintain weak ties. Don’t let the word “Weak” give you pause though. There is definitely value there in the relationship. For a lot of these connections there is a face and (hopefully) a positive memory to go along with your name. People buy from people they know and trust before they buy from complete strangers and maintaining even a weak tie with them brings you past that barrier. As long as you keep adding value to the relationship by providing useful information and personal stories as opposed to non-stop spammed advertising you can count on these weak ties to help build and broaden your business.

     What do you all think? Have you had any success or experience with a “weak tie” that helped build your business?

Stay Savvy!
Stephen Duetzmann
www.thesavvysolution.net