What Makes a Social Network Valuable?

July 23rd, 2009 Kevin Wheeler

Is your social network valuable simply because of the number of people you have in it? I don’t think so. I have over 10 million first, second and third degree connections in LinkedIn and I get almost no value from that network, per se. I get little value because many of my contacts are active recruiters. As I am neither an active recruiter nor a candidate, not much interaction happens. And this illustrates one of the several criteria needed to make a network really valuable.

Valuable, robust networks need to meet at least four criteria:

1. they need to be made up of people with similar interests and motivations who are seeking the same thing,
   
2. they need an instigator, a moderator, perhaps even a rebel, who rouses passions and gets people engaged,
   
3. they need a large enough number of people so that someone is always “there” to respond, comment and keep the ball rolling, and
   
4. they need to save time and energy in some way.

Networks are collections – collections made of people rather than books or stamps. Successful collectors in any area do not just collect at random. The good ones have a system, a focus and a rationale behind their collecting. For example, stamp collectors are usually focused on a specific country or on theme.  The same is true for coin collectors.  Baseball card collectors concentrate on a team or league or person.  Focus is necessary and is the first rule for successful use of networks because it is so difficult to sift through thousands of anything to find the one(s) that meet your criteria.  It is much better to have hurdles to entry that ensure the integrity of those who are admitted.  A recruiter, for example,  needs to know exactly what type of people they are looking for and then spend the time to attract only those type before admitting them to their community of similar people.

The second rule of getting value out of your network is to create a forum where good discussion can take place and where people get engaged in issues that shed light on their interests and skills.  Most communication on networks is small talk, meaningless chatter, and disengaging tirades. It is very easy to think that people who always contribute to a discussion are the best, but I believe that volume and frequency of communication are not indicators of quality. The networks where people engage in discussions about relevant issues and have arguments that are based on facts and evidence are powerful, but hard to find. It often requires someone to throw out the contentious statement or ask the tough question to get people interested enough to respond.

The number of people in your network is important only because not all network members can be equally engaged all the time, and the larger the network the better the chances are that someone will be available and ready to engage in discussion and debate. Global reach and broader critera for membership can help expand the numbers, but it is always a trade-off between volume and quality.

And all the other criteria are baseless if the network does not provide answers, fulfil some need, or entertain. If it fails to do these things then membership will fall off and the network will become less valuable. If you watch networks for a while, you begin to see how many disappear after a few months. Only a handful remain for more than a year or two.

Good networks need to meet all the criteria above and require sustained effort and focus to be successful.