I think Social Friending is Scalable, but not neccessarly with one person reaching out to thousands of people - and in a guest post on Beth Kanter's blog, @socialcitizen points to the Dunbar number of 150 contacts the human mind is hard wired to be able to maintain close contacts with.
There is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships (this is also called Dunbar's Number). Beyond this number, which is estimated to be around 150, the stability of the relationships begins to break down and connections are not as meaningful.
Think about your own network on Facebook or the people who follow you on Twitter. Most probably fit into one of these three categories:
- Actual legitimate friends: You may have known them since the playground or at college, these are the people who use social networks for staying up to date on what's happening in the lives of their closest connections, aka: "real" friends. Whether it's as mundane as what they're having for dinner, or as exciting as capturing their newborn's first steps - you take note and share in the moment.
- Information Seekers/Gatherers: These are the people who expand beyond those with whom you have pre-existing relationships. The lines may be a little blurrier, but there is an interest in networking, and sharing information with one another, most likely for professional reasons.
- Tried and True Networkers: These are people with thousands of connections in the online world, and likely equally large rolodexes. They believe connections are fundamental to their professional careers, and they make no effort in hiding it.
You can see how Marlow, breaks down the stats on Facebook users' social behavior patterns here. But in short, an average manâ€"one with 120 friendsâ€"generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual's photos, status messages or "wall". An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten.
Kari Saratovsky implies that companies that are reaching out to a large number of individuals create and maintain meaningful conversations with a large audience?
I wonder what the implications are for meaningful engagement between organizations and individuals â€" and whether a version of the Dunbar theory might be applicable for that kind of organizational interaction.My belief is organizations, and individuals, can maintain and enrich more than 150 "conversations" but it might be better to crowdsource large outreach to a team and let each member follow a certain number of conversations, perhaps under the same accounts (ie: a Dell Corporate Twitter account, or a Non Profit account). I think, one person probably can't scale conversations well, meaningfully, with several thousand people, but I know some will disagree with me on this point.
I'll have more thoughts on "how" to set up to engage multiple conversations with thousands of people, later - I just wanted to get the basic thought out there, that I don't think the Dunbar number is an accurate representation of the absolute limit of what the human mind and psyche can handle.