Social Groups – The Origin of a New Species

Social Groups – the origin of a New Species

A new phenomenon called social networking has caught up with the world in as recent as last 5-6 years. It has caught the fancy of a ever agile marketing professional looking for an opportunity and reason to sell more of his products and services as well. No doubt Social media is growing fast, it has large no of users, Progressive minded individuals available in a single place (the web); who are sharing serious and non serious conversations, opinions, apps, videos, pictures, insights and knowledge.  Maybe marketers today are induced into this exciting phenomenon with the ever reliable technology of smart tracking tools, browsers, social platforms, Analytics, CRM tools and some great opportunity tags fixed on the foreheads of social media.

The  Marketing Paradox

Indeed Social Networks are a very attractive proposition for any marketer; I was told that if facebook was a country it would be the 3^rd Largest in the world – WOW! Great place to start a marketing campaign and push your product proposition!

I was also told that SOCIAL MEDIA (in caps) defines the social information and psychographics among consumers and social media (Lower case) refers to the tools that facilitate conversation tracking of consumers – Wow again! If all information about the Consumer is available, what else does a marketer need – isn’t it like Just point and shoot!!

But experiments with Social media have enabled some hard realizations. The first being ; Social Media is above marketing and it is not about getting the attention of users/ individuals in orkut, face book , my space, twitter…  nor its about creating marketing buzz among the groups and communities right from the word go. Its about being human, where one cares, shares, Communicates, learns and engages with each other; The second realization being social media is about equality, transparency and freedom of expression .

The fast adaptation of the human species to Social media is a witness to the mutation from  selfish to selfless human thinking. There has been a visible transition from “what’s in it for me” to “What’s there for my community” approach and an emergence of new groups of Interdependent populations in an open environment that are fast changing the dynamics of communication and Human connect.  They are spreading and multiplying rapidly and are impacting the areas of Business, Economy and Politics. This new tribe is called the social groups and it is a network of them that we need to listen to understand with care.

The evolution of Social Groups  is similar to Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, except that in this case the competition to survive is not against any species but against own population for the survival of ideas, ideologies and thinking directions.  Social groups have enabled Individuals who think alike to get together and spread rapidly ( or increase of their kind)  by adapting to the environment, ideas and thinking.  By being together in an ordered manner, the social groups have indeed emerged as an new individual species

The Social Groups

Observe carefully and you realize that Social Groups exist in the real/ offline world as well.

Paul Hare regards the defining characteristic of a group as social interaction subsets of the larger Groups. Also the Characteristics shared by members of a group may include interests, values, social representations, ethnic or social background, and kinship ties. By this definition, society can be viewed as a very large group. In a nutshell belongingness to groups or communities has always been a natural & social phenomenon among the human kind.

Social groups may be considered as extension of real world  groups in an online space, except that unlike the offline groups:

• The groups are visible, open and available*. They are a source of more collective intelligence and learnings (compared to the offline peers).
• Although they achieve this understanding through the conventional interactions wherein they share their learnings, informations, opinions and ideas but the key facet is they share it with everybody (who wants to know more) and do not restrict this knowledge to just themselves.
• They are global in nature and defy geography, religion, cast creed and class in every possible way.
• The network following is very flexible wherein Individuals can follow groups, groups can follow individuals, groups can follow other groups, and so on. They are not limited by any possibilities of networking (so like the offline groups).

\\*They are comparatively more visible/ noticeable / Searchable then their offline peers. one does not need exclusivity or invitations to join these groups. The individuals within the group and the group as such is available in their full strength for a right cause

But then;

• What brings these kinds of people together? What is it that they are seeking online that they are not able to achieve offline?
• Why is that a few or more of the loosely coordinated groups forgo traditional institution values and move into a cooperative framework of social networks? What is the leverage that they aspire to achieve from this online clustering?

Its highly probable that their  logical and behavioral facets in the online space define their individuality and Spirit of being together and motivate them for their online actions!  A few such facets could be:

Autonomy: Autonomy is about Self Direction; because every individual (mostly) in the world is fed up of being told what to do, what is good for them, what is profitable for them, what is right for them etc . Scenerios involving parents, boss, peers, society at large etc etc are perceived as traditional roadblocks. These traditional road blocks probablydon’t excite these individuals and they no longer see them as challenges that need to be overcome in the traditional real world. They want all others, who don’t think like them (and probably they are surrounded by a lot of them) to get out of the way.  And of course, everybody wants their own space. Being in an online group helps them move towards this liberation that was not possible till some time ago.

Individuals enter into this space on the basis of common interests and values, this however need not be be specific or objective at all, it can be as weird or as  funny a group ( currently in facebook)  called Physics doesn’t exist, it’s all gnomes, It currently has over 84,000 members. Such “Start treating people like people” context predominantly defines the reason of being together and very often also defines the rules of engagement with the online world.

Purpose and Recognition: Achieving or contributing together in an cooperative environment for others or the world at large through the skills and knowledge possessed by the group builds the motivation or purpose of the group. The purpose is the reason that binds the individuals into a group. It is the urge to do things better and get better at things the prime reason that discharges the concept of sharing and expressing.  It predominantly stems from the individual need to be recognized (people also hate being missed!). Its like if a group gets recognized – an individual (in the group) also gets recognized as well for their contribution. This sounds so similar to the conventional teamwork thinking. The purposeal is usually long term and is driven by values of comparative advantage creation. An advantage that makes each group distinct and different from others

Paul Krugman – the 2008 Nobel Laureate’s New Trade theory is very relevant in this context as each of the online groups bring their comparative advantage determinants to the table. It is entirely possible that the new world order and the new factors of globalization are actually boundary less and the groups might become most influential and powerful in the future. I understand that recent Obama presidential election was widely driven by such disparate online groups and caused more young voters to turn out on the Election Day. The comparative advantage these groups held was the simple ever existing “voting power”

Groups with defined purposes grow like a phenomenon, they get new members, followers, fans, associations, contributions, Visibility and of course recognition. Clear examples of this being open source software Groups which resulted in products like Linux, apache and many other applications.

The groups that do not have a purpose usually just exist or are remain dormant in a very lucid framework, their critical mass of following and new memberships is arrested after some time and the individuals in the group tend to dissociate and scatter.  To be on a caution list; Many groups start and grow with a great purpose but then they become disoriented when their purpose is lost.

Belong to …

To belong to a online group is a social, emotional and psychological need and is a very natural phenomenon like the formation of an offline groups. In real world, it starts with Invitation and has a formal procedure. In an online world, its just a click and not necessarily many rules are applicable. An individual can start a group, An individual can follow group/s other than their own, one group can follow other group or many other groups so on and so forth

Every group starts off as an individual set (first to start or starting point of a network) The group comes into shape the moment more like minded individuals subscribe to the individual’s views or share common interests; they are usually known as friends, members, followers or fans. A group does not need a purpose to start with. It needs a purpose only to grow and stabilize. A group also does not need to have a very overt and specific name e.g. an individual called mindy kaling started her twitter account in 2008 and follows 108 individuals, but in an interesting development about 10,198 other groups/ lists follow her; that means a whopping 1,23,7561 Individuals follow her and subscribe to her views and interests. Its definitely interesting to see what’s the conversation going on in this space, but amazing only 1500 tweets are visible to the audience. What could be the purpose?

Cooperative Advantage

Being in Online groups is like being in a cooperative system and do not have a structure, leadership, hierarchy, coherence and are absolutely scattered . It’s also a No carrot – no stick zone, because the groups have nothing to lose. In fact, the groups comes into being because of these properties, else it would have been a corporation.

But its very interesting to know that the advantages that come with an online group unlike an Real world corporation are no infrastructure costs, no Human resource costs, no coordination costs, no idea development costs and no taxes. J; Something that every corporation would yearn for years to come.

Many times the resultant of being in such groups is chaos (which is good for creativity and innovation) and the good outcomes of the groups enable association and aspirational among non group individuals and cause the group to swell or expand. Vice versa may also be true. Groups with a purpose, usually utilize this Cooperative advantage to enable growth of their ideas.

As I mentioned Hierarchy actually doesn’t exist in a group, but it would be exciting to know that there are many types of individuals that make up and hold the group together and more still there are many types of groups.

There are the serious ones, the non serious ones, the open ones, the closed ones and value neutral ones …– Their definitions confirm their story of existence.  However a group is as strong or weak depending upon the strength of its purpose. But they all share common grounds/ characteristics which can be described as follows:

• Every group consists of individuals who have something in common amongst them, it could be values, associations, thinking….. for these individuals, being in a group is like being in their space.
• Individuals in a group interact, communicate and share with each other ( some more, some less)
• One Group interacts with other group or groups  through individuals
• Individuals and groups have a latent need to be recognized for what they are
• All Individuals and groups desire and yearn to grow together with individuals of their own kind, and hence are open to new members joining their group
• Individuals and groups desire to spread their virtues / values everywhere. Strong groups and its individuals believe in positive cognition of effecting change (within themselves, other groups and the entire world).
• The individuals in the group reach out to other individuals and groups with an intention of spreading their values. This depicting a typical case of positive externality and network effects– This probably explains the Face book or the great social phenomenon witnessed today
• All groups need stabilization factors (individuals) who control the growth and decline of the group
• Critical mass is achieved in a group, when the group decides to become more organized and managed; thereby deciding to have its regulation and code of conduct for every new member. That is the time it becomes to be known as a community
• Groups with good / strong purpose grow fast and achieve their critical mass very soon by creating the bandwagon effect
• All groups accumulate or accrue value over time; referred to as Social Capital. In real terms it can be defined as the sum total of goodwill, knowledge, innovation, expertise/ skills, network layers, Memberships and purpose. Higher the social capital, higher is the influence of the group.

Source: Wikipedia, Seth Godin – ted.com, the Tipping point – Malcolm Gladwell, New Trade theory -Paul Krugman, Paul Hare