The Matter of Scale

I think no, SM doesn’t scale — past a point. It does extend our Dunbar number of possible relationships from perhaps the normal 150 in “real” life to maybe 1,000 or 2,000 — but beyond that, personal one-on-one gets lost and transitions to broadcasting.

One of the reasons I don’t follow many “A list” bloggers, including you, dear Chris Brogan, is you follow so many people on Twitter and other SM systems that it seems futile to try to connect with you on a personal level. That’s no crime or shame, just the fact that some people scale SM beyond the personal into the broadcast level. It’s OK to be a celebrity, but it’s a different communication dynamic and not one I’d expend effort in trying to connect to.

I’m capping my own contacts at 500 … and trying to maintain them if I can. Tis tempting to go too far, but at that point social media might as well be publishing a personal newspaper.

So my answer is SM, if scaled too far, becomes MSM.

I believe the minute you start thinking/acting with a one-to-many mindset, you lose the magic and beauty of twitter. Twitter is all about connection and conversation. If you morph to a one-to-many strategy, you lose both the connection and the conversation, because both require someone on the other side to exist.

I make a habit to check once in a while who I am following, that isn’t following me. If they aren’t like a genius I just know I want to listen to, I unfollow them.

Just my personal stance.
Terri Z

I think no, SM doesn’t scale — past a point. It does extend our Dunbar number of possible relationships from perhaps the normal 150 in “real” life to maybe 1,000 or 2,000 — but beyond that, personal one-on-one gets lost and transitions to broadcasting.

One of the reasons I don’t follow many “A list” bloggers, including you, dear Chris Brogan, is you follow so many people on Twitter and other SM systems that it seems futile to try to connect with you on a personal level. That’s no crime or shame, just the fact that some people scale SM beyond the personal into the broadcast level. It’s OK to be a celebrity, but it’s a different communication dynamic and not one I’d expend effort in trying to connect to.

I’m capping my own contacts at 500 … and trying to maintain them if I can. Tis tempting to go too far, but at that point social media might as well be publishing a personal newspaper.

So my answer is SM, if scaled too far, becomes MSM.

What does one do when they get bigger? If we are going to be part of the social media scaling and maintain the personal touch our community does and will continue to demand, we will have to take advantage of every social media tool we have available.

Some our community members will come from our blog, others from twitter or Facebook. We will have to learn how to interact on each. However, I am not sure there is not going to be a point we might get too big. Can we really, even using all the available tools, maintain the personal touch? I don’t think we can. We are going to have to decide at some point, how big can we get and still maintain the community.

While we can still reach a large number of community members. Only a select few will actually receive the personal touch when we get so large. Will this be a problem. For some it will be and they may drop out of our community. If they do, we move on. We simply can not be everything to ever one. Our community by its very nature will morph into its own “monster” Some will expect and receive personal attention. Some will not care. Others will be part of the community since we will continue to provide them with the location to build their community. In that case, our community members will then start to interact with each other on a more personal level and relieve us from that responsibility totally.

By their very nature, our community will then become somewhat self-efficient. And we will then spend our time continuing to build our community. Bringing new members in who will then adopt and migrate to that part of the community which will give them what they need.

Chris, I am not sure that made any sense. But I do believe we can maintain the community and still reach a large audience. The community will learn to take care of itself too if they want to remain part of it. We can still give personal attention to those who might need it more then others.

What does one do when they get bigger? If we are going to be part of the social media scaling and maintain the personal touch our community does and will continue to demand, we will have to take advantage of every social media tool we have available.

Some our community members will come from our blog, others from twitter or Facebook. We will have to learn how to interact on each. However, I am not sure there is not going to be a point we might get too big. Can we really, even using all the available tools, maintain the personal touch? I don’t think we can. We are going to have to decide at some point, how big can we get and still maintain the community.

While we can still reach a large number of community members. Only a select few will actually receive the personal touch when we get so large. Will this be a problem. For some it will be and they may drop out of our community. If they do, we move on. We simply can not be everything to ever one. Our community by its very nature will morph into its own “monster” Some will expect and receive personal attention. Some will not care. Others will be part of the community since we will continue to provide them with the location to build their community. In that case, our community members will then start to interact with each other on a more personal level and relieve us from that responsibility totally.

By their very nature, our community will then become somewhat self-efficient. And we will then spend our time continuing to build our community. Bringing new members in who will then adopt and migrate to that part of the community which will give them what they need.

Chris, I am not sure that made any sense. But I do believe we can maintain the community and still reach a large audience. The community will learn to take care of itself too if they want to remain part of it. We can still give personal attention to those who might need it more then others.

Blogs, especially, are a form of broadcast. Despite the ability to easily share and comment, they are much like other forms of one-way communication. My buddy Richie (@vedo) even compared blogs to radio talk shows here – http://tinyurl.com/5hlxhp.
That said, I don’t see scaling as a huge issue. The writer must adjust to the challenges of a larger audience, but the audience is still made up of individuals. And the audience still came to the information the same way.
All for now. Thanks Chris, you always make me think.

Hey Chris,

I think I’d go back and take a look at that quotation again:

“Once you have a large audience with many people commenting and discussing, you become a ‘Broadcaster’ since you are now communicating one to many. The laws of one-to-few or one-to-one change radically. Yet your audience or customers ‘expect’ a personal response.”

I think this is correct in some ways and short-sighted in others. Sure, as the numbers increase it is harder to scale your ability to respond to everyone. But I don’t think this is a question of broadcast/narrowcast.

As an essentially dialogic (two-way communication) platform, I don’t just sit back and passively read this blog. Sometimes I lurk, I read and take the thoughts away to mull over a while.

But other times I get stuck into the comments, or I get stuck into one commenter, or I start my own conversation in the comments and see who gets involved.

If you see this (or many other) blog(s) as a one-way broadcast channel, and a blog where it is only the author who responds to you personally as a two-way narrowcast channel, then scalability becomes an issue.

But I think blogs aren’t just about what the author writes and whether they respond individually to each commenter. I think they’re also about starting conversations among the readers and commenters. About generating a sense of community that doesn’t rely solely on the one-to-one communications of authors and individual commenters.

Great blogs are happy to hand over the thoughts, ideas, and conversations to their community to discuss (usually in the comments). In this sense, great blogs are community facilitation tools rather than uniquely broadcast or narrowcast.

Hey Grant,

I agree with much of what you said. As the community grows, it will take on its own internal rules and dynamics that can’t be dictated by one blogger (or better, might not want to be dictated by one blogger).

I also think you’re right when you highlight the fact that the blog is just one touch point for the community, and as such does need to be thought about in terms of an overall integrated perspective on scalability.

One thing you get close to suggesting, which I’ll explicitly state, is that the role of the blogger behind a large audience might well be that of a community manager/facilitator.

If the blogger is struggling to scale the personality and personability of the blog, then I think it is up to the blogger to seek out and actively incentivise existing community members to come on board the blog as authors and help with issues of scalability.

A customer/reader service rep for a blog? Perhaps it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Hey Grant,

I agree with much of what you said. As the community grows, it will take on its own internal rules and dynamics that can’t be dictated by one blogger (or better, might not want to be dictated by one blogger).

I also think you’re right when you highlight the fact that the blog is just one touch point for the community, and as such does need to be thought about in terms of an overall integrated perspective on scalability.

One thing you get close to suggesting, which I’ll explicitly state, is that the role of the blogger behind a large audience might well be that of a community manager/facilitator.

If the blogger is struggling to scale the personality and personability of the blog, then I think it is up to the blogger to seek out and actively incentivise existing community members to come on board the blog as authors and help with issues of scalability.

A customer/reader service rep for a blog? Perhaps it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

By the way, even though I don’t currently have a blog (working on this) you can find out what I’m like, what I like to think about and whether you like me by checking me out on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Scott_Drummond

I really like the positive evolutionary vision Grant and Scott mention. If you really build great relationships, those morph into community, and eventually the community transcends its owner. Brilliant thought!

Chris,

Yes, I believe it does scale – though maybe not in the traditional meaning. Since I’ve been up to my ears in Triiibes.com the past two months – I look at everything through “tribal glasses” – however, that’s where I believe you’ll find the answer. Before you go much further, you’ll need to stop thinking community and start thinking tribe.

First, identify a few tribe leaders in your own tribe. Work on building stronger relationships with those leaders you’ve identified (use lots of carrots). Work on projects with them and get them involved in what you’re doing.
Before you know it – they’ll be like amplifiers for you.

Then, when some of their tribe members come along – allow them to reach out and touch you. Sure, things won’t be quite the same past the first few levels – but it’s much better than mass broadcasting.

How many people are following you on Twitter? 17,426? Nope, not all of them are REALLY following you. Many of them are actually following someone else – but know about you because of that other person.

Here’s a good working example. If I weren’t a follower of Seth Godin, I would never have even cared who you are Chris (sorry, just being honest). However, Seth told us that you’re a great “tribal tactician”. Hearing that, I certainly needed to learn more about you. Now, I’m following you on Twitter and learning cool things from you. In this example, Seth is one of those “tribal leaders” I’m talking about.

I’m also in the process of growing a tribe. As my tribe grows, not only will I write about Seth, I’ll write about the work of Chris Brogan, etc. It’s not perfect, but it’s the way I see social media scaling. And, the better you plan it, the better it works.

Hope this makes sense. I see it very clearly, but I’m not sure if it’s coming out clearly. ;)

Ed

Of course social media scales – but NOT the way it’s being done right now.
We would never expect one Doctor to see every patient at a clinic as the practice grows… but the examples you mentioned – Frank, Connie, Gary? they are all individuals. So do you expect them to handle ALL social media for one company? No.
You expect them to bring in partners. To introduce new people that are as passionate about helping customers as they are.

I would point to @Zappos as an example. Tony isn’t the whole company – nor the only Zappos employee on Twitter or Blogging or writing. They’ve scaled social media by having the *company* involved, not by having the interaction revolve around one person.

Social media scales when you quit focusing on “rockstars” and “thought leaders” and start focusing on “dialogs” and “teamwork”.

Sorry, I have to disagree with the “it doesn’t work on a large scale” because someone – namely Zappos.com – has already proven that wrong.

Chris,
This is one of your shortest, but not less thoughtful posts. You’re not a broadcaster — that has a whole different meaning. You spend time reviewing comments, even commenting on the commenters. But, at some point, you will dialog less with those who are not within your immediate sphere. You may reach out occassionally, but volumne and time will work against you. Instead, your next-level followers will reach out and begin to answer for you. I know this sounds odd, but I think Ed (iii) is correct — you are leading a sm tribe and it will answer for you. You can see small effects on twitter — people RT a good comment, they RT / Digg / Link / FF / whatever a good post or link. It is how the tribe shares knowledge on behalf of its leaders and other members. So, yes, sm scales, but not necessarily how you might think or like.
ahg3

I totally agree with Lucretia. Social media is scalable in my mind, there’s no breaking point really.

The scaling factor is definitely up to you on being available to respond to and interact with – even if that needs be recruiting others to help on your side.

Now the real hurdle is to convince your boss or CEO for the help (that’s probably the #1 show stopper I am sure)!

Lucretia and Ed both had the answer right. Tribes now, to use Seth’s words.

If you look at what Chris Pirillo has done with his Geek community it looks like social media can be ramped up if it’s attractive and meaningful to its members.

To scale or not to scale — whether ’tis nobler…

But people scale in different ways. Can Chris scale his commenting and sharing?

Steve Rubel has already scaled to over 600 feeds he monitors daily. And his (fewer) comments are still welcome.

Gladwell notes in his “Tipping Point” that there are (at least) three different types of people required to do this social media stuff we revel in. Some “connectors” have hundreds and hundreds of people they interconnect. His “sneezers” have fewer, but are concentrating on their sources for new trends and ideas.

To that relative degree, the Dunbar number is an inexact estimate – more inexact if you consider the different uses “tribes” are put to, and the different functions a person has in the various tribes he belongs to.

Long Tail niches play a part – in that we are part of oh-so-many interconnected and loosely joined tribes when we do that. This is why social media is thriving and broadcast “MSM” is dying, ever so slowly. Even politics is affected by these long tails – people are elected by collecting votes of confidence from tribal elders, while their followers tend to go along (for the most part).

And yet you see politics with just two main parties tending to fissure on both sides of that fence. So many more “undecideds” this election year – and so many more who admit they really only decide on that day. Are we breaking the mold of our own political social media because it won’t scale? These two parties possibly can’t actually represent the expanding diversity of their namesakes? So many are “conservative” on one subject and “liberal/progressive” on another. I heard one analyst call for a great party of the center and let the extremists of each side form their own…

Is it scaling – or evolution we should look to? As only change is constant, would we be better spent looking for that ideal wave to surf toward the shore, or better to take what we have in front of us, then paddle back for more when it winds up spent on the shore?

Those are the questions we ask about social scaling…

And the answer comes back yes – and no. Depends.

You should’ve caught the last social media breakfast in Boston.

Speaking of industrial technology Freud remarked, “Motor power places gigantic forces at [man's] disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction…Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God.”(From Civilization and its Discontents). Viewed in this light Social media is a conversational prosthetic allowing us to keep in touch with hundreds of people in a fraction of the time. The only constraint to its scalability is time. There’s only so much time to post, to reply to comments, to tweet, etc.

Definitely an interesting conundrum. I’d like to say that it can scale as a team – but that does lessen the community effect.

I did a bit of writing about this on my own blog, and I agree with some of the comments above.

I think there are two ways it scales:

1. You expand your team.

or

2. People learn to accept that someone attempting to connect with lots of people won’t be able to respond to every message, from every person, individually. I think social media is shown by the fact that if I post something of interest, or occasionally, just a random comment, someone like yourself, or Hugh McLeod, or Chris Anderson etc will respond if possible.
I don’t expect to get a response from you if I’m bombarding you with messages about the sandwich I ate this morning.

You can share your stuff with the world, but a smaller percentage of people will actively comment and respond – so it’s all about finding the best ways to reach as many of those people as possible, with the reasonable expectation of the amount of time and effort anyone can reasonably put in!

Hey Chris,

Great question! As a person desperate to get a UK-based <10,000 employee company moving in this SM stuff, the thoughts and comments here are GOLD.

Thank you community (and RSS/Twitter for making it easy to track with you guys)

Thanks Chris…this is one of the “Ghosts” :-) at MediaBadger, Giles Crouch (a.k.a Webconomist); thanks for pointing out that, and I will start signing my posts. I wrote that one.

Thank-you for commenting. Much appreciated. We respect your work here very much.

The “tribes” concept of Seth may in part be the answer to this dilemma. Ed Welch made a great example.

But I still think we all hit a point that we can’t respond to absolutely everybody as an individual; the dynamic shifts because a group forms and tensions change in expectations.

I interviewed Frank back in April when he was first “blowing up” and we’ve spoken several times since. What I’ve found is that his success has been through sheer ubiquity. But he has a team backing him up. While he has become the face of a commendable SM outreach program and proactive customer service, the model we expect needs to shift away from Frank and move towards teams of a bit more anonymous “Frankettes” (he can use that term if he wants) who have the same work ethic and commitment to customer service, but don’t leave the company dependent on one person as a face of their SM outreach.

In a perfect world, the SM outreach could be localized, so instead of Frank @comcastcares who lives in Philly spending all night on Twitter, Joe the SM Outreach Rep @ComcastCaresBay could handle Bay area when it’s 3am in Philly, @ComcastCaresDC could handle DC-related problems, etc etc.

We know Frank has a great team that he has built…but the next step in a good SM operation has to be letting operation become more than just one person.