A few years ago, I read an article on the Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke, the dynamic film stars who burst onto the Hollywood scene via the unlikely success of a film called Bottle Rocket. If you don’t know who they are, this is what they look like:
The article paid special attention to Owen, as he was the bigger start at the time. In particular, the article covered Owen’s unusual ability to “get things done,” as the article said. Apparently, Owen had the personality to make a crazy amount of connections within the Hollywood producer set, and when someone wanted a movie to actually be made, Owen was the guy to get involved. Even if he wasn’t going to be in the movie, if Owen was talking about it and pushing it, the money and other resources had a way of showing up.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about the term Social Capital. and what it really means. The idea I had in my head seemed a lot like what Owen Wilson apparently has. To be sure, I started at Wikipedia and its definition of the term.
Social capital is a concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health, sociology and natural resources management that refers to connections within and between social networks. Though there are in fact a variety of inter-related definitions of this term, which has been described as "something of a cure-all"[1] for the problems of modern society, they tend to share the core idea "that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups".[2]
The bit that I found interesting in that definition is the importance of connections. It made sense to me. After all, they always say, “It’s who you know that matters.” But the definition doesn’t go into enough detail, does it? Owen Wilson surely couldn't know more people in Hollywood than everyone else? He was a relative newcomer. In other words, Social Capital is not just about how many people you know. One look at my son tells me that. As a first grader, he seems to know an inordinate amount of older kids in the school, or at least they know him. We walk through the halls on the way to his classroom and at least 4 fifth graders wave and say hi to him. When I ask him who these kids are, he replies, “I don’t know.” Now, he has acquaintenances, but he clearly hasn’t made a meaningful connection with these kids. This problem is exacerbated in social software, because the ease with which we can make “friends” means we all end up with many, many connections that are essentially meaningless.
So, social capital has to really be about the quality of the connection in addition to the quantity of connections. Tara Hunt proposes a different definition that includes great things like Reputation, Influence and Access. Now we’re talking, I think! If my connections enhance any of these items, I’ve really gained something. Of course, Tara knew that. She said on her blog, horse.pig.cow, that “The success of the network is directly correlated to the amount of Social Capital it can help its members build.” (Click here to see the entire post) She goes on to say that the real barrier to switching social networks is how much social capital is lost by making the switch.
This sounded about right to me, but then I thought about Scrabble. You’re thinking to yourself, “WHAT?” That’s right, Scrabble. I like to play Scrabulous in Facebook. I play with my friends. What social capital is Scrabulous winning me, I wondered? For that matter, what social capital is the iLike application, or any number of other applications, doing for my social capital? Well, smarter people than me know the answer. Fred Stutzman has a great blog called Unit Structures where he discusses social software. In one post, Fred answers my Scrabulous question. (Click here to see the entire post)
When we use social software, we often employ the software to share. I employ this blog to share my knowledge and try to sound smart. You may share your last.fm playlist to show people that you are a connoisseur of good music. Someone else may share a particular set of bookmarked links in del.icio.us so that their fans can be kept informed of information. Yet another person might join a pool in flickr to share photos that they think are of interest to that particular community. The common thread in all of these examples, and almost all examples in social software, is that what we share reflects back upon our identity.
As social software is situated in a community, we are hard-wired to be aware of the community's perception of ourselves. For the most part, we are also hard-wired to want to win the affection and praise of the community. Good social software compliments us by enabling us to win the affection of the community.
Of course, I also use social software because it let’s me share what I think is cool, and if those things resonate with others, they make me feel good by confirming my opinion. This ties well to Tara’s notion of reputation. If I offer enough cool things on my profile and enough people confirm that they are cool things, then I become a person with a reputation for being cool.
What does this mean for non-profits and how they should use social media and social networks? Make your social network a place where your constituents can build unbelievable social capital. Make the social capital levels so high that these folks will want to spend time in your network rather than in some other network. But how to do it?
- Figure out the main personas who visit your network
- Figure out what they count as social capital
- Provide them a way to build that capital within your network
- Go out and find people who are not in your network but fit the persona
- Tell them about all of the other people like them in your network and all of the great, valuable connections they can make and the great opportunities to share
Easier said than done, right? I'd like to hear from you on this. Tell me your ideas on how you can implement these 5 points.
