The power of collective individualism

One idea that I've been pondering for quite some time now is the idea of collective individualism as a major driver of social media. Social media is having the unprecedented effect of bringing diverse groups of people together around common interests. People who would have (pre social media), kept their interests to themselves now have a way to connect with like-minded individuals, share their passion and build upon it.

Here is how I am visualizing this:

I think that the networks that work the best let people focus the most on a number of topics. It lets you mirror your persona. For instance, Facebook lets you create a group for any interest you could possibly have. Those people join in the group as well as other groups they enjoy. It maintains their individualism but it's done in a social setting.

This is one reason some networks fail. People try to build hyper-niche networks and people are more complex than that. I like fountain pens and photography. I like networks that let me explore both without two logins and two sets of information and I like to see if there is cross-over with other users. Anybody who crosses interests with me would be more aligned to who I am as a person.

Some thoughts to work out:

• How can you leverage this paradigm?
  
• Can these things work independently?
  
• Have you seen networks that ignore this group individualism? Do they work?
  
• When do/could hyper-niche networks work?
  
• Who does this the best/worst?
  

Let me know what you think.

[Updates:] The real reason that I'm trying to frame this is to show how social media is allowing personal, narrowly focused growth as a core driver of the utilities we use.

Is WE > ME in social media?

Is the growth of WE more important than the growth of ME? I certainly think that it is and is a big component to the rapid growth of social networks. I think that the more WE value you add to the mix, the more growth you can achieve.

Have you seen anything to the contrary? Do I need to refine this more? It feels almost right, but not quite.

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marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer

Comments

[MartinM]

Mark: This is the first time I've visited your blog but it won't be the last. The idea of networks as markets has been the mantra of a friend of mine, Scot Degraffenreid. He's a "social network architect". His website is http://necessarymeasures.com. You can see how I've looked at networks and networking based on Scott's work at my blog where I've posted three (so far) blogs on "branding for referrals". The category can be found here: http://thebrandingblog.com/category/branding-for-referrals/. Martin

[Jerry]

It may just be me, but I really don't like the "collective" adjective. (The word carries all sorts of political baggage and the people involved wouldn't necessarily be forming a collective.) I'd prefer something that might be more accurately descriptive, e.g,. "networked individualism," "cooperative individualism" or "connected individualism."

[Matt Dickman]

Martin -- Welcome! Thank you for that comment. I will check out both of your blogs. Networks as markets is a huge idea and this is trying to get down to what drives them at their core.

[Matt Dickman]

Jerry -- Welcome to you as well! I see your point and I appreciate you raising that flag. It hadn't occurred to me. Let's keep this discussion going. I like "networked" (feels a little coprporate), but "cooperative" has a negative connotation for me. Does it for you? "Connected" is also very interesting.

[Jerry]

Mark: I can see that "cooperative individualism" might have negative vibes. Another possibility that occurred to me is "collaborative individualism." I suspect the examination of a thesaurus would quickly suggest others.

[Tangerine Toad]

Guys: His name is MATT, not Mark.

And I guess I wonder how seriously people take the groups they join, especially on Facebook: is it something they're really passionate about or did I just join the fountain pens group because I don't hate them and my friend Matt is part of it. And then, even if I am passionate, how much do I participate? And is that how I define myself?

I think people have a hierarchy of self-definition. Your religion might come first, your ethnicity, hometown, profession, favorite sports team, hair color-- really doesn't matter. But that defines who you are, with variations on it. So that take two people with identical characteristics and one might be an Irish-American Red Sox fan from Rhode Island who works as a lawyer and had red hair. Whereas the other might define herself as a lawyer and red-head who likes the Red Sox, comes from Rhode Island and is of Irish descent.

(I think that made sense.)

[Jerry]

Oops! My apologies, Matt.