I’ve known about the real power of social media for quite some time. (As have we all.) But recently I was deeply reminded of it after struggling with a personal issue. I’m old enough to remember dial-up. And I’ve personally designed, built or managed some of the earliest digital communications platforms. On occasion, those included support groups/forums for people with all manner of issues. The power in these areas isn’t something that AI is likely going to surpass any time soon. And only a few truly authentic marketers can participate. There are just some things that aren’t likely to be handed off to AI agents.
As much as I enjoy some aspects of social media, sometimes over time we tend to forget things. It’s somewhat how we’re designed as people. Our neural pathways are just set up to decay pathways we don’t exercise a lot. And I think I’d forgotten some of the core value of special enthusiast and focused groups. Which is ironic, since I’ve worked on so many of these products across multiple companies.
I’m not sure if now is a great time to be writing this. But I’ve been trying to write more as it both helps me learn better and faster and I’ve always enjoyed teaching and sharing. The hazard right now is I’m a little loopy on pain meds, post ACL surgery after a little ice hockey incident. (The good news was after the fall there was a nice solid wall to stop me sliding.) While I’ve been injured before, plenty of broken bones, etc., this one is a bit heavier. And while I’m always appreciative of the gift of modern medicine, living in a modern economy and the privilege of decent insurance, there’s another benefit. And that’s the information and support available via Digital/social. This is what has me re-thinking about the power of social.
Without the research, the discussion threads, and more I’ve been able to use across Facebook, Reddit and others, there’s no way I’d have done as well as I did my first painful week post-surgery without the help. And I mean help across the board. Information. Intellectual help. Emotional help. Etc. (For the physical help, that goes mostly to my wife who’s putting up with yet another sports injury.)
Anyway, here’s what I’m re-learning as I type this, and since typing is just about the only thing I’ll be able to do for the next week or so, here’s all I’ve come up with this week…
The Power of Tribes
We have very loose networks that can form really quickly based on shared experience.
Who’s YOUR Tribe? Family? Religious group? Ethnic group? Your sports team, (that you cheer for), Your sports team, (that you play on), Your children’s play group? It’s probably many of the above. We all travel across our multiple roles. What’s funny sometimes is how it happens that we become “belongers” of one thing or another as we travel through our lives, sometimes purposefully, sometimes bumbling, sometimes tragically. I’ve recently become an unwilling member of the ACL surgery club. It’s apparently a somewhat large club. It’s often funny how you come to have things in common with others. I remember when we first got a dog and some neighbors down the street stopped by to pet her and asked, “Oh, what a nice puppy. Did you all just move in?” “Well, no, we’ve lived here for years. This is the first time you’ve stopped to say hello because you liked the dog.” The moment you have a child, you quickly realize you now have more in common with other couples with a kid, (across just about any other social cross section), than anyone else. Your friends may still be your friends, but you have a whole new cohort of carpool, playdate and emergency contact buddies. And so on.
I’m a fairly big belonger of sorts. Besides family, I’m part of several community and activity groups and other associations. Many of us are of course. It’s how humans evolved. Besides opposable thumbs and language, it’s arguably our ability to cooperate and share culture most responsible for our survival. Actually, cultural evolution was likely a driver of language development and brain growth. There’s even a name for this; it’s called the social brain hypothesis. Interestingly, it was anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar who had some of the earliest formalized and quantified write-ups here, though the idea may have existed in some earlier forms. Dunbar was also the one to come up with an idea about the theoretical cognitive limit to the number of stable social relationships a human can maintain, estimated at around 150. This is called “Dunbar’s Number.” It’s a rule of thumb, not a hard cap, but we see it reflected in everything from hunter-gatherer tribe sizes to military units to company departments and more. Though now, our digital tools have stretched this. At least somewhat.
Digital has allowed us to expand our tribes or associate with new ones as never before and it may be interesting to note what this means in terms of value of digital products. Think about communications products. We’ve had everything from email to various social media since pre-internet. Friendster got ousted by MySpace got replaced by Facebook, etc. etc. And there were tons of various bulletin boards both standalone and via Yahoo Groups. Did we really need Reddit? Apparently yes. And why was Twitter needed on top of everything else? Or WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat. TikTok, Discord, Slack, etc. etc.
Why so many? Why so many new ones when we already had so many? I think it’s just endemic to humanity. Since we first scratched a glyph on a cave wall or made a smoke signal, we’ve built tools to reach out and communicate.
Technology vs. Humanity, What Comes Next
This isn’t something that’s necessarily a new insight to me. Or to you. But I’ll hypothesize it anyway… some of the most powerful products we’ll continue to see over the next decade will continue to be real and authentic social communication tools. We will continue to see even more. This is not even in spite of AI, blockchain, crypto, etc. Rather, more because of them.
The deluge of new AgenticEverything could easily push a lot of us back to more high touch venues. With so many of these new and fantastic tools, we’re often just putting artificial on top of artificial. The most amusing sales pitches I see are for agentic AI that can build a “zero to hero” go to market workflow with a single, (borrowed), prompt only to be answered by another agentic system on behalf of… well… maybe an actual person. But maybe not. It’s one thing to have an automated spam call being answered by voicemail. That’s just practically vintage prepared to what’s coming. We’re going to have a lot more automation talking to more automation about… nothing? OK, not always. So very much of this will be critically important and wonderful. IoT sensors working with smart contracts and tools to manage things, much smarter custom targeted healthcare, and so on. But the parts that involve people? We won’t likely be able to keep up. We won’t want to. It’s not just a matter of being disintermediated. It’s a matter of the fact that we invented these tools because we ourselves can’t continue to handle the cognitive overload for some things we legitimately want done. So we’re building tools that can. OK, sure, there’s some non-trivial and deeply philosophical issues at hand. Great. We’ll sort those out somehow.
Right now, obviously, all this piping isn’t quite done yet. A few more splashes of usability need to be put on blockchain identity infrastructure and tied into still sloppy tokenomics of agentic AI. Maybe a splash more multi-modal grounding with a guardrail or two for the kiddies.
And when we’re done, I think what we’ll end up with is the same race we’ve been in with search and similar products. While Google has had a form of hegemony of sorts for some decades now, (and is still a behemoth in AI), we’re going have a much more commoditized AI space. The core technologies do not seem to have the same strategic trade secret or intellectual property blockages that things like Google’s early PageRank technology had. So when all of this gets built, what then?
Throughout all of this, what will shine through? Where will people actually spend their real quality time? I think it’ll still be with each other and with story type media, albeit even more so via computer mediated communications. Because we can anthropomorphize these things all we want. But when all’s said and done, they’re useful, but not necessarily wholly satisfying.
Final Reflections: The Real Power
I’ll be in and out of this particular injury focused community. Though it’s left an impression and I’m very grateful for it. So I’ll do some things to give back. As with so many things, it’s stunning to see that there’s still some information and pieces of the puzzle missing. I’m going to build them and fill in some of the blanks. (Not as a business, just as an interested volunteer because I have the skills and will do so.) As a digital product person, but also long time community EMS volunteer I’ve seen much worse happen to people. Personally, I’m lucky. I’ll be able to walk again soon and eventually return to playing sports and doing most of the things I like to do. (Though… maybe done with ice hockey at this point. That’s three somewhat bad injuries! Maybe I’ve finally gotten that message!)
But the experience reminded me of why we built the Internet in the first place. It was about communications. Everything else? Well, yes, it is great I can order those new slip on sneakers and have them show up at my door in a day or two. (I got Kizik’s by the way. (Easy to put in with crutches) Though these Zeba’s look cool too.) The thing is though, the core value remains the connections, not the commercial aspects. I might live and work in those spaces. They have value, of course. But one way or another, that which was, is and will be commercial has multiple vectors to interact with consumers and stakeholders. For real people though? Without computer mediated communications we’d be missing connections many would otherwise just never have.
So, what was and remains that Real Raw Power of Social Media and why I think we’ll continue to re-invent social tools?
It’s really a simple message; practically regardless of your situation. And there’s not much that can compete with it. It’s just this…
I see you. I feel you. I’ve been there or I am there. You are not alone.
That may be cliched, but consider the depth of meaning.
In the end, the raw power of social media isn’t about tech at all. It’s about showing up for one another, even if we’ve never met. Even through a screen, someone out there understands. Connection isn’t just possible; it’s powerful. And it still matters most. Amid all the fancy new tools and toys, the algorithms and feeds in commercial combat for our attention and dollars, (and yes, some of the negativity), what really endures is not any of this noise at all. It’s the moment and the echo of simple human kindness passed along in comments, posts and sometimes shared pain.