Let’s say that you’ve decided to launch a new website or business. How many people from your social circle can you count on to support your new endeavor? Using a bit of math, here’s what I came up with:
Not too long ago, I mentioned Dunbar’s Number, a theoretical proposition that states that one cannot maintain close, stable relationships with more than 150 people. Any friends over that number will be assumed to be part of a collection or spam. Dunbar’s Number will be the basis for this experiment.
So let’s say that you have 150 close friends, family members, and co-workers. It doesn’t matter if you have more or less, but let’s use that number for the sake of this experiment. Let’s say that you have twice as many friends as family members or co-workers (who get the extra person, since you can’t have half a person):
- Friends: 75
- Family: 37
- Co-workers: 38
Of your 150 contacts, there is a bell-curve (“normal”) distribution related to how interested they are in your life which in this case equates will help you out or promote something for you. We will be using an eight-point scale on propensity to help, ranging from “no way in hell” to “without a doubt.” So the percentages look like this (rounded to whole people):
- no way in hell 0.1% = 1 person
- probably not 2.1% = 3 people
- unlikely 13.6% = 20 people
- maybe (negative) 34.1% = 51 people
- maybe (positive) 34.1% = 51 people
- possibly 13.6% = 20 people
- probably 2.1% = 3 people
- without a doubt 0.1% = 1 person
Distribution remains constant across all groups.
The proclivities for the groups will be based on an equal percentage distribution for all categories (higher percentages means that they are more likely to help, with numbers rounded to the nearest whole person):
- no way in hell 0% = 0 people
- probably not 14.3% = 0 people
- unlikely 28.6% = 6 people
- maybe (negative) 42.9% = 22 people
- maybe (positive) 57.2% = 29 people
- possibly 71.5% = 14 people
- probably 85.7% = 3 people
- without a question 100% = 1 person
So this means that you should have the interest of 75 out of 150 people, or 50% of the people you ask. So half of the people you ask won’t even click on the link to join your Facebook fan page or follow you on Twitter. Using the same metrics, we can determine that 37 out of those 75 people will follow through to join the group or follow you, which equates to 25% of your social circle.
We will use the metrics* again to determine involvement (ie: people who check in on or interact with your product), and we find the following:
- 19 people (13% of your social group) will interact with your brand
- Of those 19 people, only 12 will do so at a frequency of weekly to monthly
And finally, if you subdivide the math again and assume that this time you are reducing the number to find the amount of people who will tell others about the product, promote it, and so on…
You’re left with 8 people. 10 at most. That’s around 6% of your original 150 people. Or, to put it another way, 4 friends, 2 family members and 2 co-workers (or, at most, 5, 2 and 3, respectively).
So what does this mean?
Whenever you plan to start a new business, publicize yourself, or try to find something to do within your own social group, you won’t have as many positive responses as you might expect. Instead, look to groups or communities outside of your own who might be interested in what you have to offer – you should find greater returns than if you simply throw it out there for people to see and hope that they like it.
There are many marketing metrics and for cost resources that one can use to find these targeted groups. But doing one’s own research into competing or similar fields, even on Google, should yield greater returns. Anticipate who your target is, and you can find them and draw them in.
And who knows? You might make some new friends.
*Truncated from this point on for brevity’s sake.
