“Have you heard? John and Mary broke up.”

“How do you know?”

“She just updated her Facebook”

Believe it or not, this is how many people today find out about break ups and new relationships. With just a few clicks, you can make it ‘official.’

As Facebook continues to grow in both size and influence, more and more people are making their relationships public. While by no means is it a requirement to state who you are dating or if the relationship is ‘complicated,’ Facebook users feel the need to share it with others.

Facebook: Reality?

I remember once when someone told me that if it wasn’t on Facebook, it wasn’t official. While this may be just a saying, the truth is that Facebook has done such a good job of representing real-life relationships online, that for some, reality and online blur together.

While Facebook is far from close to replacing real-life relationships, perhaps this is the future of social networking sites. When you look at the success of online dating networks like eHarmony and Match.com, both of which have over 20 million registered users, the foundation of their success is rooted in their ability to leverage online connections and transform them into real ones.

A user on eHarmony doesn’t know what their potential ‘match’ looks like in person, but can develop an idea from pictures, video, and basic profile information. Similarly, on Facebook it is not uncommon for individuals to be friends with people they have never met before in person, yet converse and network with them as if they have.

While the comparison was made to dating networks, Facebook will never be a dating network. Facebook isn’t just about your love life, that is just a small portion of it.

[Name] Is No Longer Listed As Single

Another relationship starts, another one ends. That is the cycle. No one is alarmed anymore when someone becomes single it seems, but that is what happens when your community is built around sharing what used to be private information reserved only for those close to you. It’s not uncommon for you to run into someone at the market whom you haven’t seen in 5 years, yet seemingly know everything about them. Still, you wouldn’t dare say or ask about details you’ve read about them on Facebook for fear of being called a stalker, but would rather ask questions about things you already know the answers too.

—

Facebook continues to change the way we interact and network with others. As more and more information becomes available to others, the question then becomes, when the time comes for you to update your Facebook Relationship status, what will you choose?

–

Joseph Yi is the Director of Marketing at Viralogy.com and works in social media and sports consulting. Find more about him on his website.

The other day I received a Facebook friend request from someone I didn’t know. While I was surprised at the request, it wasn’t the first time. When I view their profile they had over 3,500+ ‘friends,’ zero of which I knew. While there are those that use Facebook to build quality connections and meet new people, there are those that ‘collect’ friends. Like baseball cards, there are some who boast about the number of friends that they have on Facebook.

Still, this is nothing new. Long before there was LinkedIn, there was business cards, and before that, a simple handshake. For as long as ‘networking’ has been linked with ‘opportunity’ and ‘possibility,’ it seems that the common sentiment is that the larger your network is, the more opportunities you will have. With social media though, ones’ ‘network’ is evolving into more than just ‘opportunities’ and ‘possibilities,’ but ‘relationships.’

Size Matters

“Yup, you better believe it.”

If there are two approaches to ones network when it comes to social media, the first concept is that the more people you have in your network, the better. A great example of this is on Twitter. If you browse through some of the users on Twitter, it won’t take you long to find users that are Following 15,000 people. While it would be amazing if they knew all 15,000, the truth is that they probably know at most between 500-1,000 of that group. For the rest of the 14,000 or so, they are just icing on the cake.

Pros: Large ‘network’ that you can share content with

Cons: Lack of relationships with a majority of your network, difficulty in filtering information from your network

It’s Not The Size Of Your Network, It’s How You Use It

The other approach that you will find social media users engaging in is the good old fashioned “quality over quantity” approach. This approach is the complete opposite of the “Size Matters” approach in that it focuses on building quality and meaningful relationships with a smaller, more manageable group. Although the ‘network’ may only reach out to 100-300 users at a time, the power of this network can be just as effective and in some cases even more influential than that of the individual who is ‘friends’ with 15,000.  The reason for this lies in the core network itself. Because the group is smaller, and thus easier to manage, this allows the user to spend more time creating and nurturing relationships with other individuals. In response, the network has stronger ties and in most cases willing to go further when helping each other.

Pros: More time available to build relationships with each, network connections more willing to help, ability to monitor relationships with ease

Cons: Smaller network, your content/news may reach only a couple hundred as opposed to thousands

—

So which approach do you practice? Do you collect ‘friends’ like their rookie cards or do you worry less about size, and more about quality? It is too early to say which one is better or worse and until then, the question remains: “Does Size Matter?”

—

Photo by Robert Scoble