Generations & The Networking Advantage

Tribes, Weak Ties & Personal Capital

Alex

Local Business Marketing Spend: 2013

BIA Kelsey Research

Puzzled By A Trend

Why Does Connection Marketing Instinctively Matter to Biz Operators?

BIA Kelsey Research

Interruption Marketing is Over

Seth Godin: Internet and Hanging With Your Tribe

Urban Tribes, Identity Capital, Weak Ties

Identity Capital

• How we build ourselves piece by piece over time• Repertoire of assembled individual assets• Most importantly, what kids bring to the adult marketplace

Can a Tribe Really Help?

• Similarity breeds connection

• Homogeneous clique

• Incestuous group• Restricted speech

Strength of Weak Ties

• Weak Ties are the people we have met, or are connected to somehow, but do not currently know well and have not been promoted to close friends

• Force us to communicate from a place of difference…with Elaborated Speech

• Requires us to make our points more fully• Promotes more thoughtful Growth and Change

Weak Ties

• The people we know the least are the most transformative

• New things always come from outside your inner circle

• Twenty-somethings resist leveraging the strength of their weak ties– I want to get a job on my own– I hate networking– That’s not my style

Trouble: Crisis NOW, Capital is for LATER

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google

“ Y-E-S is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it’s a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference.”

Boomers Get Weak Ties

• College campus: playground to explore, chase identity, and begin stalking change

• Learned that interconnectedness is not texting friends at 1am- but reaching out to weak ties that make a difference to our lives even though they don’t have to

• Engaging human grace vs. servile respect• But, boomers have grown distant and apart-

Social Networks new playground for old skills

Boomers Run Marketing Now

BIA Kelsey Research

Social Media Marketing: Harvesting Weak Ties & Personal Capital

Wishing You (and Alex) A Long Life of Weak Ties

Social Media for Harvesting Your Personal

and Business Capital