I’ve been thinking. To some those are some pretty scary words but not necessarily as scary as me deciding to tell you what I think. In this case I’ve been thinking about what I call the social media herd.

The social media herd is a group of people who move in concert from web application to web application, vehemently discussing the merits of each while generally exaggerating the level of each service’s importance along the way.

The exact size of the herd is difficult to determine but I’ll estimate the size of the core group to be about ten thousand people who are mostly from the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. There are people scattered within the group that are from all points on the globe though.

The dynamics of the social media herd are not unlike those of any other social group. The herd has three distinct sub-groups.

1. Leaders who set the trends and topics of discussion. Where they go, the herd follows. What they love, the herd loves.
2. The Pack follow and are fiercely loyal to the leaders. Their ideas most often mimic the ideas of the leaders. They go where the leaders go. Some aspire to be leaders and mark their turf accordingly.
3. Outsiders exist on the fringe of the herd. They actively observe the herd. Some are simply studying the behavior of the herd. Others are trying to figure out how to get inside.

In addition the the three core sub-groups the herd has a long tail of followers that possibly reaches into the low hundreds of thousands. These are people who are somehow affiliated with members of the herd but are not well defined as a group. They are aware of what is going on but aren’t studying the group closely and have no aspirations to join. The long tail moves at their own pace and sometimes arrives at a service about the time the core group is moving on.

The social media herd is very bottom heavy. There are a couple of dozen people who are recognized as the leaders. Everyone else is following them either in the pack, on the fringes or the tail. In their own way the leaders of the herd have great power over the herd and are considered valuable individuals to be aligned with. If the leaders make a move it is expected that the pack and the outsiders who follow the pack will go along for the ride.

The herd is probably about 90% male. The age of the herd ranges from early twenties to mid-fifties. The majority of the social media herd is likely between thirty and forty years of age.

In many ways the social media herd is like the cliques you knew in high school. The leaders of the herd know their position and typically flaunt their power. The pack is proud to be in the herd and suspicious of anyone new to the scene. For the most part the pack decides who enters the herd although sometimes a leader will fast track a person who they think deserves to be recognized. Fringe members who gain entry and acceptance to the herd like to shut the door behind them because it is generally perceived that increasing the size of the herd reduces the value of being a member.

The herd moves at varying rates of speed. Sometimes they linger in a place or on a topic of discussion for months at a time. At other times they make a quick stop off and keep moving. Wherever the herd treads you can bet that lots of discussion of wildly varying quality will occur and lots of bandwidth will get utilized.

The social media herd does not know loyalty. They move from service to service at the whims of the leaders. Those in the pack who fail to conform to the ideas and opinions of the leaders or the majority of the pack members face marginalization and even ejection from the group.

The social media herd is a highly sought after group of people by those who need attention on the web for their products or services. The most capitalized attention seekers woo the leaders of the herd with all sorts of goodies, including good, old-fashioned butt kissing. Those with fewer resources must stoop to vying for the attention of the members of the pack who they hope will then alert the leaders of their presence. Gaining the attention of the wider pack (and eventually the long tail) is object of the game for those seeking attention.

Attention seekers seem to spend a lot of time and effort hoping to get noticed. And that leads me to an important question. Is it worth it? Does the time and effort that is required to attract the social media herd pay off in any tangible way? Are the effects of attracting the attention of the herd generally lasting or merely short term? Is there a correlation between the amount of attention from the social media herd and the long-term success of a web property?

Stay tuned. I plan to analyze the questions above in my next post.