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I attended the most fascinating presentation on how online networking can influence health by Damon Centola of MIT. In his talk, Dr. Cenola discussed how weak ties in social networks facilitate diffusion. What this means is people we are loosely connected to help spread messages to more diverse audiences. He related this to the Kevin Bacon experiment of six degrees of separation.
The below illustration shows how in the large world, we only are able to influence our neighbors (the neighboring dot) and their neighbors. Social networks make the world much smaller. How many times have we stumbled upon an old colleague or friend on a social network and said “what a small world?” If you look at the small world illustration, you can see that spreading information across the social network to people we are weakly tied to can increase the rate and breadth of information diffusion.
Dr. Cenola based his findings on Granovetter’s 1973 “Strength of Weak Ties” theory which cites that weak ties can spread collective action. I have mused about theories in previous posts, but I had never heard of this theory.
I was doing a bit more research on the Strength of Weak Ties theory and found that this is a common theory used in sociology and quite applicable to social media. Nearly every student of sociology studies this theory with the same vigor public health students study the Stages of Change theory among other common theories. This served as another reminder of how our fields exist in separate silos at times.
Working together as practitioners, social marketers, communications professionals, and advertisers, we can share the knowledge necessary to create meaningful behavior change. Let’s collaborate and share. What theories do you use as health marketing and communications professionals to guide your work?
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