Facebook: Mass Marketing and Personal Persuasion

When it comes to promoting change, will you get better results from marketing to the masses, or personally recruiting amongst peers?  You get a better percentage of response from the latter, but the former is faster and less involved. 

I read a compelling article a few weeks back on Facebook as the precursor of mass interpersonal persuasion, a combination of mass marketing and personal persuasion. 

Facebook takes very strong interpersonal influence dynamics — the way people persuade each other face-to-face in small groups with peer pressure, reciprocity, flattery — and allows those to be used on a mass scale because your social networks are built in. Friends influence friends, who influence friends, and that keeps rippling out.

I’ve used facebook to promote a friend’s missionary work in Africa, help another friend sell his book, re-connect with old high school and college friends, invite peers who would invite peers to a local benevolence fundraiser, find local friends who share the same ideologies, amongst other things. 

Facebook is not just for the young and trendy.  Anyone from any generation has the opportunity can utilize this simple networking tool to further the Kingdom of Jesus.