The Big Deal About Small Talk

We all know someone who knows how to “work the room” at a party or business reception; they seem to have a database in their head and know everyone’s name as well as the name of their spouse, kids, and some tidbit of personal information—a favorite sport, or TV show or a big client they have.  Chances are this seemingly-effortless social ability has been gained through a fair amount of hard work, but it has probably been worth it; helping this person to achieve some level of personal and/or business success.

We often refer to these sorts of shallow interactions as “small talk” and discount their potential value—especially people like me who don’t have the gift—but maybe we shouldn’t. Those of you with academic leanings may have noticed the similarity of the title of this post to that of an influential paper on social theory, written in the early 70s by Mark Granovetter called The Strength of Weak Ties. In a nutshell what Granovetter says is that it’s important—at least for purposes of networking or having a social life enriched with the opportunity to meet new people—to have a number of acquaintances in addition to your close friends and family, because these acquaintances or “weak ties” are the links that connect other circles of “strong ties” and keeps them from being self limiting. A number of these concepts were more recently popularized by Malcom Gladwell in The Tipping Point.

These days the growth of online social networks have made “weak ties” worth revisiting. A great deal of the work that the gadfly in my original example probably had to do: collecting business cards, writing notes on napkins, etc. to cultivate these weak ties, has been in large part replaced and enhanced by platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg and others. Online social networks are incredibly efficient engines built around insubstantial connections. It’s actually the lack of substance that greases the wheels of social networking. It doesn’t involve a lot of social risk to see if someone shares your favorite TV shows or likes a band that you like, but that connection can bring you into their circle and connect you with another network of friends.

As marketers think about how to approach social networks it’s good to keep these ideas in mind. If you want to create a message, application, or piece of content to be shared widely, keep it on the light side. It doesn’t have to be silly but it shouldn’t be too complicated. An example from the world of Facebook would be the creation of “Engagement Apps.” these are just simple things like badges, petitions, or polls that can help give you exposure and open the channels for communication, without asking too much of the user.