Over 60 years ago, this effect was first verified in an experiment by psychologist Bertram Forer with some students. He constructed a personality assessment from various horoscopes, and gave the same assessment individually to every student who took a personality test.

The assessment included sentences such as:

At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved.

Almost anyone can find some truth about themselves in sentences like that.  And, in repeated experiments that tendency held true.  And with social media and other online (or offline) interactions, there is perhaps the same tendency to follow the Forer effect.

If a social media tool analyzes our online traits and provides us with a judgement, we probably will think it must have truth in it.  After all, it’s about us, based on our own input.

Even knowing that an interaction is non-human, such as interacting with a “bot” of some sort (or a voice response system), we still feel that the interaction is ours alone.  But perhaps like a credit score run amok with other people’s information, we should not accept the assessment without making sure it’s not co-mingling our information with others.

To some extent, what you believe becomes your reality, and certainly our belief can get us past otherwise-overwhelming challenges.

If a new tool tells you that you are #1,230 of all tweeters worldwide (on Twitter), you are inclined to want to believe it. But what if it were partly a randomly-generated number?

hmmm….

And in a perhaps orthogonal way, an online persona is our own Forer effect upon the world, and this can be bolstered using social networks.  It’s the same old technique put online: if enough people refer about someone as a visionary, then it is easier to believe to be true about that person.  And we can get others to say those nice things about us! (article continues below)

Sites such as Facebook & LinkedIn, along newer sites such as Philtro, are also trying to enhance their picture of who you are via your social network, in order to provide you with more relevant information (and, of course, advertisements).

While this social network assessment technology is still new, over time we are likely to expect our online services to deliver us what we like, without us having to do much to filter those information & media feeds.  Just say (one day) to your phone/PDA – “I want to watch a minute of the most interesting clips of my friend’s party last night, and after that chill out for about 30 minutes to some new music like what I heard there.  Go!” and you just might get what you instructed.

And you may believe it’s been done just for you.

Whether it is written, or not, if you are using social media then you have a strategy.  The key to excellence starts with how much time you devote to something, and this area is no exception.

There has been advice out there on social media strategy for a year or more. Following up the strategy, there are lots of lists to help you plan. A strategy is important, since you can do anything with social media.

And it’s all free!

Not really. As the excellent slide deck below points out (see slide 38), it takes time. Time is not free, even if you are not getting paid. There is the opportunity cost of making a choice, as time spent on one activity prevents or delays another one.

The modern version is quasi-physical, in most cases, as there are real people with real names that are linked together via relationships. Whether poking each other on social networking sites, or chatting via instant messaging, there is a basis in real relationships with real people in the majority of one’s online social wealth.

A bit more on defining the term, via what it allows… on Scales for Social Capital in the Online Era there is the indication that it creates benefits derived from relationships created by interactions of social actors. These individuals form “a network of individuals—a ’social network’—resulting in positive affective bonds. These in turn yield positive outcomes such as emotional support or the ability to mobilize others.”

This type of capital is not limited to one network, as it can bridge social networks. Bridging’s basic definition applies to when individuals from different backgrounds connect, and this is also extended to cover those that occur between social networks.

Utilizing tools such as facebook may have taken off in part because building social capital takes time, and it is easier to leverage the base of a large social network. Other newer tools allow quick building of the same. Even within networks, there is contrast between “introduction-model” sites such as meetup.com, and microblogging sites such as twitter.com, The first is designed for real-world useful social interaction and one for, well, short bursts of content (useful or otherwise).

The relationship networks that are built through different types of sites are not the same. It is useful to recognize how they are different as you consider the effort expended in building personal or organizational capital.While smart people such as Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam are focused on real-world social capital, there is the hyper-rapid growth of online social capital, as reported in this article.

Online Social Capital and Reputation Managment

Once you have online influence, it becomes as asset to manage, in the sphere of online reputation management. Newbies – people have a handful of online friends and a small network – have less to worry about than people with 5,000 or 10,000 people who are tuned into their online activities & ideas.

Can celebrities really do social media & networking? No, not in the current “traditional” method of social networking, or at least not for the long-term. It’s not really feasible, because as a personal-interaction-based form of communications, it requires hundreds of responses per day. It is possible to engage, but not via having others post for the person, as that quickly becomes apparent for it’s “fake” quality.

Banking

There is no “Central SocialCapital Bank”, and one’s network is quickly spread across the hundreds or thousands of sites. As opposed to the bank model, you can’t build up this type of wealth and have it sit. It exists by being used, but necessarily by being spent.

[More on this to come - this post will be continued and expanded with content that was not ready at the time of publishing ]

My own online social interaction has always had a strong connection to the physical (real) world.  My instant messaging was always with people I had met physically, until it wasn’t.  My email messages were always exchanged with people I had met physically, until (quickly) they weren’t. 

And now, years later, there is a growing churning sea of connection with people I will never meet.  And organizations whose offices or stores I won’t get to visit. Online social has exploded, and offline social can expect to continue to reap the benefits of connections that start online.  Tomorrow I’m attending an event that I learned of through online social networking, because people I had met in the real world were also going.  But, curiously, I met those people because of an event organized via a different online social networking site. 

That type of synergy is perfect, in a way, to illustrate what will hopefully be more than just this short snippet today.  For me, online social works only because it has positively affected my real world.  The same way that I enjoyed going to sites that focused on my interests, such as filmmaking, I now belong to groups with people local to me who want to get together to share those interests.  

But, that’s for a person.  Organizations are different.  They seem to like to aloof, online available via toll-free numbers, email, and occasionally online chat (but only via their chat).  

Should online social campaigns just be virtual?  Having benefited from the friendships that come from online social groups that meet in the real world, and vice versa, I can say “no, bring them into the real world.”  Brands and organizations looking to to use social media may be slow to understand that while everyone won’t be able to connect in the physical world, it can be invaluable to try.  Mostly they should abandon the thought that a social campaign can be all done at arms-keyboard length. 

Recently I spoke with a new media executive from a major league sports team, and this person was specifically interested in making online social work in close connection with offline acitivities & events.  Right on.  It takes more effort and surely can’t be 100 percent automated, but it also will build lasting involvement.  A sports team understand fans, but other businesses are coming around to an understanding of fans, conversations, and participation. 

This is likely part one of a multi-part series, as I have yet to organize the rest of what I’d prepared – a list of positive ideas and bad ideas for getting the offline and online worlds to mix.  I’d write more now but there is an offline event starting shortly… one where I’m looking to meet some people who are at this point only virtual people I’ve found via activities such as Twitter tweets and online message exchanges.

[for now I'm here on twitter]