The Soup Metric – A Great Way To Measure Social Networks

In her post Soup Metrics, Tara Hunt discusses the propensity of those in your various social and business networks online that would be inclined to bring you soup if you were single, ill and unable to fend for yourself.

Notwithstanding the basic fact that some might be on another continent, she reasons that it is those same people who would bring you soup when ill are likely to be career changing, and whom, though they may not know you intimately would stand your ground, fight your corner and bend over backwards for you.

In a world of social media streams and feeds that see you inundated with complete guff on a second-by-second and day-by-day basis its easy to looks sight of real connections and to feel completely overwhelmed, even more so when you look at the unread items in your RSS inbox and it totals 7376!

Tara Hunt’s Soup Metric really brings all the hype around social media back down to earth, and highlights the oft-mentioned fact that people and businesses with any form of social media presence should generate communications of substance and real connections with colleagues, counterparts, unknowns, clients and whomever else you end up tweeting to, status updating to, or just plain ol’ communicating with.

Sure there will always be those who use a new medium as a market stall, shouting loud and hawking their wares but amongst the drowning shout of their yells, you will find meaningful contacts and it is only with the effort, time and energy that you will foster stronger and decent strands to your network. As the old saying goes, you can count your best friends on one hand, and though with social networking you ‘might’ need 10 extra hands, how many would actually bring you soup?  And of course, above and beyond that, how many would you take soup to?

Thanks to Tara for the insightful post, and for those of you interested in Tara Hunt’s work and ideas about the power of social networks, you should check out her book The Whuffie Factor: Using The Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business.