The Strength of Weak Ties💠

Over 50 years ago, a sociology professor published a paper that changed the way we think about social networks:

More recently, the term ‘social network’ has been used to describe social media platforms like Facebook.

The term also became the title of a movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the controversial founding of Facebook.

But the concept originated as a way of thinking about the in-person networks and communities we all inhabit.

My social network includes:

• my close friends and family members

• co-workers

• people I’ve met around my neighborhood or in random ways

• rugby teammates and people I’ve played sports with

• members of my choir

I’m very close with some parts of my social network, but the majority of people I ‘know’ are just acquaintances.

According to ‘Weak Ties’ theory, these loose connections might be more valuable than we think.

What are Weak Ties?

For his paper, Granovetter surveyed 282 American men about how they got their jobs.

He found that weak ties were more valuable than strong ties for finding employment, because they “connect you to networks that are outside of your circle” and “give you information and ideas that you otherwise would not have gotten.”

He concluded the paper by writing that:

The idea of ‘Weak Ties’ theory is simple: your close friends and family members may have social networks that largely overlap with your own.

More casual acquaintances, however, have social networks that overlap only slightly (perhaps just through one person), thus enabling more social opportunities than the network you and your 'strong ties' inhabit.

Here’s a hypothetical: Imagine you go to a happy hour with a co-worker, and you meet his sister and her best friend. You and the best friend are two degrees of separation away.

Perhaps she could become a romantic interest, or maybe her company is looking to hire someone with your experience and professional background.

Either way, meeting her would create professional or personal opportunities that you wouldn’t get if you just had dinner at home with your family.

This isn’t to say that you should de-prioritize your close relationships.

In fact, it’s those ‘strong tie’ relationships that actually make you happy.

Instead, the theory of ‘Weak Ties’ claims that these loose connections enable the spread of information throughout a community more than closed-off strong ties.

Networking with Weak Ties

If someone is good at networking, we can think of them as effective at cultivating weak ties in order to maximize the valuable information (and opportunities) they have access to.

But does weak tie theory apply to the world of social media?

In 2022, MIT professor Sinan Aral and his co-authors analyzed over data from over 20 million LinkedIn profiles to determine whether the 'weak ties' theory held up in a world of digital social networks.

The abstract of the paper examining the role of weak ties in getting new jobs on LinkedIn. (Link to the full paper here)

Aral found that weak ties are still better for finding jobs than strong ties — particularly in fields that are technologically sophisticated:

ART OF THE DAY

Valkyries by Alois Kolb. 1915.