For months, I have been thinking about how reciprocity fits into online communities and living online.  Recently, I’ve had a number of discussions on blogs and Twitter about what really boils down to the pressure of reciprocity.  (Are my anthropology roots showing?)

In the context of anthropology, there are a few types of reciprocity.  In my opinion, the one that best suits online interactions is called balanced reciprocity.

Balanced or Symmetrical reciprocity occurs when someone gives to someone else, expecting a fair and tangible return at some undefined future date. It is a very informal system of exchange. The expectation that the giver will be repaid is based on trust and social consequences

(I got this definition from wikipedia, but it is near identical to everything I found in my old textbooks – and easier to cite).

What is interesting about that definition is that it can apply to blog comments, Facebook friends requests, Twitter mentions, blogrolls, Twitter follows, Twitter listings, blog subscriptions, even emails.  The interesting thing about it is that oftentimes, specifically with Twitter, the giver doesn’t know the receiver and may have never even interacted with that person.

Expectation is a powerful thing and the burden of obligation weighs heavy on our fingertips.  It is a lot of pressure to keep up – to reciprocate.

I don’t believe that it is necessary to reciprocate everything.  We need to cut ourselves some slack, be selective, and allow ourselves to have a balanced experience instead of getting caught up in balancing our experiences with others’.

It is important to me to read blog posts that speak to me and comment when I have something to say.  I don’t like to leave empty comments any more than I like to get them. That said, I do feel the need to support blogs I read and bloggers I like.

As for Twitter, there is no need to only follow people who follow back.  In fact, that is a good way to miss out on a lot of great information, inspiration, and perspective.   If I find value in someone’s tweets who doesn’t find value in mine, that is ok; everyone is on Twitter for different reasons.  It would be inefficient to follow everyone who follows me and I think it is unreasonable to expect everyone I follow to follow me back.

Reciprocity is vital to online communities and networking.  Undoubtedly.  However, reciprocating everything is inefficient, time-consuming, and unnecessary.  Attaching too many strings to our online experience diminishes it.  Online, our most valuable gifts are words; they are the currency.  Let’s give and receive them freely. 

The other day while scanning some of the lists I have been included in on Twitter, a realization struck me… I was getting a small glimpse into how virtual strangers perceive me.   I had been given labels and placed in categories that I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen for myself – not that they are bad categories, I just never would have considered them… like, funny!

It fascinated me.  Based on a series of 140-character glimpses into who I am and what my life is like, people got impressions of me and grouped me into lists based on them!  I think that is really cool.

Here is a sampling of some of the best and surprising lists I have been added to:

• ethical
• wordcrafters
• social-media
• conversationalists
• publishing
• comics-and-humor
• politics-justice-advocacy
• funniest-ever
• just-nice-people
• givers
• toronto-gta-awesomesauce
• racial-justice
• people-i-love
• peeps-invited-to-my-sleepover
• blogs-i-love

How awesome are those!?  If these lists are any indication, I must be putting out something of value… good to know.

… or not so much.

Follow Friday.  Every Friday morning I open my twitter feed and it’s flooded with #ff, #FF, #followfriday, etc (ad infinitum).  Now, for as long as I’ve been on Twitter, I have never understood the trend.  I mean, I get the idea, but to me it kinda smacks of a forced commercial holiday that makes you feel obligated to buy a card and ‘celebrate’ some arbitrarily designated special day ’cause everyone else is doing it… Valentine’s day comes to mind (so does Mothers’ Day. Don’t hate.)

Why do we need to dedicate a day to recommendations?  Can’t that happen all week long – as you discover interesting people, you pass them along to your friends?  Try “Check out @example. We just had a really interesting convo about xyz.”  If  your followers are interested, they will check it out.  Otherwise, it’s just a popularity contest.

I find it interesting that very few (if any) of the social media peeps I follow on Twitter participate in #ff.  There’s probably a reason for that…

Recently, I have read countless blog posts and tweets about Twitter followings.  I’ve read about how to get followers, how to lose followers, how to get 10 000 followers overnight, and the debate on whether I should or not.  I have read  so many references to Twitter following, that I can’t remember where I read anything.

Who is with me on it doesn’t matter!?  Twitter is not a numbers game.  It is not a popularity contest for which the number of followers is what matters.  Followers are not the currency of Twitter.  10 000 passive recipients of a tweet is not productive or meaningful.  Quality over quantity.

The currency of Twitter is RT – 2 letters.  Retweeting, not your following, is what gets your message out to people.  An RT gets your message out to people who don’t follow you and, thus, leverages other peoples’ networks.  If you tweet value, people will share your message (some might say that value is the currency of Twitter, but value is subjective, so I’m sticking to RT).

“But, Sarah, you need followers to get RTd!”  That is true (well, not always,  but I’ll run with it).  How many followers you have is not as important as what kind of followers you have.  If you have 10 000 followers who couldn’t care less, what good does that do you? I could tweet some keywords and get some bots to follow me to raise my following.  Good for me.  Not only does that not get me anywhere, it does nothing for my legitimacy or authenticity.

Now, I know this isn’t a new concept. Tweeps know the value of RT.   So with that said, let’s stop obsessing about following and focus on what really helps get the word out (whatever the word may be – Perez is currently one of choice.  Like I said, value is subjective).