Yesterday I had a very nice discussion on the application of the 80/20 rule (aka the Pareto Principle) on social media. The nicest application of this rule is by Timothy Ferriss in the 4 Hour Workweek. He states that 20% of your customers take up 80% of your time. So you need to lose these customers to save 80% of your time. Social Media is all about conversations, this will mean that 20% of your network will take up 80% of your time on social media. Unlike the example of the 4 Hour Workweek, this is a good thing. In social media you want to engage with as much of your network as possible. Hopefully the 90-9-1 rule which segments your visitors in 90% ‘lurkers’, 9% contributors and 1% creator is a low estimate and 80/20 is more applicable!
What do you think?
(the elderly gentleman in the picture is Vilfredo Pareto, courtesy to wikipedia for the nice picture)