Network Growth Strategies

The Network Growth Strategy is a deliberate and systematic process of expanding a user's or a brand's social media network. The aim is to increase not just the number of followers but also the kinds of connections that make a user or a brand's network more influential and engaging. This process is also, in many ways, the opposite of the kind of 'shortcut' methods that too many social media users have fallen back on lately: buying fake followers, running up like counts, and doing many not-so-savory things that in the end Healthy Network Growth Strategies avoid.

When I say participatory democracy here, I mean the way our communities can form groups on social platforms or in other online spaces. I mean also the way in which individuals within these communities can have a meaningful dialogue with one another and with their leaders—that is, with you and me. We are Talking Guys.

By using gamified methods, methods of effortless engagement that spur our communities into action, and by employing the viral marketing techniques that get our society talking in the first place, we can Healthily Grow the network of democracy on social media. And we can do it without putting any democracy in harm's way.