The more I experiment with social networking sites, the more I wonder how many people I'm reaching with my tweets, posts, threads, updates, and plurks. Is there a formula out there that figures how big your social network really is?
Let's take ten of the sites that I belong to and figure out the approximate number of users:
mamasource - 2 mil
twitter - 7 mil
linkedin - 43 mil
orkut - 67 mil
plurk - 25 mil
deviant art - 10 mil
bzzagent - 550,000
cafe mom - 1.25 mil
facebook - 120 mil
flickr - 32 mil
Now let's assume some of these users are inactive or have migrated to my other networks. We'll eliminate three-quarters right off the bat for the sake of argument. I also have a website (mcsgraphicdesign.com), this blog, and consumer driven sites like slickdeals.net and fatwallet.com that I have belonged to for over 7 years. So, presumably, I can reach a few more people. Add in a couple of professional organizations, like AIGA and photography and the number soars again. But, for the sake of this experiment, we'll ignore these possibilities and just do some fuzzy math.
From the ten sites listed above alone, 280 million users have the ability to see the things that I share online. Subtract dupes and account for new users and we're looking at 70 million people! Do 70 million people care what I have to say? Probably not. But, if they did...imagine!
