Lucy Zhao

Why Social Discovery Trumps Social Media

As social media platforms mature over the years, it has come to the attention of many industry experts that simply sharing and interacting with your existing network isn’t enough. The new emphasis is on social discovery and how individuals can extend beyond their networks of close friends and meet other interesting people to have meaningful experiences.

Dating aside, social discovery is all about creating serendipitous experiences by allowing individuals to find people via similar interests. This mode of finding and connecting via similar interests are surprisingly rare. Even the three main social media platforms lack a solid social discovery tool. LinkedIn is focused on building professional networks and provide profile details that only pertain to job hunting (e.g., education, work experience, etc.). Facebook and Google+’s find friend function is purely based on common connections and not interests. Meanwhile, Twitter only allows searches via known names, handles and more recently hashtags.

More importantly, social discovery based searches will be especially significant within existing organizations such as large corporations and associations. In the age of the 3-year career, employers are scrambling to lower employee turnover and their expensive onboard training costs. Meanwhile associations are losing members to other accreditation organizations in a grossly saturated market. Organizations that will stay ahead in the coming years will be those that can create a sense of belonging for their members. People long to feel part of something in large estranged cities; we just need a platform to enable us to have that small town feel again.