Are you obeying the social media law of value?

Everyone who studies social media knows the importance of adding value. Social capital is earned by adding value to conversations and communities, and the lives of the people involved. But what we don’t usually think about is what happens when we don’t add value.

We tend to ignore or forget the fact that value in social media is a zero-sum equation. We focus on the importance of adding value, but we don’t adequately acknowledge the importance of not subtracting value. A better way to look at the relationship between social interaction and value transactions is with the following social media law of value:

In social media, if you aren’t adding value, you are subtracting value.