Being a BSc in psychology, the entire internet sometimes seems like a field trip to me, SEOmoz.org being no exception. Thus, I hereby present you my findings of the group dynamics at SEOmoz.org. These findings are made within 10 days, and may thus be off on some levels. If these types of analysis are welcomed, I will keep my eyes open and report back on it after a couple of weeks.
Role Differentiation
It appears that there is no clear role differentiation on the website. There is no clear group of people on YOUmoz that posts blogs in category X or does task Y. At the SEOmoz blog, however, there is a clear role differentiation as listed on the About page. I guess us members are all ‘Mozletts’, as nicknamed by rmccarley.
Status Differentiation
High status is usually defined as having a tendency to initiate ideas and activities, and being seen in a consensual prestige (a positive evaluation or ranking by others in the group). In this perspective, high status is assigned based on several things over at SEOmoz.org. The first is obvious: the tag under your avatar, whereby SEOMOZ STAFF carries the top rank, PRO MEMBER being second, and NO TAG being a distant third. However, status differentiation as clearly listed as these generate a self-fulfilling prophecy. Having higher status, or a commonly seen avatar, appears to result automatically in more ‘thumbs up’, even on ultra-short reactions like ‘great!’ and ‘indeed’. I would find it very interesting to see what happens if somebody like Sean Maguire would create a dummy account and start posting the exact same comments he is now. Would that generate the same amount of thumbs up? (No pun intended, I think you post great material Sean, but more on that later.)
Self-Evaluation Through Social Comparison
Self comparison is the process of comparing your own behavior to that of a group you’re in. It occurred to me that the level of comments on SEOmoz is high. On most websites, moderators work overtime to keep things tidy. The ‘thumb up/down’ seems to be its own moderator here. However, only in rare occasions I actually spotted a comment with more than one thumb down. That could either mean the level is extremely high, or there is a high amount of tolerance for ‘he thinks differently about things’. Whether the above is true for the level of YOUmoz blogs is harder to tell. It appears that I am part of a new group of Mozletts that is actively posting blogs on YOUmoz. Some first-time-bloggers create blogs that differ from the generally accepted norm of ‘long and educative for a semi-broad crowd’. Whether this fresh blood will eventually conform to the norms or start their own new kind of posts is yet to be seen.
Leadership
Many groups have two different kind of ‘leaders’; chosen and spontaneous. The chosen leaders of SEOmoz.org are clear. This is the purple-ish tagged Staff. They get respect from the others bloggers, initiate contests, and keep things neat. Randy appears to be the person in charge (confirmed this today by checking the About page), with all other SEOmoz employees being a somewhat shared second. On the spontaneous field, however, I would like to nominate Sean Maguire as McDaddy. Virtually no blog goes untouched by him, and comments as much as ‘great’ get thumbs up. Even though he has no formal form of leadership, he does appear to have a larger-than-most-others influence in discussions.
Communication Networks
This is something that I was not able to observe well due to my short time around here. My thoughts are that the SEOmoz staff makes decisions and simply voices them in a blog. No true member-participation takes place in this process.
What are your thoughts on my observations? Are all new Mozletts truly different from the old crowd? Is Sean really a McDaddy?
P.S: bear with me on my Photoshop skills.
