Have you ever wondered about the reasons behind the success of social media? What made Facebook become a $10 Billion business? Why does Facebook have more than 350 million users? Why do you have over 3 million images uploaded on Flickr every day? Why are over 900,000 thousand blogs posted daily? More than 45 million status updates per day are recorded on Facebook, more than 27 million tweets on Twitter, and more than 1 billion videos are served on Youtube in the same time frame (Source – Internet 2009 in numbers). What is behind all that success? The answer lies in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs!

Psychologist Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation” and his subsequent book, “Motivation and Personality”. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often displayed as a pyramid. The lowest levels of the pyramid are made up of the most basic needs, while the more complex needs are located at the top of the pyramid – starting off with Physiological needs, then Safety, Love & Belonging, Self-Esteem, and finally, Self Actualization needs. This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other needs. So how is that related to Social Media?

I have created a replica of Maslow’s pyramid and tied it in to social media.

Similar to Maslow’s pyramid, in the social media counterpart we have to complete our “basic needs” before moving up to our “social needs” ultimately reaching our social optimization. Are your basic needs in sync with your social media needs? Where do you stand and what are you doing to move upwards? If you’re still having trouble understanding social media, maybe you should consider your needs and what you need to do to fulfill them. Think About It!