The Prisoners Dilemma in Social Media

1) How does the Prisoners' Dilemma apply to the social media world?

The Prisoners’ Dilemma is very applicable to the social media world. The social media world is all about making decisions, leveraging resources and connections, extending advice, offering skills, and keeping in contact with people. In the prisoners dilemma we see that the most beneficial situation for each party would be if they trust each other and cooperate. With this mutual trust they would be able to spend only 1 year in prison. We see this in social media as well, social media can be the most beneficial for everyone when each party gives and takes. When they trust their social networks to help them out in times of need, and then they turn around and help others in need the social media world is optimizing their efficiency and trust. When people post out to Facebook for help it can be pretty scary, they are hoping others will help them out with what they need. When people respond and help they are then more willing to help others.

2) Should a Facebook friend keep providing favors to another friend who never reciprocates?

Like what I mentioned above, social media interactions are built and grow on trust. When one Facebook friend provides favor after favor with out receiving any, that friend will begin to lose their trust in that Facebook friend. There needs to be some reciprocation in order for the friendship to continue. If one friend never returns favors and continues to ask for them, the trust will run out and no more favors will be given either way.  

3) Why would cooperation between a business and their customers be so important?

Customers are essential to businesses. With out customers, business would not be able to make a profit or provide services. Businesses need their customers to talk to them, participate with them, and help them in the social media world. By doing these activities with their customers on social media they are beginning to gain trust from their employees.

Businesses need participation from their customers on Facebook in order to give rewards and contest. When they ask for participation they need to be willing to reward that participation and be willing to grow that friendship. If the business doesn’t have any participation they will stop trying to make friends with and reward their customers and on the opposite spectrum, if customers don’t see their participation being rewarded, they will stop participating.
 

One comical example that The Atlantic wrote about was a journalist who had a several month long conversation with a Canadian applebees chain. He was always commenting on their posts and receiving responses from the Applebees which encouraged him to continue to participate. A mutual trust between the company and the customer was reached.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/this-guy-has-had-a-months-long-facebook-conversation-with-an-applebees/282819/

4) How can you promote cooperation on social media? When should a person cooperate and when should they be selfish?

Promoting cooperation on social media would be as easy as answering someone’s question. When people post things on social media they are expecting feedback, conversation, acceptance etc. Taking the time to answer people’s questions, connecting then with people that could answer their questions or to give genuine and insightful responses would definitely help promote cooperation on social media.

There are times when social media can be utilized as a resource for knowledge, help, advice, etc. and there are also times when you have give others opportunities/advice through social media. I think the key is finding the proper balance between the two. If one’s social media usage is primarily for selfish purposed, then others will start realizing that and not help out. Here are a few examples of the ways I have leveraged social media in the past few months, trying to leverage my social media use between selfish and selfless posts:

Offering help to people:

Asking for help from my friends:

These examples show a balance that needs to be found in social media. We need to be able to find that perfect solution (like in the prisoners dilemma) that will allow us to ask for help from the social media world when we need it and offer help when others need it. This will help us leverage relationships and resources on Facebook in the most beneficial way possible.