Growing the Business with Search, Semantic, and Recommendation Technologies

Leveraging Search Technologies

Google is the world’s premier search engine with more than 60,000 searches made every second, which equates to between five and six billion searches on any given day. As a result, the company is highly profitable earning around $100 billion in advertising revenue each year.

Research an organization located in the Kingdom Saudi Arabia and discuss the following:

What      type of search engine technology is the company using?

Discuss      the benefits the company is gaining from using that technology.

What      sort of metrics does the company use to measure the success of the      utilized search engine technology?

What      other metrics might the company consider using to measure the success of      the utilized search engine technology? Why?

CHAPTER 7
Web 2.0 and Social Technology
C HA PT ER O U TL I NE
L E A R NING OUTCOM E S
Case 7.1 Opening Case: Social Customer Service
Takes Off at KLM
7.1 Web 2.0—The Social Web
7.1 Understand the key technologies that made Web 2.0
possible, and appreciate the opportunities and challenges
that social media represents for business organizations.
7.2 Social Networking Services and Communities
7.2 Describe the features and capabilities of large social
networking services.
7.3 Engaging Consumers with Blogs and
Microblogs
7.3 Explain how blogs and microblogs facilitate communication
on a global scale.
7.4 Mashups, Social Metrics, and
Monitoring Tools
7.4 Describe how mashups, RSS technology, and monitoring
tools are valuable to business organizations and
individual users.
7.5 Enterprise 2.0: Workplace Collaboration and
Knowledge Sharing
7.5 Describe how organizations and groups make use of new Web
2.0 collaboration tools and services.
Case 7.2 Business Case: Facebook Helps Songkick
Rock the Ticket Sales Industry
Case 7.3 Business Case: AT&T’s “It Can Wait”
Campaign against Distracted Driving
Introduction
Everyone is talking about social media. Chances are you and your friends connect on social
networking services or other forms of social media frequently. Every day, people discover new
ways to share things with their network of friends through messaging, photographs, videos,
and blogs. The digital-savvy, connected generation or millennials—teens and those in their
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early twenties—“get” social media, but might not be able to accurately define it or explain how
companies use social technology to influence brand attitudes and consumer behavior. After you
venture past the big brand names—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn—awareness of
social media tools drops off quickly. Most social media use among Millennials is for recreational
or entertainment purposes. There is little understanding of how social media can be used for
marketing, recruiting, research, collaboration on projects, or personal branding.
Facebook has caught the attention of business organizations because the number of people who use the site is huge (and continues to grow!). Businesses are also exploring promotional opportunities on sites like Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Companies get 24/7
advertising, live interaction with customers and prospects, and targeted ads. Organizations are
working feverishly to prompt consumers to engage—to like, tweet, comment, and share their
brand experiences with others. And they are spending a lot of time doing just that. According
to eMarketer (2016), U.S. companies will spend over $72 billion advertising on social networks,
more than they spend on television ($71.29 billion).
In this chapter, you will learn what makes social media social. You will also learn about
social media applications that have both personal and professional uses, and you will learn
how business organizations make use of social media to gain competitive advantages in the
marketplace.
Social Customer Service Takes Off at KLM
On April 14, 2010, an Icelandic volcano with a difficult name (Eyjafjallajökull) erupted, spewing volcanic ash several kilometers into the
atmosphere and disrupting air travel for 10 million people across
northwestern Europe for days. Like many other airlines in the area,
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was overwhelmed by stranded passengers
seeking information by phone and e-mail. While some people waited
on hold for hours trying to reach a call center, other passengers turned
to social media to find answers.
Just a year before, KLM had launched an exploratory effort to
figure out how the company could use social media. With a relatively
new Twitter account and Facebook page, the company’s social media
team suddenly found themselves fielding questions from countless
frustrated travelers. The team quickly set up a special social media
TA B LE 7 .1
Estelle Johnson/EyeEm/
Getty Images
Findlay/Alamy Stock Photo
Lilja Kristjansdo/NordicPhotos/
Getty Images
Case 7.1 Opening Case
room, called in 100 reinforcements from other units in the company,
and began responding around the clock to inquiries coming in on Facebook and Twitter. This marked the beginning of social customer service
at KLM. Today, KLM employs over 235 social media service agents who
respond each week to 15,000 questions or comments from customers
in 13 different languages (Table 7.1).
Customer Service Is Not an Option
While KLM uses social media to run contests, entertain passengers,
and promote the airline, customer service remains the clear priority for
the social unit. The company believes that in today’s fast paced, competitive environment, customers expect businesses to provide support services via social media. Companies that fail this test will suffer
consequences.
Opening Case Overview
Company
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Location
Headquartered in Amstelveen, KLM is the national airline of the Netherlands. KLM currently operates passenger and cargo service to 133 destinations in 70 countries around the world.
History
Founded in 1919, KLM is the oldest airline in the world still operating under its original name.
Social media
Customers can contact KLM on Twitter, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and LinkedIn. The company
publishes a blog and also maintains a presence on Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram.
Customer service
KLM is credited with pioneering the use of social media for customer service. The company is
widely recognized within the airline industry for providing excellent customer support.
Web 2.0—The Social Web
Be Where Your Customers Are
A company’s social media strategy can’t be effective if they aren’t
using the same social channels as their customers. Over the years,
KLM has expanded their social media coverage based on the platforms
their customers use. In addition to Facebook and Twitter, customers can now contact KLM social agents from LinkedIn and Facebook
Messenger. Agents can help customers book or change a flight, checkin, pick a seat, or assist with any problems that might occur. In addition, KLM publishes a blog and maintains a presence on Pinterest,
Google+, YouTube, and Instagram.
One-Stop Shopping Means Social Revenue
The KLM model of customer service adheres to a one-stop shop
principle. That means if a customer asks about changing their ticket,
the social agent will look up the information and respond with a customized answer instead of just sending a link to the company’s general
terms and conditions Web page. The goal is to resolve the customer’s
issue through the social channel used to contact the company. After
answering questions about flight times, pricing, and other details,
KLM social agents provide a direct link to a payment page where customers complete their purchase. For many customers, the process is
simply more convenient than purchasing through another channel.
“Move fast, break things, and don’t be afraid to fail.”
Karlijn Vogel-Meijer, Manager Social Media at KLM, explains that the
company understands mistakes are bound to happen from time to
time, especially if you’re moving fast. The social unit has support from
the top of the organization, giving it the freedom to try new things and
innovate. As a result, KLM is considered a leader for the way its social
customer service unit has pioneered the use of social media to support
customers and maintain high levels of positive sentiment. It’s hard to
be innovative if you’re always worried about making mistakes. As VogelMeijer says, “If you’re afraid, you will stall.” One of KLM’s latest innovations is the use of artificial intelligence, a new technology that helps
agents answer many routine questions they receive from customers.
Faster Response Times
a company about a problem, they not only expect an answer, they also
want a response quickly. KLM strives to answer each customer within
30 minutes. At the top of KLM’s Twitter page, the company posts the
average response time and updates it every 5 minutes so even if things
are taking a little longer, customers know when to expect a reply. By
managing expectations, KLM minimizes customer frustrations.
Conclusion
KLM Royal Airlines is recognized around the world as the leader in social
media customer service. Some airlines aren’t prepared for the challenges associated with social media. For instance, when a disgruntled
customer contacts a call center to make a complaint, only the customer
and company know about the call. When a customer complains on
social media, the world can see the complaint and how well the company works to resolve the problem. The social media customer service
unit at KLM not only contributes to the company’s high customer satisfaction and positive sentiment, but also to the bottom line. In 2015, KLM
estimated that each social agent was responsible for approximately
$170,000 in revenue. With 235 social agents, that translates into over
$39 million.
Questions
1. Why does KLM think that Customer Service is the most important
application of social media?
2. How does KLM determine which social media platforms to use?
3. Explain the reasoning behind KLM’s “. . . don’t be afraid to fail”
philosophy.
4. KLM’s “one-stop shop” model probably increases the time a social
agent spends responding to a customer’s inquiry. Why does the
company use this approach?
5. Many airlines have yet to embrace the use of social media like
KLM. What challenges do you think other airlines face when making the transition to using social media?
Source: Compiled from Baer and Brown (n.d.), ter Haar (2015), Koetsier (2015),
Simson (2015), Azfar (2016), Hutchinson (2016), KLM (2016), Talkwalker.
com (2017).
As more companies gear up to engage customers through social
media, customer expectations also increase. When customers contact
7.1
201
Web 2.0—The Social Web
In your lifetime, there have been dramatic changes in the way people use the Internet. In the
early 1990s, many people did not have regular access to the Internet, and those who did typically “dialed up” their network from a home or office telephone. Dial-up access meant long
waits as content from Web pages “downloaded” onto the screen. Some users joked that the
letters “www” in a Web address stood for “world wide wait.” E-mail was the primary mechanism
for communicating on the Internet. Online communities were often like public bulletin boards
where all members of the community could read the messages that others posted. Websites
were static, essentially online billboards for the businesses that created them. Online purchasing (e-commerce) was rare and risky because there were few safeguards in place to protect your
credit card information. But all that has changed.
The Constantly Changing Web
Today, most of us access the Internet using wired or wireless broadband technology, consuming bandwidth that was unheard of a few years ago. We expect to be able to stream audio and
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Web 2.0 a term used to
describe a phase of World Wide
Web evolution characterized
by dynamic Web pages, social
media, mashup applications,
broadband connectivity, and usergenerated content.
video files, and watch feature-length films over wireless connections and mobile devices. We
surf Web pages that constantly change their appearance in response to how we interact with
them. While e-mail is still a common form of communication in business, young people tend
to view it with disdain in favor of tweets, texts, or social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. We keep track of our world, interests, and hobbies by reading blogs and online newspapers, and use a variety of tools and services for sharing them with others. In addition to
consuming content, we add comments or reviews and signal our appreciation for the content
by retweeting or clicking a “Like” button.
Increasingly, Internet users are becoming content creators—they write their own blogs,
post videos on YouTube, share personal experiences on Facebook, and share pictures using
sites like Flickr or Photobucket. E-commerce continues to grow and evolve, in some cases
changing entire industries. E-books are now more popular than print books on sites like
Amazon. More people purchase music from sites like iTunes or use streaming-music sites like
Pandora or Spotify than purchase music on CDs. Sites like Travelocity and Orbitz have almost
completely replaced traditional travel agencies and agents. Many people are more likely to use
sites like eBay and Craigslist to get rid of unwanted household items instead of holding garage
sales or placing classified ads in a local paper. One of the biggest changes in online retail is the
use of social features by e-commerce sites. Most online retailers make use of customer reviews,
customer ratings, and information sharing on social networks.
While there are many exciting examples of companies that have embraced the potential of
Web 2.0 technologies and the emerging social culture that characterizes our modern online
experience, many businesses, agencies, and individuals have been slow to understand the challenges and opportunities created by the social Web. Smart managers are constantly evaluating
how changes in social media and related technologies affect their business and industry. Businesses and business professionals must devote time and resources to consistently monitoring
technological innovation and related changes in consumer behavior in order to remain relevant,
taking advantage of potential opportunities to create competitive advantages when they arise.
Invention of the World Wide Web
World Wide Web (WWW) a
network of documents on the
Internet, called Web pages,
constructed with HTML markup
language that supports links
to other documents and media
(e.g., graphics, video, audio, etc.).
The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented by Tim Berners-Lee and launched in 1991. Its use
outside of scientific and academic circles was uncommon until the mid-1990s. Web access from
homes was mostly via telephone lines, slow 56-kbps (kilobits per second) dial-up modems, and
paid subscription network services such as CompuServe and America Online (AOL). Websites
were primitive static designs that served as online billboards or postcards. You can view
archived websites using the Wayback Machine. During that time, e-mail was viewed as a
sophisticated communications tool that most people accessed at work or on college campuses,
but not from home.
As the above description suggests, communication was primarily unidirectional. There
were no easy-to-use conduits for widespread social interaction. The average user was the
target or recipient of communications, not a creator.
A Platform for Services and Social Interaction
Broadband refers to wide
bandwidth technologies
that create fast, high-volume
connections to the Internet and
World Wide Web.
Social media a collection of
Web applications based on Web
2.0 technology and culture that
allows people to connect and
collaborate with others by creating
and sharing digital content.
Now the Web is a platform for all kinds of activity—shopping, entertainment, news, education,
research, and business processes like logistics and electronic funds transfer (EFT). Homes maintain
broadband wireless networks to connect multiple users simultaneously to the Internet from
computers, tablets, video game systems, and video-streaming devices like the Roku box. In
addition to the aforementioned activities, new technologies gave rise to websites with features
and services that make it easy for people to interact with one another. As a result, these services
collectively are referred to as social media. While the applications that are labeled as Web 2.0 may
simply be an extension of earlier advances, it is the change in user behavior that matters most to
business organizations around the world. The new technologies dramatically increase the ability
of people to interact with businesses and each other, sharing and finding information, and forming
relationships. This perspective explains why Web 2.0 is often called the social Web (Table 7.2).
Web 2.0—The Social Web
TA B L E 7.2
Web 1.0 versus Web 2.0
Web 1.0—The Early Web
Web 2.0—The Social Web
Static pages, HTML
Dynamic pages, XML, and Java
Author-controlled content
User-controlled content
Computers
Computers, cell phones, televisions, PDAs, game systems, car dashboards
Users view content
Users create content
Individual users
User communities
Marketing goal: influence
Marketing goal: relationships
Data: single source
Data: multiple sources, for example, mashups
Emergence of Social Applications, Networks, and Services
Starting in 2000, a series of developments in the technology and business environment occurred
that set the stage (infrastructure) for Web 2.0.
1. Broad bandwidth (broadband) Internet access became faster and more widely available due to large-scale adoption of broadband technology. Website load times shrank
from a minute to instantaneous. Huge bandwidth is required to support byte-intensive
music downloads and streaming video and movie services. As residential broadband connections became common place and public broadband connections increased in coffee
shops, malls, college campuses, and other community centers, people began to rely on
applications that required fast, high-volume data connections. These broadband connections increased the overall attractiveness and accessibility of the Internet—laying the foundation for interactivity and the social Web.
2. Sustainable business models After the dot.com bust in the late 1990s when many badly
conceived Internet businesses failed, a new breed of business emerged. These businesses
had realistic revenue models. Companies like Amazon, Google, eBay, and others began to
demonstrate that it was possible to create e-commerce and consumer service sites that
could generate revenue and become not only self-sustaining, but also profitable.
3. New Web programming technologies New Web programming languages and technologies
were developed that made it possible for programmers to create dynamic and feature-rich
websites. In some cases, these new features and website capabilities created new business
opportunities, which in turn led to increased demand for Web access. Increased Web usage
then led to larger potential markets for businesses with successful revenue models. The businesses frequently reinvested earnings into expanding their technological capabilities in an
effort to attract even more customers. This cycle of enhanced technological features leading
to greater value for the consumer/Web user and then to more people using the Web continues
today. Some of these new Web technologies are described in more detail in Tech Note 7.1.
4. Application programming interfaces (API) and software development kits (SDK) One
of the big differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is the extent to which business
organizations are willing to share information (data) with other organizations and
developers who are creating new programs or services. For instance, Google Maps might
allow a restaurant review website like Yelp.com to use its mapping application to create a
feature on the Yelp site showing restaurant locations on a map. Historically, businesses have
been highly protective of their intellectual property and were generally unwilling to share it
with other companies. However, many companies that emerged during the Web 2.0 era have
come to recognize the benefits of certain types of sharing or collaboration with others. For
instance, when Google makes part of its mapping program available to others, it increases
the number of people using the Google product and expands its share of the marketplace.
In turn, Yelp frequently makes some of its data available to companies developing new
applications. For instance, Trulia is a real estate company that helps people find new homes.
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They use information from Yelp.com to help their customers learn about businesses, restaurants, grocery stores, and other amenities in the neighborhood they are considering,
without having to leave the Trulia website. Businesses have learned that when done right,
sharing information often creates synergies that benefit all involved. From a technology
standpoint, two programming tools make this data sharing possible: APIs and SDKs.
An API is a set of commands and programming standards used by developers to write applications that can communicate with other applications. In other words, it aids developers in
determining how their applications can pass data back and forth with some other application.
An SDK is a bit more complex than an API. SDKs are a collection of software tools used by
developers for writing applications that run on a specific device or platform. For instance,
a Facebook SDK helps third-party developers write programs that will run on Facebook.
Businesses that share data with other companies usually write the APIs and SDKs that
define the rules and restrictions for information sharing. In that way, they retain control
over who uses their data and how it is used. If a developer simply needs to share data with
another website, they will likely use an API created by the other website. If they are creating
an application that will actually run on the other website, they will most likely use an SDK
developed by the other website. Together, APIs and SDKs have fundamentally changed
the degree to which businesses share their information resulting in a vastly improved and
more useful World Wide Web.
While APIs and SDKs can either be proprietary (user pays a fee) or open source, most
popular APIs are open source, which means that anyone can use them for free, although
other conditions may be placed on their use. Visit programmable Web.com for a listing of
popular APIs.
Tech Note 7.1
AJAX Technologies and APIs
AJAX technologies, or asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX),
is a term referring to a group of technologies and programming languages that make it possible for Web pages to respond to users’
actions without requiring the entire page to reload. AJAX makes it
possible for Web developers to create small apps that run on a page
instead of a server. This capability makes programs run much faster,
eliminating a key source of frustration with the early Web. Another
important programming development is the API, which acts as a
TA B L E 7. 3
software gateway programmers can use to pass data back and forth
between two or more applications, platforms, or websites (see IT at
Work 7.1). With AJAX and APIs, website programmers can import
data from other sources to create new functions and features that
we have come to associate with social media applications (see the
discussion of mashups later in this chapter).
AJAX technologies include JavaScript, extendable markup
language (XML), document object model (DOM), hypertext
markup language (HTML), XMLHttpRequest, and cascading
style sheets (CSS), all of which are defined in Table 7.3.
AJAX Technologies for Web 2.0
Hypertext markup language (HTML): The predominant language for Web pages; it is used, along with CSS, to
describe how things will appear on a Web page.
Cascading style sheets (CSS):
markup language.
A language used to enhance the appearance of Web pages written in a
Document object model (DOM): A programming API for documents. Programmers use it to manipulate (e.g.,
build, add, modify, delete, etc.) HTML documents.
Extensible markup language (XML): A set of rules and guidelines for describing data that can be used by other
programming languages. It makes it possible for data to be shared across the Web.
JavaScript: An object-oriented language used to create apps and functionality on websites. Examples of JavaScript
apps include pop-up windows, validation of Webform inputs, and images that change when a cursor passes over them.
XMLHttpRequest: A JavaScript object that serves as an API used by programs to retrieve data or resources from
a URL without requiring a page load. It plays an important role in providing programmers with the ability to create
dynamic and interactive Web pages and applications.
Sources: van Kesteren et al. (2014), techterms.com (2014), W3C (2015), Grigorik (2017) .
Web 2.0—The Social Web
205
IT at Work 7.1
Myntra Leverages Facebook APIs and SDKs
for Success in Mobile Fashion Sales
Myntra is India’s largest fashion e-commerce company, serving
millions of customers and featuring over 2,000 of the world’s top
fashion brands. The company generates sales of over 200,000 items
from its mobile app on any given day. Myntra is recognized as being
the world’s first mobile-only e-commerce platform and reportedly
sold $500 million in gross merchandise volume in FY2015–16. Using
Facebook’s Open Graph API and SDK, the company was able to
install features that let customers easily post information to their
Facebook pages without leaving the Myntra app. This makes it possible for the company to leverage the social network of each customer to increase brand awareness and interest in the marketplace.
Using Facebook’s SDK, the company implemented Facebook Login
for its app as well as developed programs to access customer
insight data and a range of analytics about the performance of their
Facebook ads, conversion channels, and the success of various customer retention strategies. As a result of these integrations with
Facebook, Myntra experienced significant growth and credits Facebook for as much as 25% of its sales revenue. In addition, Myntra
improved the effectiveness of ad targeting and reduced advertising
costs after learning that customers who use Facebook Login to
access the e-commerce app were 32% more likely to convert (make
a purchase) than other customers.
Sources: “Myntra – Best of Fashion” at developers.facebook.com.
Why Managers Should Understand Web Technology
You might ask yourself why business managers who are not directly involved in managing an
organization’s website should be concerned about the underlying technology of Web 2.0 and
social media. The answer is that these technologies determine website features and capabilities. In other words, they determine what is possible on the Web. Understanding how Web
technology is evolving helps managers identify strategic opportunities and threats as well as
the ways in which a company might develop sustainable competitive advantages in the marketplace. Therefore, it is important to monitor the ongoing development of APIs, Web development languages, and other technologies that affect the functioning of the Web.
APIs For instance, APIs associated with Facebook determine the nature of apps that can
be written to interact with core Facebook features. Major changes to the Facebook APIs
are often rolled out to much fanfare because they define opportunities for developing new
ways for users to create and share content on Facebook and across the Web, as described
in IT at Work 7.1.
At Facebook’s annual developer conferences in 2010 and 2011, founder Mark Zuckerberg made
announcements about changes in Facebook APIs that would extend the social networking
giant’s presence across the Web through the use of social plug-ins, which are listed in Table 7.4.
See the discussion of Open Graph in Section 7.2.
TA B L E 7.4
Facebook Social Plug-Ins Used Across the Web
Plug-in
What It Does. . .
Like button
Shares pages from a website back to a user’s Facebook profile with a single click.
Send button
Allows users to send content from a website to their Facebook friends.
Comments
This plug-in allows users to comment on a Web page’s content using their Facebook profile and shows the activity to the user’s friends in a newsfeed.
Embedded
Places content from any public Facebook post on to a website post or blog.
Facepile
This feature displays the profile photos of the people who have connected with a
Facebook page or app.
Login button
Shows profile pictures of the user’s friends who have already signed up for a
Website in addition to a login button.
Source: Facebook (2014).
Web 2.0 and Social Technology
Plug-ins Plug-ins are buttons or features on non-Facebook sites that interact with Facebook in some way. For instance, CNN.com might include a Recommend button on all its
news articles. When a Facebook user presses the button, a link to the story is automatically
created on the user’s Facebook page. You don’t have to be a Web programmer to follow
and understand public announcements about API updates from Facebook, Google Maps,
YouTube, Twitter, and other popular social media platforms. Using the monitoring tools
discussed later in this chapter, you can stay informed about these changes and begin to
assess how they will impact you as an individual, website developer, or business manager.
Communicating on the Web
Collectively, social media apps have shifted the locus of control for mass communications from
large organizations to one shared with individual users. Now people as well as organizations
control both the message and the medium. Instead of an organization broadcasting a single
message to a mass audience, a massive number of conversations take place among any number of people and organizations.
No one has complete control over the message or the medium, yet everyone can play a
part. The challenge for businesses today is to change mindsets and develop strategies that
take advantage of social media. Instead of a focus on developing sophisticated ways of getting
their message heard, companies must now develop sophisticated strategies for listening and
responding to what their consumers are saying.
Because of the relatively low cost and ease of use, social media is a powerful force for
democratization; the network structure enables communication and collaboration on a massive scale. Figure 7.1 shows the emergence of mass social media. The figure compares traditional and social media and illustrates the new tools of social media, for example, blogs and
video blogs (vlogs), as being in the consumer’s control. With traditional media, content is
tightly controlled and brand messages are “pushed” out to users, often in the form of an ad
interruption. With social media, users are frequently attracted or “pulled” to content that is
interesting to them and they have greater freedom to decide if, when, and how they want to
interact with such content.
Notice that traditional media content goes from the technology to the people, whereas in
social media, people create and control the content.
Traditional Media
Print
Observe
Radio
h
blis
Pu
Con
tr
ibute
Social
Consumption
Via comments,
Inst. Msg., Feedback,
Ratings, Reviews
Network
Effects
Media
Outlets
Movies
Television
Social Media
Videos
Blog
Podcasts
Blog
Blog
Blogosphere
Tweets
Blog
Forums
Blog
Blog
Wikis
Enterprise 2.0 Platforms
FIGURE 7.1
Institutional
Control
Shift
206 CH A PT E R 7
The emergence and rise of mass social media.
Consumer
Control
Web 2.0—The Social Web
207
Social Media Applications and Services
Early descriptions of Web 2.0 would often identify the applications listed in Table 7.5 as typical
of social media. You will read more about each of these applications later in the chapter.
TA B L E 7.5
Web 2.0 Applications
Application
Description
Social networking service
Online communities
Blogs
Online journals
Mashups/widgets/RSS
Web applications that pull data from various sources and display on
another page to create new functionality
Social bookmarking/tags
An application for tagging or labeling online content for later retrieval
Wikis
A collaborative application that allows multiple people to create and
edit online content
Sharing sites
Websites that make it easy for users to upload and share digital
content like photos, videos, or music
Few applications fit neatly into these categories anymore because of feature convergence.
For instance, Facebook started as a social networking service (SNS), but now has features that
span almost all of the categories in Table 7.5. It is a sharing site used by many to distribute photos.
It is increasingly common for people to tag or label photos with the names of people in the picture,
making it easy to find and display photos of individuals that have been saved in multiple locations
on Facebook. Users can maintain blogs on their Facebook page and Facebook hosts thousands
of apps that pull data from sources outside of the social network, making it a huge mashup app.
Likewise, YouTube started as a sharing site, making it easy for people to share video clips
with others. However, YouTube now contains many features that make it difficult to distinguish from an SNS. The same is true of Flickr, a photo-sharing site that has really become a
community platform for people interested in photography.
While some original social media applications are still present on the Web today, thousands of newer applications have sprung up and continue to blur the lines of the original social
media application categories.
Social Media Is More than Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter
Many people think that social media is limited to a few iconic companies or brand names: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. While those companies have certainly capitalized on the
new technology and tend to dominate their respective market niches, social media is a term
describing a range of technologies that are used across the Internet and are part of most websites you use today.
While you may be familiar with using social media for recreational purposes or communicating with friends and family, businesses use social technologies for a wide variety of
other benefits:
• Collaboration
• Communication and engagement with customers (marketing)
• Image and reputation management (public relations)
• Communication and engagement with employees and partners (management)
• Talent acquisition and recruiting (human resources)
• Research and knowledge management
• Productivity and information utilities
• Fund raising
Social networking service
(SNS) an online platform or
website that allows subscribers
to interact and form communities
or networks based on real-life
relationships, shared interests,
activities and so on.
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The following section lists some of the key elements of social media that distinguish it from
other types of media.
Elements of Social Media: What Makes It Different? In order to understand
what makes the modern Web so different from its earlier incarnation, it is helpful to understand
the differentiating features and benefits made possible by XML, Java Script, APIs, and related
technologies.
User-generated content (UGC) In contrast to traditional media—TV, radio, and
magazines—social media makes it possible for users to create and share their own content.
Using social technologies, people share photographs, music, and video with the world.
They express themselves using the written word in stories, articles, and opinion pieces
that they publish on their own websites or other platforms. They rate products and write
reviews. Many individuals and groups have become Internet celebrities as a result of the
shows they created for YouTube. And because of YouTube’s revenue-sharing policy, those
that attract the largest audiences earn millions of dollars.
Content control Most content creation and sharing is done without editorial review. As
a result, users decide for themselves what they want to create and share. Social technologies have shifted control of online content to a broad base of users. It is users who determine what content “goes viral” or becomes highly popular through sharing, not advertising
agencies or companies with large advertising budgets.
Conversation With the advent of social media, a paradigm shift occurred in marketing
communications from a broadcast (one-way) model to a conversation (two-way) model.
Dialogue takes place in the form of one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one formats.
Social media websites contain features that allow people to talk back in a variety of ways.
Community (common values, culture) Many social media technologies ultimately
result in the creation of communities. Like their offline counterparts, these online communities are made up of people who share a bond of common interests, values, norms, and
even sanctions. Some communities are highly structured, whereas others may be more
fluid and informal. As businesses learn to communicate on Web 2.0, some will attempt
to create communities made up of consumers who have a strong interest in a particular
brand. Social networking services lend themselves to this type of strategy, but brand communities can be developed around blogs, wikis, sharing sites, and many other types of
social media applications.
Categorization by users (tagging) Newer Web technologies have begun to allow users
to decide for themselves how to categorize and label information they find online. This has
created the potential for powerful forms of collaboration and information sharing as well
as alternative forms of information search (see the discussion of social bookmarking later
in the chapter).
Real people (profiles, usernames, and the human voice vs. the corporate “we”)
Social media technologies allow people to express their individuality through the creation of online identities. In traditional media, communication and expression come from
celebrities or corporate spokespersons. Web 2.0 provides people with the tools to create
personal brands that characterize their personal, professional, or creative identity.
Connections (followers, friends, members, etc.) There are many ways to establish
additional levels of connection and reflect some level of a relationship. You can become
someone’s friend on Facebook. Follow someone on Twitter. Subscribe to a person’s blog.
Perhaps just as important, these connections can be severed when one party wants to end
the relationship.
Constant updating (real time, dynamic) Unlike the static Web of the 1990s, social technologies reflect our constantly evolving relationships, opinions, political views, religious
beliefs, and values. The social Web is a constant stream of communications that never
turns off and can sometimes be overwhelming. Popular examples of this characteristic
include Twitter, Facebook Live, or Snapchat.
Web 2.0—The Social Web
Content separated from form Data from one source can be used or exported to other
platforms. This allows users to organize and display content in ways they find most helpful.
For instance, with a really simple syndication (RSS) aggregator, users pull content from a
number of sources into a single location, making it easier to follow news stories and blog
posts from multiple sites. Someone writing about local restaurants can pull content from
food critics, customer comments, and map location information from a variety of sources
and aggregate this information into a single site, making it easier for users to get a complete picture of a restaurant without having to surf around to different sites.
Equipment independence Increasingly, people access the Web and social media from
a variety of computers and mobile devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, video
game systems, DVD players, and televisions. In the near future, you might access the Web
from such home appliances as your refrigerator or even a kitchen countertop. (Check out
the amazing new technology featured on videos by Corning Glass. Go to YouTube and
search for “A Day Made of Glass” using the YouTube search engine.)
With Web 2.0, Markets are Conversations
As you have read, the availability of Web 2.0 applications is changing not only how people
behave but also the way they think about things. This new way of thinking is captured in a provocative list of 95 statements called the Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al., 2000). Perhaps the
fundamental principle of the Manifesto is described by its first thesis: Markets are conversations.
Other excerpts from the Manifesto are listed in Table 7.6. Over time, successful companies will
learn to engage customers in conversations as an alternative to the unidirectional or broadcast
method of communication. While the Cluetrain Manifesto seemed idealistic, impractical, and
revolutionary when it was first written in 2000, we are starting to see increasing examples of
individuals and companies turning those principles into action.
TA B L E 7.6
Excerpts from the Cluetrain Manifesto
Select Cluetrain Theses
• “Markets are conversations.”
• These conversations enable powerful forms of social organization and knowledge exchange.
• People have figured out they obtain better information and support from one another than from
vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
• Companies should realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
Source: Levine et al. (2000).
While many companies still struggle with the concept of conversation, Forrester researchers
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (2008) describe a number of companies that recognize the power
of what they call the groundswell, “a spontaneous movement of people using online tools to
connect, take charge of their own experience and get what they need—information, support,
ideas, products, and bargaining power—from each other”. Li and Bernoff identify five key strategic priorities that companies should focus on to leverage the groundswell:
1. Listening Monitoring what your customers say on social media. By listening to what
customers say to your company and what they say to each other, organizations can gain
valuable insights.
2. Talking While listening is perhaps the most important priority, businesses still need to
develop their message and communicate to their target audience(s).
3. Energizing Using a variety of tactics, companies can create and maintain relationships
with brand advocates who will support and promote the brand to their friends and followers on the Web. Energizing brand advocates is analogous to generating word-of-mouth
communications in traditional marketing.
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4. Supporting Using social media to deliver effective and convenient customer service is
one way to support your customers. Some businesses create communities where customers can help each other with product-related issues and questions.
5. Embracing Many companies are utilizing social media to solicit new product ideas
and suggestions for improving customer satisfaction from current customers. Managers
are often surprised to learn that customers have great ideas for how the company can
do better.
These groundswell strategies identify the most significant activities that companies should
focus on with regard to using social media.
In the rest of this chapter, we describe a variety of social media applications that are
growing in popularity. We highlight some of the most attractive features, and encourage you
to explore them firsthand. Most are free, so they are easy to try. You are also encouraged to
stay on top of new trends and applications by following online sources like Mashable, Social
Media Today, and Social Media Examiner. The only way to truly understand the social media
environment is to immerse yourself in it, experiencing it directly. We think it is both fascinating
and fun, and hope you will too.
Questions
1. How has Web 2.0 changed the behavior of Internet users?
2. What are the basic tools or applications that characterize Web 2.0?
3. Why is Web 2.0 referred to as the social Web?
4. What are some of the benefits or advantages that Web developers gain from using AJAX technologies?
5. What are some of the most important messages for business organizations in the Cluetrain Manifesto?
6. What is feature convergence? Give some examples of this trend with regard to social media apps.
Social Networking Services
and Communities
7.2
Online or virtual communities parallel physical communities, such as neighborhoods, clubs,
and associations, except they are not bound by political or geographic boundaries. These
communities offer several ways for members to interact, collaborate, and trade. Virtual or
online communities have been around for a long time and predate the World Wide Web. The
Usenet provided the initial platform for online communities by making it possible for users to
exchange messages on various topics in public newsgroups, which are similar in many ways to
online bulletin board systems. While the Usenet is technically not part of the Internet, much of
its content can be accessed from Internet sites like Google Groups or subscription-based news
services like Giganews and Astraweb.
Online communities can take many forms. For instance, some people view the blogosphere
(all the blogs on the Web) as a community. YouTube is a community of people who post, view,
and comment on videos. Epinions is a community of people who share their experiences
and opinions about products and companies. Flickr, Photobucket, and similar sites are
photo-sharing communities. Wikipedia is a community of people who create, edit, and maintain an online knowledge base. Twitter is a community, or perhaps several communities, of
people who frequently exchange short, 140-character messages with one another about a
variety of topics. Obviously, social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are communities and have seen tremendous growth in recent years. People today spend a significant
portion of their time on social networks (see Figure 7.2). For better or worse, social media has
Social Networking Services and Communities
211
Average Weekly Minutes on Social Media
Facebook
900
Snapchat
332
111
Instagram
317
95
115
79
Pinterest
Tumblr
62
Twitter
40
47
21
16
20
19
6
Google+
LinkedIn
Vine
0
1,039
174
120
200
400
600
Age 18 to 34
800
Age 35+
1000
1200
FIGURE 7.2 Data collected in 2016 illustrate that people spend more time on Facebook
than any other social networking site. One of the newest social platforms, Snapchat, is
already in second place across age groups, although younger people spend almost three
times longer on the service than older people. (Adapted from comScore, 2016.)
changed the way we interact with others, how we communicate with companies and brands,
how we learn about local and international events, and how we define relationships, reputation, privacy, group affiliations and status.
Social network analysis (SNA) is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows
between people, groups, organizations, computers, or other information- or knowledgeprocessing entities. The nodes in the network are the people and the groups, whereas the links
show relationships or flows between the nodes. SNA provides a visual and a mathematical
analysis of relationships. In its corporate communications, Facebook has begun using the
term social graph to refer to the global social network reflecting how we are all connected to
one another through relationships. Berners-Lee (2007) extended this concept even further
when he coined the term giant global graph. This concept is intended to illustrate the
connections between people and/or documents and pages online. Connecting all points on
the giant global graph is the ultimate goal for creators of the semantic Web, which you read
about in Chapter 6.
Online communities have received increasing attention from the business community.
Online communities can be used as a platform for the following:
• Selling goods and services
• Promoting products to prospective customers; for example, advertising
• Prospecting for customers
• Building relationships with customers and prospective customers
• Identifying customer perceptions by “listening” to conversations
• Soliciting ideas for new products and services from customers
• Providing support services to customers by answering questions, providing information,
and so on
• Encouraging customers to share their positive perceptions with others; for example, via
word of mouth
Semantic Web an extension of
the World Wide Web that utilizes
a variety of conventions and
technologies that allow machines
to understand the meaning of
Web content.
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• Gathering information about competitors and marketplace perceptions of competitors
• Identifying and interacting with prospective suppliers, partners, and collaborators (See the
discussion of Enterprise 2.0 in the next section.)
The Power of the Crowd
In recent years, several companies have created online communities for the purpose of
identifying market opportunities through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is a model of
problem solving, production and idea generation that marshals the collective talents of a
large group of people. Using Web 2.0 tools, companies solicit, refine, and evaluate ideas for
new products and services based on input from their customers. Business organizations that
have implemented this approach include Fiat, Sara Lee, BMW, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, and
Starbucks. See Table 7.7 for a list of other examples.
TA B L E 7 . 7
Examples of Crowdsourcing Websites
Category
Crowdsource Websites
InnoCentive—Challenge Driven Innovation
R&D crowdsourcing
Yet2—Innovation and IP Marketplace
NineSigma—Technology Problem Solving
Hypios—Problem Solving for Advanced Technology
Crowdsourcing for
marketing, design,
and ideas
Crowdsourced product
ideas
Crowdsourcing HR &
freelance work
Brand Tags—Brand Identification from the Crowd
Guerra Creativa—Logos and Designs
LeadVine—Leads and Referrals
Challenge.gov—Solutions to Government Problems
Procter & Gamble—Crowdsource Product Ideas for P&G
Quirky—Community Sourced Product Ideas
CafePress—Buy, Sell, Create Your Product
Amazon Mechanical Turk—“A Marketplace for Work”
Clickworker—Cloud-based global workforce
Topcoder—Crowd Coding
ArtistShare—New Artist Projects
Crowdfunding websites
Kickstarter—Large, general crowdfunding site
GoFundMe—For personal fundraisers
Crowdrise—Funding for Inspiring Social Causes
Wikipedia—Online Encyclopedia Produced by the People
Peer-2-peer websites
Quora—Answers from Experts, Amateurs and Insiders, Voted
Up or Down
Yahoo Answers—Another P2P Question & Answer Site
Diigo—Crowdsourced Web Bookmarks, Tags, and More
Adapted from Board of Innovation Crowdsourcing Examples. See this page for additional examples.
Crowdfunding
More recently, businesses and entrepreneurs have turned to the crowdsourcing model to raise
money for business start-ups or projects. A number of crowdfunding sites have become
popular in recent years, including GoFundMe and Kickstarter. Each crowdfunding site is
governed by different rules that establish the kinds of projects or organizations that can use
them and the types of crowdfunding allowed on the site (Table 7.8). Crowdfunding sites
Social Networking Services and Communities
TA B L E 7.8
Types of Crowdfunding
Donations
Often used by charities and political campaigns. Contributors do not receive anything
tangible in exchange for their donation, just the knowledge that they are supporting
a cause they like or believe in. (In some cases, contributors may be eligible for a tax
write-off.)
Rewards
Contributors receive some kind of “perk” or thank-you gift. Often, it is something
related to the project. For instance, people who contribute to a filmmaker’s project
may receive a copy of the finished work on DVD.
Credit
Contributors essentially make microloans to fund projects and expect to be repaid
with interest.
Equity
Contributors make “micro investments” and receive a proportional ownership stake
in the company. It is likely that regulatory agencies that oversee equities markets in
the United States and other countries will establish rules governing or even restricting this type of crowdfunding.
Royalties
Contributors receive a percentage of the sales revenue generated by a project. For
instance, people who contribute to a musician’s recording project might receive royalties from the sale of the artist’s music.
213
Sources: Outlaw (2013), Wikipedia (2014).
typically collect a percentage of the money raised, but even this can vary, so it is important to
read the terms of service (TOS) agreement carefully before selecting a site to raise money on.
See Crowdfunding.com for a list of the most popular sites.
Social Networking Services
Social networking services represent a special type of virtual community and are now the dominant form of online community. With social networking, individual users maintain an identity
through their profile and can be selective about which members of the larger community they
choose to interact with. Over time, users build their network by adding contacts or friends.
On some social networks, organizations create an identity by establishing discussion forums,
group pages, or some other presence.
The number of SNSs has grown tremendously in recent years. It is expected that the social
networking sector will segment and consolidate in the future just like other industries. Among
general-purpose SNS platforms, Facebook is the clear leader with over 2 billion active users.
Facebook’s dramatic growth over the past decade has been unparalleled in the social media
world (Table 7.9).
TA B L E 7.9
Facebook Statistics
2 billion monthly active users as of July 5, 2017
1.28 billion daily active users on average for March 31, 2017
1.74 billion mobile monthly active users as of December 31, 2016
1.15 billion mobile daily active users on average for December 2016
Approximately 85.8% of daily active users are outside the United States and Canada
Facebook owns several other companies including Instagram (mobile photo-sharing), WhatsApp
(mobile messenger app), Oculus (virtual reality), Moves (activity log), and Masquerade (selfie filters)
Over 2 billion people use one of Facebook’s mobile messenger apps every month—Facebook
Messenger or WhatsApp. That’s in addition to the billions of active Facebook.com users
Source: Facebook, Inc.
Terms of service (TOS)
agreement a formal listing of
the policies, liability limits, fees,
user rights and responsibilities
associated with using a particular
service. Users are typically
required to acknowledge they
have read, understand, and agree
to the TOS before they are allowed
the service to use.
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While SNS sites share some common features, they are not all alike. As the category
matures, sites are differentiating themselves in a variety of ways:
• Target age group
• Geographic location of users
• Language
• Area of interest, for example, music, photography, gaming, travel
• Social versus professional networking (see IT at Work 7.2)
• Interface, for example, profile page, microblog, virtual world, emphasis on graphic versus
text content
IT at Work 7.2
Recruiters Use Professional Networking Sites
Susan Heathfield, a human resources (HR) expert at About.com,
maintains that it is no longer sufficient to post job openings on
monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Craigslist.com. Job postings
on these large sites often generate hundreds of applications from
unqualified candidates. This can be overwhelming for recruiters
and very inefficient. Instead, many have turned to professional
networking sites like LinkedIn. Heathfield identified a number of
specific ways that businesses recruiters use LinkedIn to increase
their effectiveness:
• Identify potential candidates among their existing network of
professionals.
• Ask their network to identify or recommend candidates for
a position.
• Evaluate potential employees based on references and referrals from their existing network.
• Actively search for relevant keywords or qualifications in the
profiles of LinkedIn users.
• Ask current employees to search among their LinkedIn networks for potential candidates.
• Post job openings on LinkedIn.
• Request introductions to potential candidates through their
existing network of professionals.
• Use Inmail (the internal LinkedIn e-mail system) to contact
potentially qualified individuals.
It is clear that recruiters have come to embrace LinkedIn as
an effective and cost–efficient way of generating qualified candidates. As LinkedIn’s global presence grows, this will provide an
important benefit to companies who need to fill positions internationally.
IT at Work Questions
1. Why have monster.com, Careerbuilder.com, and Craigslist.
com lost their effectiveness?
2. Why have HR departments turned to professional networking sites like LinkedIn?
3. Why is it so essential for career-minded workers to build
a professional social network? What can this network
do for you?
Source: Heathfield (2012).
Facebook Dominates Social Networking
Facebook was launched in 2004 by a former Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook
features include Profile, News Feed, Messenger, Groups, Events, Photo and Video Sharing,
Search and Pages (for individuals, groups, and organizations to create public profiles). Apart
from these basic applications, users can add any of the millions of Facebook apps that have
been developed by others. Today over 90% of users access the site from mobile devices
instead of desktop computers and over 50% only access the site from a mobile device (see
Figure 7.3).
Facebook pioneered the Newsfeed feature, a constantly updated stream of status updates
and postings from a user’s friends. Today the Newsfeed also contains sponsored posts (advertisements) as part of Facebook’s growing advertising program. In late 2011, Facebook introduced another major revision to its site called Timeline. The Timeline app is designed to show
the chronological progression of key events in a person’s life as illustrated by his or her Facebook
status updates, photos, songs listened to, bad haircuts, as well as changes in occupations, locations, relationships, and the like. The Timeline feature effectively curates all the content users
share on the networking service. When it was initially launched, many users were surprised by
215
© incamerastock/Alamy
Social Networking Services and Communities
FIGURE 7.3 People are increasingly using mobile devices
like smartphones and tablets to access Facebook and other
social media sites.
what they felt was a radical interface change and were uncomfortable with how easy it became
for others to access old, long forgotten posts and status updates. Facebook responded with privacy features that gave users greater control over who could view their content.
When Zuckerberg created Facebook, he had very strong social ambitions aimed at helping
people connect to others on the Web. Facebook was initially an online social space for college
and high school students. It started by connecting students to all others at the same school.
In 2006 Facebook expanded to anyone 13 years or older with a valid e-mail address. The lack
of privacy controls was among the biggest reasons why some business people resisted joining
Facebook during its early years.
In 2008 Facebook introduced controls that allowed users to set different access levels to
information for various groups of people in their network; for example, family, friends from
school, friends from work, and so on. For instance, close friends might see your mobile phone
number, music favorites, e-mail address, and so forth, while other friends might see only the
basic information. Facebook is sometimes criticized for its approach to user privacy, highlighting an ongoing tension between the corporate goals of Facebook, which depends on a high
level of access to user data, and the desire of individual users to control access to their personal
information. See IT at Work 7.3 for additional information about social media privacy issues.
Facebook has expanded to the rest of the world with the help of its foreign-language
members: Engineers first collected thousands of English words and phrases throughout the site
and invited members to translate those bits of text into another language. Members then rated
translations until a consensus was reached. The Spanish version was created by about 1,500
volunteers in less than a month. The German version was created by 2,000 volunteers in less than
2 weeks. In early March 2008, Facebook invited French members to help out. They completed the
translations in a few days. Facebook exists in over 100 different languages and approximately
85% of users reside outside of the United States and Canada. In May 2012, Facebook went public
with its initial public offering (IPO), selling company shares on the NASDAQ stock exchange. It
raised over $16 billion, making it the third largest ever IPO in U.S. history. While founder Mark
Zuckerberg sold some 30 million shares during the offering (for $1.15 billion), he continues to
own approximately 15% of the company. His net worth of over $56.7 billion places him among
the 10 wealthiest people on the planet.
The Open Graph Initiative A primary reason that Facebook expands is the network
effect: More users mean more value. In April 2010, Zuckerberg announced Facebook’s new
initiative called Open Graph. The goal was to connect all the different relationships that exist
on the Internet by linking websites to Facebook. Programmers at external websites were
encouraged to include a Facebook “Like” button on their websites. That way, when a Facebook
member visits the website, they can click “Like” and their relationship with that website will be
reflected back on their Facebook page for friends to see.
Network effect from the field
of economics, the network effect
explains how the perceived value
of a product or service is affected
by the number of people using the
product or service.
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IT at Work 7.3
Addressing Social Media Privacy Concerns
Privacy rights are too easily abused. Governments and industry
associations are trying to control these abuses through legislation and professional standards, but they frequently fail to provide
adequate protection. One of the most effective deterrents is fear of
backlash from abuses that become public and cause outrage. So it
is important to identify privacy issues that pertain to social media
and specifically SNSs. Examples of privacy violations include the
following:
• Posting pictures of people on social networking sites without
their permission
• Tricking people into disclosing credit or bank account
information or investing in “work at home” scams
• Sharing user information with advertisers without users’
knowledge or consent
• Disclosing an employer’s proprietary information or trade
secrets on social networking sites
• Posting information on social networking sites that could compromise people’s safety or make them targets for blackmail
Taking Control of Your Privacy
The most important thing that users can do to protect themselves
is to understand that they are responsible for protecting their
own information. The basic solution is common sense. Unfortunately, most social networking sites create the illusion of privacy
and control. This sometimes can lull even the most vigilant users
into making mistakes. Sites like Facebook make us feel like our
information is only going to be seen by those we have allowed to
become part of our network. Wrong. Listed below are commonsense guidelines:
• Do not post private data. Nothing, absolutely nothing you put
on a social networking site is private. You should avoid posting
personal information including full birth date, home address,
phone number, and the like. This information can be used for
identity theft.
• Be smart about who you allow to become part of your network. It is not uncommon for teenagers to “friend” hundreds
of individuals on their Facebook accounts. With this many contacts, there is no way to protect profile or other information.
• Do not rely on current privacy policies or terms of service
(TOS) agreements. Social networking sites change their
privacy policies regularly. Many have accused Facebook of
doing this specifically to wear down user vigilance with regard
to maintaining desired privacy settings. Regularly review
your social network service privacy policies explained in the
TOS. Set your privacy settings at the level offering maximum
protection—operating as if you have no privacy whatsoever.
• Minimize your use of applications, games, and third-party
programs on social networking sites until you have carefully
investigated them. They can expose you to malicious programs or viruses. Do not automatically click on links that look
as if they were sent to you by members of your network.
IT at Work Questions
1. Which of these guidelines is the easiest to follow? Which is
the toughest? Explain why.
2. Why is it recommended that you not post private data on a
social network, even those with privacy settings?
Social Logins Facebook also encourages other websites to allow people to use their Face-
book username and password to sign in or create accounts. For instance, if you are a Facebook
member and you visit ESPN (a sports news site) or Yelp (a local directory service), you can
sign into the sites using your Facebook username and password. Facebook will then share your
profile information with those sites. A number of services compete for social logins including
Google+, Twitter, Yahoo, and LinkedIn. Toward the end of 2015, Facebook had the largest share
of social logins (62%) followed by Google+ with 24% (Peterson, 2016).
Google Takes on Facebook with G+
Launched in June 2011, Google+, or G+, was the search engine giant’s attempt to capture a
share of the social networking market. Determining how well Google+ has performed takes a
bit of calculation. Officially, there are over 2.5 billion G+ user accounts. But that figure is misleading because everyone that signs up for Google’s popular e-mail service (Gmail) automatically gets a Google+ account. More realistic estimates of activity and users on Google+ suggest
that the service probably has between 4 and 6 million users that engage, interact, and post
publically (Gallagher, 2015). Having failed to meet early expectations for a big Facebook versus Google+ rivalry, one might wonder why the company continues to maintain the social
platform. Some speculate that Google wants to maintain its position in social logins where it
holds second place. Others have suggested that while few people actually use Google+, there
is value in all those billions of profiles. The profiles, combined with the data you generate using
Social Networking Services and Communities
other Google products, helps the company better understand your interests as well as how to
effectively place ads in front of you as you surf the Web. Finally, the company does announce
updates, improvements, and changes to Google+ from time to time. Given Google’s tradition of
regularly evolving products, perhaps the social network will emerge as something useful down
the line. For now, Google hasn’t given any indication that it is ready to close the doors on its
social network (Pierce, 2015).
Be in the Now with Snapchat
Compared to social networks like LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and
Twitter (2006), Snapchat, founded in 2011, is a relative newcomer to the social media big
leagues. But that hasn’t kept Snapchat from quickly becoming one of the most popular
social platforms, second only to Facebook in terms of where people spend their time (see
Figure 7.2). As Facebook’s appeal among teens and young adults declines, the mobile-only
Snapchat service has become the hot new social platform for an age group that some experts
call digital natives or The App Generation because they were born after digital technologies
became ubiquitous. Snapchat’s core feature set can be described as a fun messaging app
that emphasizes communication through pictures and videos instead of the text-based messages people have sent to each other for years. Snapchat’s rapid growth during a relatively
short life has been nothing but spectacular and mirrors in a way its most distinctive feature when compared to other social platforms—Snapchat picture and video messages selfdestruct within 10 seconds after being viewed. When founder and CEO Evan Spiegel first
pitched the concept to classmates at Stanford University, they frowned on disappearing
picture idea, claiming nobody would use an app that couldn’t save messages. On most other
social platforms, it seems the goal is to curate or build a collection of photos, posts, and messages. Facebook even goes so far as to remind users of updates and pictures posted years
ago, encouraging people to reshare the memories with others in their network. One of the
post popular features on Twitter is the “retweet,” or the act of forwarding an interesting tweet
from someone to other people in your network. That’s not allowed on Snapchat—no saving,
no forwarding, no looking back through silly pictures that special someone sent you when
your relationship was, well, less complicated. According to some of its most rabid fans, Snapchat is all about the “now.” Most likely you’ve heard stories about people who spend hours
cultivating their personal brand by sharing carefully retouched photographs of themselves,
regularly posting witty status updates, and telling stories of doing “absolutely amazing
things, all the time, with tons of friends.” Snapchat seems to rebel against the rehearsed and
unnaturally choreographed public images that people sometimes become obsessed with
creating on other sites. Instead, Snapchat encourages users to have fun and be a little crazy
while using the service. In the emerging Snapchat culture, spontaneous silliness is the norm.
Some speculate that young people enjoy the app because it allows them to ignore all those
warnings from parents, teachers, and future employers about posting incriminating images
on social media. According to Snapchat, any consequences are likely to be short-lived, disappearing within 10 seconds. But while Snapchat’s growing fan base might be enjoying the
thrill of adding doggy noses and ears to selfies they just took with their friends at a party,
senior leadership at the company is busy managing a host of serious issues. In 2012, Snapchat’s daily user base of 10 million people were sharing about 20 million images a day. Fast
forward to 2017, and the daily user base has grown to more than 160 million people sharing
2.5 billion snaps a day (snaps is a metric that counts both photographs and videos). With that
kind of growth, the company must be continuously expanding its computing infrastructure,
which, in turn, means arranging for venture capital funding and ultimately launching an IPO
on March 2, 2017. Following its first day of trading, the app’s parent company, Snap, Inc.,
had a public market valuation of over $28 billion. While the company reported revenue of
$404.5 million in 2016, like many start-up companies it still hasn’t made a profit. Almost 98%
of its revenue comes from advertising. While users have been quick to join the new social
network, advertisers are still figuring out how Snapchat integrates with their overall promotion strategy. In addition, older social platforms obviously have advertising and promotional
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programs that advertisers already understand. As well, they have years of behavioral
data and consumer insights that help advertisers accurately target prospective customers. In conclusion, while Snapchat is a hit with consumers, the business challenges facing
the leadership team as they manage the company’s growth, financing, infrastructure, and
branding are monumental. Hopefully, the company’s lively ghost logo will prove to represent
the playful spirit in all of us and not the omen of a company that lived fast, but died young.
And Now for Something Different: Second Life
Second Life is a social network service unlike most others. What makes it unique is that it uses
a 3D virtual world interface in which users, called Residents, are represented by avatars, or
cyber bodies that they create (Figure 7.4).
Developed by Linden Research in 2003, Second Life lets residents communicate with others
in the virtual world through chat or voice communications. Residents can create and trade things
they make in Second Life, including virtual clothes, art, vehicles, houses, and other architectural
structures. They can also earn money by providing services such as instruction in a foreign language or serving as a DJ in a virtual club. This has led to the evolution of a Second Life economy
with its own currency, the Linden dollar (L$). While most of the economic activity remains in the
Second Life world, there have been news reports of a few entrepreneurs who made considerable sums of real money. The most common businesses were operated by programmers and artists with the skills to make virtual objects that less talented residents were willing to pay real
money for.
Between 2006 and 2008, there was a big spike in interest on the part of businesses that
witnessed great potential in using Second Life. For example, IBM used it as a location for meetings, training, and recruitment. Musicians performed concerts to crowds in virtual amphitheaters, and to smaller audiences in virtual nightclubs and bars. American Apparel was the first
major retailer to set up shop in Second Life. Starwood Hotels used Second Life as a relatively
low-cost market research experiment in which avatars visit Starwood’s virtual Aloft hotel. The
endeavor created publicity for the company, and feedback on the design of the hotel was
solicited from visiting avatars. This information was used in the creation of the first real-world
Aloft hotel, which opened in 2008 (Carr, 2007). Starwood subsequently donated its Second
Life property to a not-for-profit educational organization. Fashion and clothing manufacturers
like Reebok, American Apparel, Adidas, and others used Second Life as a place to feature new
clothing designs, setting up virtual stores where Second Life citizens could purchase digital
clothing for their avatars. The hope was that awareness of fashion products on Second Life
would spur interest and eventual purchase of real-world products. But efforts by these and
STR/Reuters – Images
Avatars an icon, figure or visual
representation of a person in
computer games, simulations,
virtual worlds or online
discussion forms.
FIGURE 7.4 Second Life residents participate in a virtual world
beauty contest sponsored by cosmetics manufacturer L’Oreal.
Social Networking Services and Communities
other businesses, like 1-800-flowers, to get Second Life citizens to purchase real-world products through the virtual community proved disappointing. Many businesses that were quick
to become part of the early excitement around Second Life eventually left the virtual world
community.
The general consensus seems to be that we’re still not ready for virtual world applications.
Based on past experience, significant technological, social, cultural, and financial hurdles have
to be overcome before virtual worlds like Second Life develop the kind of mass appeal that
innovators predicted back in 2008. That said, there are signs that the virtual world concept may
be entering a new phase of innovation. Second Life recently rolled out an upgraded virtual
reality (VR) space called “Sansar” that takes advantage of new technology like the Oculus Rift,
a VR headset that creates an immersive experience for users. Linden Labs, the company that
operates Second Life believes the new VR technology will solve many of the in-world functionality problems that frustrated new users in the early days. This time, however, Linden Labs will
have some competition. Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden and Second Life has left that
company and started a new “social VR” venture called High Fidelity. Rosedale’s new company
is also creating virtual world applications that make use of VR technology. He envisions an
open-source platform where users can build their own virtual worlds connected to the worlds
created by others, a type of virtual world social network.
Of course, given the history of virtual worlds up to now, it might be easy to dismiss claims
and predictions about the potential of VR and virtual worlds if it weren’t for the backing of
companies like Facebook which invested close to $2 billion to acquire Oculus. Zuckerberg said
that he believes the acquisition is a long-term bet on the future of social networking. Only time
will tell if these new technologies represent the future of social networking (see Hay, 2015;
Johnson, 2015; Kushner, 2017; Metz, 2017).
Private Social Networks
The ultimate niche community is the private SNS. Private SNSs use social technology to create
a community restricted to members selected by the SNSs’ owner. Private SNSs allow a greater
degree of control over the network. Companies can easily monitor activity on their own SNS
platforms and track conversations taking place about their brands and products. However,
managing a private SNS requires considerably more time, attention, and resources than maintaining a presence on a general SNS. Organizations need to understand up-front that they are
making a substantial commitment with this strategy.
Most colleges and universities have Facebook pages. In addition, many institutions have
set up private SNSs to engage students even before they have started school there. Students
typically gain access to these private SNSs when they are admitted to the institution. On the
system, they can interact with admissions counselors, current students, and other admitted
students. Interactions that occur on these networks set the stage for relationships and engagement that are simply not possible with e-mail and phone calls.
In 2008 Mercedes-Benz created two private SNSs designed to increase engagement with
current and potential customers. The Mercedes Advisor network is for current Mercedes-Benz
owners. GenerationBenz.com is a private network for prospective Mercedes owners. Membership in the network is limited to those who fit Mercedes’ profile for younger luxury car buyers.
Both of these communities provide the company with an opportunity to engage their target
audiences directly. Members participate in market surveys and polls, provide feedback on
prospective ad campaigns and product features, and participate in discussion groups with
company managers. This provides valuable feedback to Mercedes as well as creates strong
advocates for the company’s luxury car brand.
While engaging customers on a private SNS can be time-consuming and potentially require
significant staffing resources, the technological challenges associated with setting up a private
SNS are relatively small. A number of companies offer a combination of free and subscriptionbased pricing for individuals or organizations wishing to create a private social network. Basic
SNS sites can be set up fairly quickly for free. Search on “private social network services” for the
latest information.
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Future of Social Networking Systems
Social networking services are perhaps the most feature-rich applications of Web 2.0. It is
expected that growth and innovation in this sector will continue as individual users and business organizations discover its power for building networks and relationships. We expect that
Facebook will continue to dominate the field, but that smaller SNSs will stake out strong positions in niche markets using traditional market segmentation strategies that focus on the needs
of specific geographic, cultural, age, or special interest segments. Finally, with the advent of VR
technologies, more powerful computers, and large-capacity Web server installations, virtual
worlds may become an exciting new platform for all types of social interaction in the future.
Questions
1. What are the major differences between SNSs and older online communities?
2. What is the basic difference between the social graph and Berners-Lee’s concept of the Giant
Global Graph?
3. Explain Facebook’s Open Graph initiative and how it plans to expand its influence across the
World Wide Web.
4. What are some potential ways that business organizations can take advantage of Second Life’s
unique virtual world interface?
5. Why would a business want to create a private SNS? What are some of the challenges associated with
doing this?
Engaging Consumers with Blogs
and Microblogs
7.3
One of the problems with traditional media, like newspapers and magazines, is that editors and
publishers decide what you should read. Often their decisions are based on what the masses will
buy at the newsstands. Space is limited and barriers to getting published are high. News services
frequently fail to devote sufficient space to complex issues or viewpoints that might challenge the
financial or business interests of the publication’s owners or advertisers. But with social media,
anyone can write a column or article and publish it online for the world to read (see IT at Work 7.4).
Of course, this creates another potential problem: clutter. Blogging is so easy that even
people who do not have much to say can publish their thoughts, opinions, and ideas. Readers
need to be prepared to look at online content with a skeptical eye and find ways to judge the
credibility of the material they find on social media.
In their simplest form, blogs are websites where people regularly post content. Some
personal blogs are simply online diaries or journals where people share their thoughts, reflections, or an account of their life. Other blogs are more sophisticated and professional in format,
resembling online newspapers or magazines. Because blogging technology has become so
commonplace, you may not always realize you are reading a blog when accessing online
content. Many organizations have integrated one of the blogging platforms discussed later
with their website. Blogging tools make it easy for organizations to provide website visitors
with frequently updated content on pages with titles such as “What’s New,” “Company News,”
or “Product Updates.” As a result, you may be a frequent blog reader without realizing it!
Blogs contain content in a variety of digital formats including text, photographs, video, and
music. People who create and maintain blogs are referred to as bloggers.
What Is the Purpose of a Blog?
Many professionals now blog as a way to establish their reputation and promote their business interests, or because they enjoy writing and sharing their viewpoints with others.
Engaging Consumers with Blogs and Microblogs
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IT at Work 7.4
How to Create a Blog
Setting up a blog is relatively easy. Making the effort to regularly
write and post content that others will find interesting is more challenging. The following steps outline the process of setting up a blog.
1. Create a plan. Successful blogging requires a certain degree of
organization and discipline. You can address this part of the
project by developing a plan at the outset. The plan should
answer questions like these:
a. What are you going to blog about? What will be the focus or
topic of your blog?
b. Identify your target audience. For whom are you writing?
c. How often do you intend to update your blog? Some bloggers post new material daily, some weekly, and some just a
few times a month. As a general rule, readers are more likely
to follow blogs that are updated regularly. Avoid sporadic
updates or only blogging when you feel like it. Successful
bloggers frequently set up a publication schedule outlining
topics and posting dates to keep themselves on track.
d. Who else is blogging about the same topic? Identify bloggers you can interact with through your posts and comments on their blogs.
2. Determine if you will self-host your blog by purchasing a hosting plan and domain name (URL), or if your blog will use a free
blogging service. Free services allow you to get up and running
quickly and do not require any long-term commitments. This
provides an easy, low-risk way to get started. While this might
be the most convenient approach, you do not actually own your
blog or the content you post there because it is on a domain
owned by someone else. Your domain name in these situations
is usually in the form of “myblogname.blogspot.com,” which
can appear less professional to some readers. Purchasing a
hosting plan and domain name, however, is the better long-term
strategy since it creates a unique identity for your blog.
3. Select a blogging platform (see the section below). This is the
software that will provide the look and feel of your site and
give you myriad features you can employ to build a successful
blog. Standard features in most blog platforms include a comment section, RSS buttons so readers can subscribe to your
blog, and share buttons so readers can post links to your blog
on other social media sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Digg, etc.).
4. Set up your blog. Once you’ve set up your hosting and platform
arrangements, you will need to create the aesthetic design for
your site. Most platforms make this easy with a multitude of
template options that you can further customize to give your
blog a unique look.
5. Get started. Now comes the challenging part, writing your
posts and regularly updating your blog to attract readers. You
can read blogs about blogging to get great tips and advice.
Corporate bloggers use the medium to tell stories about their brands and connect with
customers.
On the surface, blogging appears to be a broadcast (one-to-many) communication tool.
However, it can also be an effective tool for interactive dialogue. Many blogs utilize comment
features, allowing readers to respond to blog posts, interacting with the blogger and other
readers. Successful bloggers tend to comment on and link to other blogs in their posts, in effect
maintaining a dialogue or conversation with other bloggers. These connections between blogs
create what some refer to as the blogosphere, or a network of blogs. IT at Work 7.5 lists a
number of ways that organizations use blogs for marketing.
IT at Work 7.5
How Marketers Use Blogs and Microblogs
Blogs and microblogs provide individuals and organizations with a
means to accomplish a variety of communications objectives. Marketers use blogs and microblogs to
• Develop relationships with independent bloggers, encouraging them to write positive stories about the brand, product,
and company
• Engage members of the blogging community, via corporate
blogs, by providing helpful and interesting information
• Tell the company’s “story,” position a product, create brand
identity, and differentiate from the competition
• Engage customers and readers by soliciting comments and
feedback about information provided in blog posts
• Drive traffic to the company website by using Twitter to
announce recent updates to the company blog
• Inform current or prospective customers about positive blog
posts featuring your product or company that were written by
independent, third-party bloggers
• Encourage repeat visits to the company website through regular updates or new posts to the blog
• Have a celebrity or influential expert send a tweet with a
promotional message about your brand using Twitter’s new
advertising program
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Blogging and Public Relations
Some bloggers have become highly successful and have developed a large audience for
their material. Many people approach blogging like a business and consider themselves
“publishers,” with the goal of generating enough readers or subscribers that they can make
money from advertisers and ad agencies who will pay to display their ads on an individual
blogger’s site. Earlier in this chapter, you read about a set of groundswell social media
strategies described by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. One of those strategies, Energizing,
is accomplished when a business identifies a blogger whose audience matches its target
market and persuades that person to write about the company’s product. This is similar
to a public relations manager sending a press release to a journalist, hoping he or she
will write a news story about the company in the local paper. When a highly credible and
influential blogger writes a positive story about your company, it can have a very positive
impact on your brand’s image. Bloggers can also have a negative impact if they write unfavorable posts about the company or its products. As a result, public relations professionals
are learning how to identify and form positive relationships with influential bloggers with
the goal of generating favorable coverage of the company and its products. Frequently,
this will involve doing things like providing the blogger with information in advance of it
being released to the public, providing access to company executives for interviews, sending the blogger samples of the company’s product so that he or she can write about it from
firsthand experience, and so on. For some companies, particularly those in the technology
industry, building relationships with influential bloggers has become an important public
relations strategy.
Reading and Subscribing to Blogs
The best way to gain an understanding of the blogging phenomenon is to simply start reading
blogs. You can use search engines like Google or Yahoo to find blogs on all kinds of topics. Most
blogs make it easy to subscribe using an RSS reader (see Section 7.4 later on in this chapter).
Reading blogs is a great way to stay current on rapidly evolving topics related to technology
and business.
Blogging Platforms
Blogging platform a software
application used to create, edit,
and add features to a blog.
WordPress and Blogger are two
of the most popular blogging
platforms.
Selecting a blogging platform is an important decision when setting up a blog. Installing a
platform when you are creating a blog is relatively easy. Converting to a new blogging platform
after using another one for a while is not. Two of the most popular platforms are WordPress
followed by Google’s Blogger platform. Other blog platforms include TypePad, Movable Type,
and Tumblr. The Tumblr platform is significantly different from traditional platforms in that it
emphasizes easy posting of photos and light copy. As such, it is considered to be a microblogging platform and is discussed later in this chapter.
When choosing between WordPress and Blogger, WordPress is a feature-rich platform
and offers greater control over site appearance (Figure 7.5). Blogger is simpler and easier to
use, making it a more desirable choice for beginning bloggers who want to get up and running
without becoming bogged down in technological issues. Blogger’s affiliation with Google might
also be attractive because of the potential for integration with other Google services. For instance, Blogger comes with a built-in analytics program that appears to share many similarities
with Google Analytics, a stand-alone Web traffic-monitoring tool.
For now, begin by reading blogs about social media, information technology, and other
topics that are of personal interest. Note how these blogs vary in terms of style, length, and
appearance. Identify the features they offer readers for commenting on and sharing content.
After you get a feel for how people blog, try setting up your own blog using Google’s free
platform and hosting service at www.google.com/blogger.
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© NetPhotos/Alamy
Engaging Consumers with Blogs and Microblogs
FIGURE 7.5
WordPress is one of the leading platforms for
online blogs.
Microblogs
You may be a microblogger and not even know it! Microblogging is a way of sharing content
with people by the regular, often frequent posting of short messages. Although people don’t
usually call it microblogging, perhaps the most common form of this social media activity
occurs when you update your status message on Facebook. More often, however, the term is
used to describe popular microblogging services like Twitter and Tumblr.
Most microblog content consists of text-based messages, although there appears to be an
increase in people who are microblogging photos and video on Twitter and Tumblr. Tumblr has
increased in popularity recently among younger Internet users because of its multimedia capabilities and ease of use.
Microblog a blog that consists
of frequent, but very brief posts
containing text, pictures, or
videos. Twitter is perhaps the
most well-known example of a
microblog.
Twitter
© 2020WEB/Alamy
Twitter has grown in popularity over the last few years, becoming one of the world’s largest
communication platforms. According to Twitter, approximately 5 million messages, or tweets,
are sent each day by over 310 million active monthly users (see Figure 7.6). People frequently
attach descriptive keywords or hashtags, designated by the # sign, to their tweets to make
them easier for others to find (e.g., #news, #politics, #fail).
FIGURE 7.6 Twitter is a microblogging
SNS that limits users to messages of 140
characters or less.
Tweet a brief 140-character
message or post broadcast on
Twitter, a microblogging service.
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Twittersphere the universe
of people who use Twitter, a
microblogging service.
Twitter has played a significant role in both global and domestic events (Lee, 2013). In
countries where the media is largely dominated by government control, Twitter has proven
to be a valuable tool for activists engaged in organizing protests, debating political viewpoints, and broadcasting real-time information about significant events that might otherwise
be ignored by the mainstream media. Twitter has become a primary channel for real-time
updates on events and issues in politics, entertainment, social causes, and sports. In 2016,
Twitter kept people informed about the #RIO2016 Olympics, #Brexit—Britain’s separation
from the European Union, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, news about the popular television show #GameofThrones, and, of course, the U.S. presidential #Election2016 where Twitter
was used heavily by both candidates. For better or worse, President Donald Trump continues
to use Twitter as a primary communications tool since winning the election. Because of Twitter’s reach, most federal and state political leaders now use Twitter as a regular channel for
communicating with their followers. For the same reason, most advocacy groups engage in
what some call hashtag activism, using the service to maintain awareness levels about their
cause as well as influence people’s beliefs and attitudes on key issues. Twitter has even begun
to influence investment decisions made on Wall Street. Financial research analysts have created algorithms that use the volume and sentiment of Twitter traffic to predict the future stock
value of a company.
Twitter is attractive to individuals, groups, and organizations because it provides a direct
link to the public, bypassing traditional mass media, which often acts as an information gatekeeper. Ironically, Twitter frequently influences what we see on traditional media. Journalists
regularly use Twitter to broadcast breaking news stories. “Hashtag journalists” increasingly
monitor Twitter to identify newsworthy events being tweeted (reported) by eyewitnesses and
to gauge the public’s interest in an event or issue by monitoring trending topics. Using Twitter to monitor public sentiment as well as influence public opinion has become an important
skill for public relations professionals working for business and not-for-profit organizations.
Organizations can no longer afford to ignore the conversations that take place on Twitter
about their brands, products, and executives. Furthermore, public relations professionals
must understand how to actively participate in these conversations or risk appearing aloof
and out-of-touch.
Twitter is often used by consumers to complain about frustrations they are having with
a company or its products. In response, some companies have adopted Twitter as a customer service channel, along with e-mail and telephone call centers (see Opening Case 6.1).
When customer service representatives find people complaining about their brand or product, they can use the service to empathize with the customer’s frustration and offer solutions
for resolving the problem. Because conversations on Twitter are public, other customers can
watch or “listen in” on interactions between an unhappy customer and a customer service representative and judge how effective the company is at solving problems. This can be a benefit
or liability for organizations depending on how adept they are at communicating and resolving
customer problems on Twitter.
Just a few years ago, many businesses appeared to be somewhat confused about how to
incorporate the microblogging service into their communications strategy. That has changed.
Over 65% of companies now use Twitter for marketing communications and are increasingly expanding their reach by encouraging employees to share relevant messages with their
personal social networks. In addition to organic (unpaid) tweets, companies are spending
close to $3 billion a year on promoted tweets, or paid ads sent out over the network. Twitter is
viewed by many companies as a good way to reach people on mobile devices.
Like other social media tools, the best way to gain an understanding of Twitter is to use it.
The official Twitter interface is simple and efficient, but a large segment of the Twittersphere
uses third-party apps that have been developed to enhance the site’s functionality and user
experience. Some are considered essential tools in the life of the power Twitter user:
• TweetDeck is an advanced, split-screen app that allows users to view messages streaming from followers, people being followed, and people the user might wish to follow. It
also makes it easy to quickly reply to incoming tweets, increasing the frequency of Twitter
Engaging Consumers with Blogs and Microblogs
conversations. The TweetDeck interface makes it easy to participate in Twitter forums or
online discussion groups similar to what takes place in a chat room. In 2011, this popular
Twitter application was acquired by Twitter and continues to be a popular interface application for people accessing the service from a computer.
• Dlvr.it automates posts to Twitter and other social platforms published on a blog using
RSS technology.
• Twitterholic is a service that ranks users by the number of followers, friends, and updates.
Many users believe Twitter is best suited for mobile devices like smartphones or tablets,
which enable users to post spontaneous messages and updates regardless of their location.
There are literally hundreds of third-party Twitter apps for computers and mobile devices, with
more being written every day. You can find the most popular mobile apps by using an Internet
search engine or searching your phone’s app store.
How Do People and Businesses Use Twitter? Think of Twitter as a social network where the domi…