SOCIAL COMMUNITIES Chapter 5 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 1-5

Chapter Objectives  Explain how social communities enable user participation and sharing  Compare and contrast social networking sites in terms of three key dimensions  Describe how marketers use social communities for branding and promotion Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2-5

Social Communities Zone  Digital You: The Social Profile  Your profile is the foundation of your participation in social communities. It is basically your digital self. Skins (or themes) are visual elements used to change the aesthetic of a web page Identity reflectors are an option to have one’s profile reflected back to them from the perspective of others Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-5 Click here to examine what these identity reflectors say about a person

 Presence indicators enable individuals to project an identity more vividly to others within a community. These indicators include:  Availability icons: icons that indicate whether a member is online and available for chat  Mood icons: icons that function much like emoticons, enabling members to indicate mood  Friend lists: lists of friends within the network  Status updates: posts to the sites’ newsfeed; posts are shared with friends in the network Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 4-5 Social Communities Zone

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 6-5 Social Activities in Online Communities  Two types of social media conversations:  Directed communications  Consumption communications

Social Activities in Online Communities  Directed communications are one-to-one interactions on a social network between two user.  Two forms of direct communication exist: Direct messages Instant messages Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 7-5

Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 8-5 Social Activities in Online Communities  Consumption communications are passive communications. (For example, reading the feeds others post.)

Social Networking Sites How do we interact with others on social media platforms? we mingle, we chat, and we share Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 9-5

 Status Casting occurs when you broadcast updates to your news feed or activity stream.  Activity streams are the news feeds or “wall” (as it’s known in Facebook) social networks use to establish an ongoing point of connection between network nodes  A nudge is a tool for reminding someone to socialize Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 10-5 Social Networking Sites

 The top three reasons people share content “socially” 1. They find it interesting and/or entertaining 2. They think it could be helpful to others 3. To get a laugh. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 12-5 Social Networking Sites Click here to see what ShareThis Widget can do

 Typical sharing activities include:  An activity stream is a tool to share a short piece of content with a network.  Gift applications enable members to present virtual gifts to their friends.  Ongoing sharing means working with partners to include activities from other sites in an activity stream on a partnered site.  Uploading functionalities are applications that make it easy to share from many locations.  Embed codes let people share content where they wish. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 13-5 Social Networking Sites

Characteristics of Social Networking Sites Social networking sites typically vary in terms of three important dimensions: 1. Audience and degree of specialization 2. The social objects that mediate the relationships among members 3. Degree of decentralization or openness Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 14-5

Audience Specialization  Social networking sites can be internal or external.  Internal social network provides a method of communication and collaboration that is more dynamic and interactive  External social network is open to people who are not affiliated with the site’s sponsor. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 15-5

Social Objects and Passion-Centric Sites  The ability of an object to inspire social interaction is known as a vertical network. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 16-5

Decentralization, Identity Portability, and Openness One of the big issues social media needs to confront is how to let people easily access multiple sites and understand where they go and why. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 17-5

Many social networking site members are social media omnivores – they eagerly participate in several different platforms. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 18-5 Decentralization, Identity Portability, and Openness

 Identity portability would allow an individual to maintain a single profile that would provide access across social networking sites with a single login and shared information. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 19-5 Decentralization, Identity Portability, and Openness

 Under the open source model, developers post their programs on a public site and a community of volunteers is free to tinker with them, develop other applications using the code, then give their changes away for free. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 20-5 Decentralization, Identity Portability, and Openness

Marketing Applications in the Social Community Zone  Paid Media in Social Communities  Earned Media and Brand Engagement  User-Generated Content Campaigns Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 21-5

Paid Media in Social Communities  Display ads may include text, graphics, video, and sound much like traditional print ads and commercials but they are presented on a website. continued Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 22-5

 Social ads are online display ads that incorporate user data in the ad or in the targeting of the ad and enable some form of social interaction within the ad unit or landing page.  There are three variations on social ads: 1. A social engagement ad contains ad creative (image and text) along with an option to encourage the viewer to engage with the brand (e.g., clickable “Like” button). 2. A social context ad includes ad creative, an engagement device, and personalized referral content from people in the viewer’s network. 3. Organic social ads are shared on a person’s activity stream following a brand interaction (such as liking the brand). Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 23-5 Paid Media in Social Communities - continued

Earned Media and Brand Engagement Earned reach (the breadth and quality of contact with users) gained when people share positive brand opinions and branded content with others is invaluable because of the influence attributed to individual, personalized brand endorsements. Influence posts occur when an opinion leader publishes brand-relevant content such as a blog post in social media. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 24-5

User-Generated Content Campaigns Brands can seed many forms of content in social communities as they try to boost engagement and sharing. One of the most popular tools is the use of: User-generated content (UGC) campaigns – these are campaigns that offer a way for brands to invite consumers to engage and interact while they develop shareable content. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 26-5

Social Presence: Brands as Relationship Nodes  Brands may create a brand profile within selected social networking communities. In this way, the brand acts as a node in the network’s social graph.  The fan base is an indicator of the brand’s success in establishing a known presence within a community.  Return on emotion (conceptually) assesses the extent to which a brand has delivered a value in exchange for the emotional attachment fans have awarded it. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 27-5

Is The Brand Ready for Social Communities?  Brands should ask these questions before deciding whether social relationships will work for a specific brand.  Is the brand set up for engagement?  If the brand participates in social media, where should the brand be?  How can the brand’s profiles be developed in such a way as to reflect the brand’s personality?  If “fan pages” exist among brand loyalists on social networking sites, how can the brand leverage the fan sites to better meet its objectives?  How can the brand integrate its social network presence into other campaign components? Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 28-5