1. Digital communities Chapter 4
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2. Chapter Objectives
What are the characteristics of online communities? How do ideas travel in a community?
In what ways do opinion leaders develop in communities? How do these influentials influence others?
What role does social capital play in the value of social media communities? What types of ties do we have to others in our communities?
How has social media leveled the playing field and created a source of power for consumers?
Visit for an example of a community organized around a social object
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3. Online Communities
Online communities are groups of people who come together for a specific purpose, who are guided by community policies, and who are supported by Internet access that enables virtual communication.
Though infrastructure, channels, devices, and social software make social media possible, people like you make it a living, breathing part of everyday life. Social media is first and foremost about community: the collective participation of members who together build and maintain a site.
Though different approaches exist, we’ll refer to online communities as a group of people who come together for a specific purpose, who are guided by community policies, and who are supported by Internet access that enables virtual communication. Here is a brief sampling of online communities; there may be some out there just waiting for you!
• MyLife
• LiveJournal
• Tagged
• Last.fm
• LinkedIn
In some ways, online communities are not much different from those we find in our physical environment. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online version, of course) defines community as “a unified body of individuals, unified by interests, location, occupation, common history, or political and economic concerns.” In fact, one social scientist refers to an online community as a cyberplace where “people connect online with kindred spirits, engage in supportive and sociable relationships with them, and imbue their activity online with meaning, belonging, and identity.”
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4. Networks: The Underlying Structure of Communities
A social network is a set of socially relevant nodes connected by one or more relations.
Nodes are members of the network.
Members are connected by their relationships with each other.
Interactions are behavior-based ties such as talking with each other or attending an event together.
Flows are exchanges of resources, information, or influence among members of the network.
Object sociality is the extent to which an object can be shared in social media.
Vertical networks are sites designed around object sociality.
All social communities are social networks. Networks underlie the premise of social media. This slide presents the basics of social network theory.
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5. It’s a Small World After All
Six degrees of separation is an observation that everyone is connected to everyone else by no more than six ties.
Based on the mathematical model of small-world network.
Play six degrees of separation by clicking here
Chances are you’ve heard of the game The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. It’s based on the principle known as the six degrees of separation; an observation that everyone is connected to everyone else by no more than six ties. This statement comes from the mathematical model known as a small-world network, which illustrates that most nodes in a social graph are not directly linked to one another—instead they are indirectly connected via neighbors. The principle is highly relevant in social media marketing, where sources of influence can flow throughout the network easily and quickly. It is this connectivity that has given rise to viral marketing where a message such as a joke or bizarre YouTube clip quickly spreads among members of a network. Social networks also have the characteristic of being “scale free.” This means that the more connections someone has, the more likely they are to make new ones.
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6. Characteristics of Online Communities
The interactive platforms of Web 2.0 enable online communities to exhibit the following basic characteristics:
Conversations
Presence
Democracy
Standards of Behavior
Levels of Participation
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7. Characteristics of Online Communities
Conversations. Though social media provides an online space for digital conversations, these conversations are not based on talking or writing but on a hybrid of the two.
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8. Characteristics of Online Communities
Presence refers to the effect that people experience when they interact with a computer-mediated or computer-generated environment.
Virtual communities do not develop and thrive without a foundation of commonality among the members. Just as your offline communities are based on family, religious beliefs, social activities, hobbies, goals, place of residence, and so on, your online communities also need commonalities to create bonds among the members. These groups come together to allow people to share their passions, whether these are for indie bands, white wines, or open-source apps. Communities are made up of people who share some reason to join together. As we said, this basis can be a location, a shared characteristic, a hobby, an occupation, or any number of other activities that people share.
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9. Characteristics of Online Communities
Democracy is a descriptive term that refers to rule by the people.
Media democratization means that the members of social communities control the creation, delivery, and popularity of content.
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall

11. Characteristics of Online Communities
Standards of Behavior. Virtual communities need norms, or rules that govern behavior, in order to operate. Some of these rules are spelled out explicitly but many of them are unspoken.
Open access sites enable anyone to participate without registration or identification.
The social contract is the agreement that exists between the host or governing body and the members.
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12. Characteristics of Online Communities
Level of Participation. For an online community to thrive, a significant proportion of its members must participate. Otherwise the site will fail to offer fresh material and ultimately traffic will slow.
Researchers estimate that only 1 percent of a typical community’s users regularly participate and another 9 percent do so only intermittently. The remaining 90 percent just observe what’s on the site, so they don’t add a lot of value.
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13. How Ideas Travel in a Community
Network structure and composition play a role in the community’s ability to support its members.
There is evidence of community culture in the memes that evolve within the community
A meme is a snippet of cultural information that spreads person to person until eventually it enters the general consciousness.
These memes (snippets) may include songs, phrases, ideas, slang words, fashion trends, or shared behaviors. For example, when the TV show The Apprentice caught fire a few years ago, its trademark term “You’re fired!” made the rounds very quickly.
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14. Group Influence and Social Capital
Opinion leader – a person who is frequently able to influence others’ attitudes or behaviors.
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15. Group Influence and Social Capital
Opinion leaders are extremely valuable information sources because:
They are technically competent
They prescreen, evaluate, and synthesize product information in an unbiased way
They are socially active and highly interconnected
They are likely to hold positions of leadership
They tend to be similar to the consumer in terms of their values and beliefs
They tend to be slightly higher in terms of status and educational attainment than those they influence
They are often among the first to buy new products
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16. Social Capital
Social capital is accumulated resources whose value flows to people as a result of their access to others.
Reputational capital is based on the shared beliefs, relationships, and actions of those in the community such that norms, behaviors, and values held and shared by individuals ultimately support a community reputation.
When people form community relationships these affiliations allow them to accumulate resources that they can “trade” for other things. This is “Social Capital.” Social capital tends to be a limited and protected resource.
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17. Strong and Weak Ties Emotional support is one form of social capital.
Core ties – those people with whom we have very close relationships
Significant ties – those individuals with somewhat close connections, but less so than core ties
Weak ties – those individuals with whom your relationship is based on superficial experiences or very few connections
This resource easily accrues online because of our accessibility to people who can help us with a variety of issues even though we may not know them personally. In contrast, our core ties, those people with whom we have very close relationships, may or may not be in a position to provide solutions to some problems we face (or we may not want them to know about these in some cases). Interestingly, through the course of giving and receiving bonding social capital, we may come to develop core ties, or at least significant ties (somewhat close connections, but less so than core ties), with others in the community.
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18. Strong and Weak Ties
Power users are those others view as knowledgeable sources of information
Five characteristics help to describe them:
Activists
Connected
Impact
Active minds
Trendsetters
In other words, influencers develop a network of people through their involvement in activities. They are active participants at work and in their communities. Their social networks are large and well developed.
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19. Strong and Weak Ties The Bases of Social Power
Reward power: ability to provide others with what they desire
Coercive power: the ability to punish others
Legitimate power: authority based on rights associated with a person’s appointed position
Referent power: authority through the motivation to identify with or please a person
Expert power: recognition of one’s knowledge, skills, and ability
Information power: one’s control over the flow of and access to information
Influencers exist in all social communities. It is a natural pattern for some members to be more active and to acquire positions of authority within a community. The source of the influence itself, however, originates from the power bases an influencer may possess.
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20. Node-to-Node Relationships
Your level of activity in a social network is based on:
The mix of people with whom you are connected
The artifacts (content) you create on the site
The feedback you receive from others
The distribution of the artifacts and feedback
We refer to connections in a SNS with many terms, including friend, fan, follower, colleague, and contact. The biggest predictor of whether someone will become active in a social network space, regardless of the site’s primary function, is the presence of a critical mass of friends. Of the four elements detailed on the slide of SNS participation, three are dependent upon the nodes in your network. If your contacts are not active in your experience, your own activity in the network will be stunted because you won’t have people with whom to interact, you won’t receive sufficient feedback, and your content will not be redistributed.
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21. Influence
Word of mouse – online word of mouth and a very strong influence on consumer decision making
Ad equivalency value - what would the value of the unsolicited online mention be if it had come through a paid advertising placement?
Social proof – works by encouraging consumers to make decisions that mimic those of people in their social network
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22. The Evolution of Online Communities
“Modern society makes it more difficult to connect with others….” Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Sociologists have recognized that technological innovations actually can help us to maintain and support a number of community relationships despite physical distances and other limitations. A Pew report showed that the more we see members of our network in person and talk on the phone, the more likely it is that we will also communicate with those people online. So, the more connected you are, the more connected you will become!
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