The role of the internet and social media in the economy is huge. The effects of social media are not limited to
marketing or information technology (IT) but a multitude of departments are involved.
1.1 INTRODUCTION ON THE INTERNET
1.1.1 WHAT HAPPENS ON THE INTERNET
• Digital generation
• Social media: part on the Internet evolution
• Internet: revolution (& evolution)
• The first internet generation primarily looked at information in the 1990’s but now we use the internet for
more purposes: we share information and opinions, collaborate, or participate in online content and so on.
• Impact on both online and offline relationships
• Business impact
o What if an (future) employer can see personal pictures of the candidates.
o Further than this, the internet also forces companies to adopt social media and even adapt to it
because people tend to have more faith in online recommendations about brands and its products
than the traditional advertisements of the organization itself.
• Word of mouth → World of mouth
o The Internet allows us to potentially reach out to almost everyone around the globe.
o This refers to the evolution of people talking to their friends and families to the possibility to talk with
almost anyone around the globe thanks to social media and the internet. This also counts for
organizations who can use it in their advantage e.g., by means of viral campaigns which have a higher
spread.
• FOMO: Fear of missing out
o Almost addicted to the Internet
o Distract while studying or working
1.1.2 COULD YOU LIVE WITHOUT THE INTERNET
An American technology journalist one tried to find out how it would be to go on a whole year without the internet, as
he did so, he found out that this doesn’t make one lonely or stupid. The internet is where the people are and allows
them to keep in touch. He concluded it’s important to find the right balance between a digital identity and a real one, as
the internet will never replace personal relationships.
A third gender-neutral category: the geek
• Someone who is extremely interested in IT, they are typically highly
active on SM tools as Facebook and many of them have an own blog
to share their experiences.
• Not limited to technical profiles
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, • The word geek often has a more pejorative
sound to it and should rather be used to
refer to oneself as being a believer in or an
early adopter of (technological)
innovations.
Innovations regarding IT tend to have a great
diffusion, mostly they are adopted by different
groups in society. Starting with a smaller group of
believers (innovators, early adopters), followed by
the mass (early- and late majority) and finally also the non-believers or latecomers (laggards).
Despite the fact that so many people make use of the internet and social media and may even be referred to as geeks,
the IT industry faces an important challenge to recruit IT-minded candidates and the need for more IT professionals is
increasingly growing.
Which computing devices do you use? How do you connect? How do you share memories? How do you share news?
How do you take notes during this session? How do you navigate? How do organizations collaborate?
What about the IT industry?
• IT jobs are increasingly growing
• In a challenging environment
• With a very competitive salary
But…
• High demand for more IT professionals
• Particularly women lag behind
Contradiction: IT skills shortage versus top salaries
Billionaires younger than 35 are frequently related to IT (e.g., founders of online brands or social media tools)
1.2 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Many social media tools → various purposes
The book does not intend to give statistics on social media as they are quickly outdated and vary from region, source, …
Facebook:
• The largest social media tool in the world
• In terms of users
• In terms of daily active users
• in terms of average time spent per month
Other social media are also increasingly growing.
If you visit some websites, you see a lot of them have integrated
social media in some form. This can be by means of social actions
or business actions.
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, Social actions: refers to sharing an opinion
Business actions: refers to a desired action that an
organization wants website visitors to do because it
involves a business return.
SOCIAL MEDIA HAS SOME TYPICAL (DIS)ADVANTAGES:
ADVANTAGES:
• Speed
o Social media can be used to react or share content faster than traditional media and it isn’t limited by
geographical distances
• Scalability
o An organization can now reach out to far more people with a lower budget than using traditional
media.
• Analysing & monitoring: less expensive
o Less expensive than traditional data gathering.
• Interactivity
o Possibility to have a more interactive way to communicate. They are able to ask questions at any time.
This contrasts to only receiving information when an advertisement is launched or the organization
publishes information.
DISADVANTAGES
• New environment → learning curve
o Social media are relatively new and organizations are still figuring out how to properly use it to create
value.
• Transparency
o Social media is very transparent, this contains the risk of revealing too much private information
• Undeletable
o Information on social media is in some degree undeletable because of the option to take backups.
Even when you delete for instance a photo from you Facebook profile, it may still be there.
• Privacy
o This is one of the biggest concerns. It deals with both ethical and legal issues.
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, WILL SOCIAL MEDIA STAY OR NOT
Gartner Hype Cycle
o Possibility to predict the future of social media
o This graph assumes that every new technology follows a similar evolution over time.
o We may assume that social media are somewhere between their highest point of visibility and their lowest
point.
o The graph can explain both the current social media hype as well as the social media bloopers.
o Either organizations must find a more mature way of working with social media or the social media
technologies will disappear.
o We may social media productivity to rather stay high because of the curiosity and exhibitionism.
o Curiosity: People want to know what other people have or do
o Exhibitionism: People want to show what they have or do
1.3 SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH
• Accountancy and taxation
o Knowledge sharing: How do organizations or accountants experience the influence of (new) taxation
rules?
• Finance and risk management
o Sentiment analysis: Will negative or positive messages in social media influence the value of stocks
and market shares?
o Social network mining: how can social media data be used to predict the risk of an investment, a loan,
or an insurance?
o Crowdfunding: How can social media be used to help finance our projects?
• Marketing management
o Online advertising: On which social media networks should we advertise, and how?
o Viral marketing campaigns: How can we create a popular YouTube commercial, i.e., that viewers are
eager to share with friends, colleagues, and family?
o Employer branding: How can we improve our image of being a good employer?
o Crisis communication: How can SM help us when an organizational crisis arrives?
• Strategic management & HR
o Social media strategy: How do social media fit within our organizational strategy?
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