Social Media Marketing - 880478-M-6
Summary articles + chapters per (seminar) lecture.
Lecture 1
Chapter 1: The social media environment
Digital native = students who grew up ‘wired’ in a highly networked, always-on world.
Information does not just flow from big companies or governments down to the rest of us, it flows
across people as well.
Social media = the online means of communication, conveyance, collaboration, and cultivation
among interconnected and interdependent networks of people, communities, and organizations
enhanced by technological capabilities and mobility.
For example: Facebook
- A social utility that offers synchronous and asynchronous interactions, content sharing of
images, video, music, games, apps, groups and more.
o Social utility? FB offers functionality far beyond basic relationship building also
Facebook Live, marketplace, campaigns, direct messaging services
Defining social media
- The way digital natives live a social life
- About a culture of participation, a belief in democracy, freely interact with other people,
organizations, everyone can share content from comments to photos and stories. Build on
the content of others from your own unique point of view.
- Social media enable active participation in the form of communicating, creating, joining,
collaborating, working, sharing, socializing, playing, buying and selling, and learning within
interactive and interdependent networks
Social media value chain core activities of social media participants + components that make
those activities possible
- Activities are made possible by underlying infrastructure of social media
- Social channels and vehicles
- Software that provide programming we need to carry out social media activities
- Devices
The Web is the foundation for social media
- Web 2.0 connects networks of people, in addition to networks of information
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, - “developments in online technology that enable interactive capabilities in an environment
characterized by user control, freedom, and dialogue.”
Network effect = each additional user adds value for all users.
- E.g., Amazon recommends books based upon what other people with similar interests
bought
- Network effects enable organizations to leverage the value of crowdsourcing (= a process
that harnesses the collective knowledge of a large group of people to solve problems and
complete tasks)
Web 3.0 (the semantic web) next stage.
- Makes it possible for people and machines to collaborate.
- Devices will be contextually, socially and network aware and be able to dynamically create
social connections between each other and connected people in order to offer services to
each other and to jointly solve problems.
o Social media will serve to support collective intelligence.
What we are able to create or do online is due to a host of social software applications (= programs
that enable users to interact, create and share data online)
- Apps or widgets are types of social software
- Social software also encompasses application service sites that we call social services
- Social sites use complex mathematical formulas called algorithms to personalize content,
recommend friend connections, etc.
Internet of Things (IoT) = a paradigm in which all the objects around us could be connected anytime
and anywhere (i.e. smart devices)
Social media work only when people participate, create and share content.
- Journalists, editors and publishers matter, but also everyday individuals (e.g. citizen
journalists, citizen advertisers)
Zones of social media social channels and related vehicles in and through which social media
participation takes place.
- Media we use range from mass media to personal media
- Social media cross the boundaries of mass and personal media
Communication travels using a medium (channel). Within each medium, marketers can choose
specific vehicles to place a message
- Vehicle: within the magazine medium, cosmopolitan is a vehicle.
4 zones of social media
1. Social community
2. Social publishing
3. Social entertainment
4. Social commerce
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,1 – SOCIAL COMMUNITY
Social communities = channels of social media that focus upon relationships and the common
activities people participate in with others who share the same interest or identification.
- Feature 2-way and multi-way communication, conversation, collaboration and the sharing of
experiences and resources.
- Interaction and collaboration for relationship building and maintenance: primary reason to
engage in these activities
Channels in social community zone include: social network sites, message boards and forums, wikis.
Social network sites (SNS) = online hosts that enable site members to construct and maintain profiles,
identify other members with whom they are connected, and participate by consuming, producing,
and/or interacting with content provided by their connections.
- Profiles give the ability to develop a social identity
- Members maintain a social presence in the community
- Connections (friends, followers, fans) communicate and share content in a variety of ways
e.g. direct messages, wall posts, chat or instant messaging (IM).
SNS offer both synchronous and asynchronous forms of communication; the resulting content
may be permanent or temporary.
Forums = interactive, online versions of community bulletin boards. Focus on discussions among
members.
Wikis = collaborative online workspaces that enable community members to contribute to the
creation of useful and shared resource.
2 – SOCIAL PUBLISHING
Social publishing = the production and issuance of content for distribution via social publishing sites.
- Social publishing sites aid in the dissemination of content to an audience by hosting content
while also enabling audience participation and sharing.
- Social publishing enables user-generated content (UGC)
- Publishers are individual users, professional content creators (journalists, traditional media
organizations, brands)
4 groups of social publishers:
1. Individual users
2. Independent professionals
3. Professional contributors associated with organisations such as news media
4. Brands
o Brands use social publishing as a distribution and/or promotion mode in content
marketing campaigns
Social communities and social publishing channels enable participation and sharing difference is in
the primary orientation
- Social communities = networking
- Social publishing = knowledge-sharing
Blogs = websites that host regularly updated online content, including text, graphics, audio, video.
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, Microsharing sites (microblogging sites) = blogs but with a limit to the length that you can post (e.g.
Twitter)
Media sharing sites host content but typically feature video or audio (music, podcast), photos, and
presentations of documents rather then text or a mix of media.
- Within each vehicle are options for following content posted by specific video
- Examples: Tumblr (blogging), YouTube (video sharing), Instagram (photo sharing), Soundcloud
(music & audio sharing)
3 – SOCIAL ENTERTAINMENT
Social entertainment = events, performances, and activities designed to provide the audience with
pleasure and enjoyment, experienced and shared using social media
Distinction between social publishing and social entertainment is the orientation:
- Social publishing = knowledge-sharing
- Social entertainment = entertainment-sharing
4 – SOCIAL COMMERCE
Social commerce = the use of social media in the online shopping, buying, and selling of products and
services.
- Social shopping, marketplaces, hybrid channels and tools that enable shared participants in a
buying decision.
- Social commerce enables both networks of buyers and sellers to participate actively in the
marketing and selling of products and services in online marketplaces and communities.
Social shopping = active participation and influence of others on a consumer’s decision-making
process, typically in the form of opinions, recommendations, and experiences shared via social
media.
Social Media Zones with example Vehicles
Business models & monetization
Monetization = how a business earns revenue. Part of a company’s business model (= the strategy
and format it follows to earn money and provide value to stakeholders)
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