Hoorcollege 11 Flashcards
What is social media?
Broad definition = all mediated interaction.
Narrow definition = internet-based built upon 2.0 web technologies:
- Many-to-many communication that is (to a certain extent) public and visible.
- User-generated content that is (to a certain extent) editable or commentable.
- Persistent, the content on social media remains there.
Building blocks of social media
Social media can be divided in 7 building blocks:
- Identity
- Sharing
- Conversations
- Presence
- Relationships
- Reputation
- Groups
Identity
This is the extent to which users reveal their identity and present themselves. This is creating an online identity. Social media offers a lot of tools to tailor your online identity. Online, people can get objective and subjective identifiers from someone. Objective identifiers are
all information available (e.g., Alex is a teacher). Subjective identifiers are all information a person derives from pictures etc. (e.g., I think Alex is extravert).
Also, you can control the online information about yourself. Information given is the information you consciously give to the world, information given off is the information you
are less aware of (e.g., non-verbal cues). Lastly, information differs in warranting. This means
that some information is more important than other information.
The building block of identity is also important for organizations. Organizations are the same as people, they also want to create an online identity. This gives organizations the following opportunities:
- Self-promotion
Social media offer organizations a lot of ways to create an online identity.
- Personalized advertising
All the information given on social media by individuals gives organizations the
possibility to make personalized advertising.
- Brand ambassadors/corporate influencers
On social media, organizations can also use other people presenting the image of the
organization. Examples of this are brand ambassadors or corporate influencers
Sharing
This is the creation, exchange and editing of content. This gives a lot of user-generated content on social media. Also, there is the possibility to work together on content (e.g.,
Wikipedia).
The building block of sharing is also important for organizations. It gives organizations the following opportunities:
- Co-creation & innovation
Organizations can work together with customers to create products and to share knowledge.
- The crowd can also be used for:
o Contests
o Communities
o Complementors
o Labor markets
Conversations
This is the extent to which users communicate with others. That is what people do with
social media: communication via social media (e.g., WhatsApp). This can be communication
among individuals, with customers, within organizations (e.g., Microsoft Teams), etc.
Technology mediated communication is different from face-to-face communication. For
example, communicating via WhatsApp is different than a conversation in real life. One of the main reasons for that is that online, there is a lack of certain cues that you do have offline:
- Non-verbal cues → less non-verbal cues in online communication.
- Anonymity → people are more anonymous online.
- Synchronicity → online communication is less synchronous.
The building block of conversations is also important for organizations. It gives organizations the following opportunities:
- Knowledge sharing
In organizations, social media is internally used to improve the communication and
the knowledge sharing.
- Viral marketing
- Monitoring
Social media also offers the possibility to monitor conversations. This can be used by organizations for several purposes, such as mood monitoring, marketing and corporate communication.
Presence
Social media allows you to know who is accessible when. Examples of this are location-based information, the ‘blauwe vinkjes’ on WhatsApp.
The building block of presence is also important for organizations. It gives organizations the following opportunities:
- Shared agenda/workspace
- Location-based work
- Location-based marketing
Relationships
This relates to this associations part of social media. Social media give you a network of
connections. This makes it possible to find relationships between people and see other’s
relationships. You can do that with a social network analysis. With that, you can do research
to:
- Find the relations other people have
- Identify networks
- Identify position, importance, strength, etc. of someone in a network
A social network analysis is a very powerful tool for organizations. This gives organizations
opportunities for:
- Networking and self-promotion
- Customer identification
- Social capital creation
o Within organizations or with customers
o Strength and size of a network
Reputation
This is the identifying of the status of other people and things. This enables the following things:
- Expertise (who knows what)
- Both knowledge and reputation
- User-generated information that signals trust
- Reputation of people and content
For organizations, it makes it possible to:
- Identify experts in organizations
- Identify key customers
Groups
Social media allows people to create communities and groups (e.g., WhatsApp group chat).
This can be smaller groups such as virtual teams, but also larger communities.
This gives the following opportunities for organizations:
- Knowledge sharing across organizations
- Knowledge sharing without organizations
- Customer & brand communities
Blocks can be combined
The building blocks can also be combined to look at how you should use social media and
what type of social media applications you should use:
- Knowledge sharing (people across the organization share what they know)
For knowledge sharing, the building blocks of ‘sharing’, ‘relationships’, and ‘reputation’ are important. - Customer community
For a customer community, the building blocks of ‘identity’, ‘conversations’, and
‘groups’ are important.
Social media implementation stages
he social media implementation stages describe the process organizations follow to adopt and integrate social media effectively.
- Integration
- Transformation
Integration
Two types of integration:
- Integrating eCommerce within entire organization
o ERP systems to support information & process flows in the organization - Integrating interdependent processes between organization
o Coordinate processes across organizations and between organizations and stakeholders (suppliers, customers)
o Via Inter-Organizational Systems (IOS) that link processes between and within organizations
o Most often using Supply Chain Management Systems (SCM)
Transformation
Transforms traditional business processes between and within organizations
- Disintermediation & reintermediation
