Properties of social media - Assignment Example

PART A Question1: History of social media One of the key moments in the history occurred in 1971 when the first emailwas sent. Since the discovery of this important function, individuals and business entities have ever used it to communicate and collaborate. Just to illustrate, a company like Sephora, uses the e-mail function to send e-newsletters to its ever growing customers informing them about the upcoming events, contests, in-store promotions and new products. E-mails are also an important component of the company’s Pinterest beauty program where customers are informed about the products in their pinterest accounts using email messaging. Likewise, e-mails form a core component of the collaborative projects and are used by the participants to communicate and interact freely. E-mail messaging is not important to businesses, but also networking communities who use it in communicating and sharing of ideas. The second moment in the history of social media occurred in 1979 with the launch of the usernets and bulletin board systems which allowed users to exchange information over phone lines. According to Cane bulletin boards form an important component of the computer mediated communication system and social interaction (78). The system has revolutionized text-based communication while elintaing the need for visual contact. Another key moment is the discovery of the World Wide Web in 1989 by the British Engineer Tim Berners Lee. The World Wide Web has brought people together while facilitating the formation of virtual communication. The World Wide Web is very important as it supports all the forms of social media and without it, the sharing of information between users would be impossible. At the same time, World Wide Web facilitates sharing of information between businesses, suppliers and increasing efficiency in an organization. The expansion of the social media sphere would not have been without earlier attempts by the Globe.com, classmates.com, Geocities and the Sixdegrees to create platforms where users can develop their own profiles and exchange important information with their friends and other users. The social media sphere thereafter exploded with the launch of the Friendster.com, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. The fifth key component of the social media is the content communities which have become prevalent in the modern society. A perfect example of a content community is the You Tube which was launched in 2005. YouTube allows the users to share videos, has become phenomenal and it could even be used in the promotion of e-commerce. In this regard, by uploading YouTube video content, business entities can be able to popularize their offerings. Use of viral marketing using social media tools has become a common method that is quickly replacing the traditional forms of marketing. All the above five moments have impacted positively on the way people communicate and are credited with expanding the social media sphere. Question 2: Properties of social media It is very important to make a distinction between industry and social media, to ensure organization choose the most appropriate integrated communication mix. In this regard, an organization should be able to compare and contrasts the benefits and the shortcomings of using the two forms of media. On one hand, social media could be advantageous since it only requires limited sources and creates an immediate impact while on the other hand, industry media could have a more long-lasting impact besides producing high quality advertisements. The differentiating properties also allow organizations to determine the tradeoffs they are willing to make in order to maximize the benefits of their resources. However, the properties of quality and reach do not well differentiate social and the industry media. This is because the quality of both industrial and social media ranges from high to low and there is no clear distinction. Likewise, just like industrial media, social media has become a serious tool and its distribution is becoming centralized. Question 3: Types of social media Human beings are social beings, and in the course of the day they have to keep on interacting with their counterparts in the workplace, and at home. Social media platforms hopes to meet all the social needs of the human beings, hence eliminating the need for face to face interactions. In other words, social media tools hopes to replace to face-to-face interactions. Just to illustrate collaborative projects allows many individuals to work together without the need for physical contact. When it comes to the workplace, communication between workers and the outside world is facilitated by the social media networks. Workers are entertained by joining content communities, virtual game-worlds and virtual social worlds. These types of media eclipse our core functions which are: work, play and interact. Beside revolutionizing the way we meet our social needs, the social media tools seem to be enriching our lives in an unprecedented way. Just to illustrate further, social media is promoting flexible-time schemes and work arrangements. As a result, people are becoming more comfortable with the way they spend their lives with minimal destructions and effort. Question 4: Functions of social media The honeycomb framework is based on the following elements: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. The extent to which users are ready to reveal their personal information is very important to businesses as they are to use such details for target marketing. The more the social media reveal users’ information the better for firms and other business entities. Conversations are important as they can determine the success of a marketing strategy, and this element of the social media framework plays an important role in viral marketing. In this regard, the more consumers share information, the more positive outcomes and hits a business entity is likely to get. By taking advantage of the busy contacts, business organizations could share information with users on various issues including humanitarian, environmental and economic problems. Indeed, the impact of a marketing strategy depends heavily on the degree to which consumers are willing to exchange, receive and share information with other members of the network. To encourage the involvement of the users, organizations could introduce offers and then measure the effectiveness of such a strategy by determining the reciprocal change in consumer behavior. The effectiveness of the social media is influenced by the extent to which businesses can access information about the consumers and other users. The issue of social and physical presence has been discussed in details in the available literature review and there is consensus that a high presence of users in a social media network is helpful. To achieve this objective the available social media tools have introduced interfaces through which interaction between the users could be enhanced. Knowing as much background information as possible about the users is also very important for business entities. The level of engagement between an organization and the users can be measured by establishing baselines, creating activity timelines, monitoring the volume of mentions, measuring the transactional precursors, analyzing transactional data and identifying changes in the consumer behavior. Understanding the honeycomb framework also helps firms when making investment decisions. In this regard, strong relationships and large groups motivate organizations to invest more in digital marketing. Question 5: Benefits of social media There are many attendant benefits associated with using social media tools and the available literature suggests that those organizations which capitalize on the rich human networks are able to lower transaction costs hence becoming more profitable. Indeed, firms can reduce the advertising costs by combining both social media and the mass media tools for advertising. Using both the traditional and digital advertising strategy is already a reality, and a good example is the Sephora Company which runs advertising campaigns on its social media platforms and collects consumer information from its websites to identify leads hence improving sales. Using social media tools for advertising not only leads to more profitability by also enhances an organization’s competitive advantage over other firms. In an organizational setting, social media tools can be used for sharing knowledge among the employees. Sharing of information is very crucial as it is associated with positive outcomes such as increased organizational performance and bottom-line profitability. Computer mediated communications are increasingly being used instead of the asynchronous communication methods which are disruptive and leads to poor work productivity. At the same time, social media tools are increasingly being used by organizations for lead generation, informing the customers about the available products and services and as points of sale for different offerings. Beside marketing and sharing of information in an organization, social media tools could also be used to identify experts, opportunities and potential business partners. In addition, it could be used to improve employees’ motivation and creating a sense of community through the accumulation of a digital reputation. Lastly, social media could be useful in increasing brand awareness through sales promotions and discounts, improving customer relations, retention of cumulative organizational knowledge, enhancing the effectiveness of viral marketing, relationship development, and enhancing innovation. PART B Moorhead, Anne, Hazlett Diane, Harrison Laura, Carroll Jeniffer, Irwin Anthea, and Hoving Ciska. “A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication.” J Med Internet Res 15.4(2013): 85 In this article, Moorhead et al investigates the use of social media tools in the healthcare sector (85). Moorhead et al. reviews quantitative randomized and nonrandomized studies conducted between January 2002 and February 2012 (85). According to the Moorhead et al social media tools can be used to provide health information to the public and consumers, and facilitate dialogue between patients and health professionals (85). Moorhead et al. observes that already there are sites such as PatientsLikeMe where patients and physicians can share medical-related information, but their work raises the issues of safety of the patients and the strength of the doctor-patient relationship (85). Sharing of information on the social media also raises quality concerns. Just to illustrate further, Moorhead et al. observes that through content communities, individuals can share health information on medications, symptoms and diagnoses (85). Likewise, the general public can share medical related information, and experiences of disease management, exploration and diagnosis through blogs and social network sites. However, the reliability of the information found on social media sites cannot be verified and so their use will remain limited for. The article by Moorhead et al. also raises the issue of whether medical practitioners are willing to use social media tools given that there is limited evidence to show online communities positively impacts on people’s health (85). Valenzuela Sebastian, Arriagada Arturo, and Scherman Andres. “A trend study of social media and protest behavior: Facebook, Twitter and youth mobilization in Chile (2009-2012).” American Behavioral Scientist, 3(2013): 12-16 The available literature has focused much on how social media tools can be used to improve communication capabilities in an organization. Events that occurred during the spring, suggests that social media has an extended role in promoting good governance. In this article, Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman sought to investigate the social media-protest relationship using data collected from the 2011 students’ demonstrations in Chile. In the article, Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman suggest that social media supports and maintains uprisings and protests by acting as information distribution centers. This article, gives us information on how the social media impacts positively on political participation using real examples. The article resonates well with the honeycomb framework and its elements such as sharing, groups and relationships. The article by Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman suggests that the usage of the social media is affected by many factors including the social economic status. In this regard, Valenzuela, Arriagada and Scherman find that high-income groups are more likely to use social media tools than lower-income groups. The article also questions the reliability of the social media tools and how they are effective in capturing and maintaining the attention of the users. Dewan, Sanjeev, and Ramaprasad Jui. “Social Media, Traditional Media, and Music Sales.” Management Information Systems Quarterly 3.2 (2013): 34 The article by Dewan and Ramaprasad examines the impact of the social media on the music sales, and the outcomes of this study, raises an important question; up-to what point should the new media be used to promote products and services? To answer this question it is instructive to revisit the findings of this study. In this study, Dewan and Ramaprasad found out that the use of radio play impacted positively on the sale of individual songs but blog buzz impacts negatively on the same. Selling of unbundled songs on the social media is not helpful to the musicians and maybe, they should look for other avenues. In contrast, using blog buzz to promote albums leads to positive outcomes. In sum, the article seems to suggest that selling products that are likely to be pirated over the social media should be avoided. Instead, the article advises the seller to use the mainstream mass media in the promotion of such products and services. The article further raises the issue of whether social media is a suitable avenue of providing consumers with samples of digital products. Indeed, as Dewan and Ramaprasad argue sampling of digital products over the social media may encourage the consumers to purchase complementary products. Works Cited Cane, Mike. The Computer Phone Book. New American Library, 1986. Print Dewan, Sanjeev, and Ramaprasad Jui. “Social Media, Traditional Media, and Music Sales.” Management Information Systems Quarterly 3.2 (2013): 34. Print. Moorhead, Anne, Hazlett Diane, Harrison Laura, Carroll Jeniffer, Irwin Anthea, and Hoving Ciska. “A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication.” J Med Internet Res 15.4(2013): 85. Print. Valenzuela, Sebastian, Arriagada Arturo, and Scherman Andres. “A trend study of social media and protest behavior: Facebook, Twitter and youth mobilization in Chile (2009-2012).” American Behavioral Scientist 3(2013): 12-16. Print. Read More