Social media marketing:
Introduction
MARK 490 Week 1
Topics for today’s class
• Introduction to the course
• Definitions of social media and social
networks
• The history and growth of the
“participative internet”
• Some key concepts in understanding
social networks
• Who is doing what online and where and
what are they doing?
INTRODUCTION TO THE
COURSE
Where to find course resources
• Course philosophy
– “Be tools agnostic! Build engagement strategy
around function, goals, and purpose - not
specific tools.” Baer & Naslund
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Course outline
Course website
Assignment information
Consent form
SOME KEY DEFINITIONS AND
CONCEPTS
Terms and Definitions
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Social media
Social network
Network effect
Social Graph
Dunbar Number / Attention economy
Social media
• "a group of Internet-based applications that
build on the ideological and technological
foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the
creation and exchange of user-generated
content.“ Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein
• Also sometimes called “consumer-generated
media”
• So this defines social media as a technical
mechanism - but what makes it *social*?
Social network (hint, it’s all
about people)
• A network of social
interactions and
personal
relationships.” Oxford
English Dictionary
• “Networks are held
together based on
interpersonal
relationships” Daniel
Newman
• Community?
Key concept: the network effect
• The network effect –
what does it mean?
• Related concept: “walled
garden”
Image Source: Wikipedia
2 approaches to getting a viable
network effect – solving the chicken
and egg problem
Building the Next WhatsApp or Instagram: The Network
Effect Playbook
1. the ‘connection first’
strategy: get as many
people connect as you
can (Facebook,
Twitter)
2. The “content-first”
strategy: “provide
users with tools to
create a corpus of
content, and then
enable conversations
around that content”
(Pinterest, Instagram)
Key concept: The social graph
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Social graph defined:
"the global mapping of
everybody and how
they're related“ (Brad
Fitzpatrick)
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Think: “six degrees of
separation”
Using Social Graphs to
Understand Your
Network Part 1 and
Part 2
Data visualizations of your
social graph are available
from LinkedIn and
Facebook
But what about Dunbar’s Number?
• Is there a biological constraint on social interaction?
• Dunbar (1992) measured “correlation between
neocortical volume and typical social group size in a
wide range of primates and human communities”
• Found the maximum number of “stable interpersonal
relationships” that can be maintained to be between 100200
• A person's time is finite – this gives rise to the idea that
“attention and time are scarce resources”. Hence the
concept of “The Attention Economy”
• Seth Godin appears to agree in this short video
Modeling Users' Activity on Twitter Networks: Validation of Dunbar's Number
How a network collapses
• The death of
Friendster –
lessons learned
• It takes more
than a large
number of active
users, those
users need
strong ties or the
network will
collapse
The Friendster Autopsy: How a Social Network Dies (Robert McMillan. Wired. February 2013)
Messaging services utilize “close ties” –
very rapid growth recently
From: Mary Meeker, Internet Trends 2014 (KPCB)
Frequency of communication more
valuable than # of contacts
From: Mary Meeker, Internet Trends 2014 (KPCB)
THE HISTORY AND GROWTH OF
THE “PARTICIPATIVE INTERNET”
Pre-web social media –
70s & 80s online life
MUD (Multi
User
Dungeon)
1978
UseNet /
Newsgroups
– search here
1978
BBS (Bulletin
Board
System)
1979
Listserv
(automated
mailing list)
1985
The Well –
the first
“virtual
community”
still going,
kind of
1986
1988
IRC (Internet
Relay Chat) –
still used by
many people
Then came the web –
March, 1989
• The First Generation Web (1989 – 2003-ish)
– Publishing medium; predominantly one-way / asymmetrical
• The Next Generation: Web 2.0 – What is Web 2.0? (Tim
O’Reilly)
• Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us - the classic viral
video by Mike Wesch from 2007
– The participative web
– Publishing tools in the hands of users – communication now 2way
– User-generated content
– The web is “us”
– Focus on the user/participant
– Media becomes “social”
The first “modern” social media
Six Degrees
– first social
network
with user
profiles
(closed in
2001)
1997
Napster
(eventually
merged
with
Rhapsody
in 2011)
1999
LiveJournal
(still alive
and living
in Russia)
1999
Epinions
(killed off
in 2014 by
owner
eBay)
1999
Blogger
(acquired
by Google
in 2003)
1999
Friendster
(died 2009)
2001
Wikipedia
2002
2003
MySpace
(sold by
NewsCorp
in 2011.
Relaunched
2013)
Institutions versus collaboration
• Clay Shirky's forward-looking TED talk
from 2005: Institutions vs. Collaboration
(20m)
WHO IS DOING WHAT ONLINE
AND WHERE AND WHAT ARE
THEY DOING?
Social networking demographics
• The following slides contain data from the Pew
Research Internet Project (USA data only)
• Up to date Canadian statistics more difficult to get
– eMarketer: Canada Neck and Neck with US on Social
Network, Facebook Penetration (2014)
– eMarketer: Social Usage varies between men and
women in Canada (2015)
– ComScore: 2013 Canada Digital Future in Focus
Report
– Canadian Digital Media Network
Comparison of usage
• Pinterest,
Instagram,
Twitter, and
LinkedIn
growing, but
Facebook has
flat growth but
remains
dominant
Pew Research Internet Project. Social Media Update 2014
Frequency of social media site use
• Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter have
highest engagement
levels, with multiple
daily usage.
Pew Research Internet Project. Social Media Update 2014
Demographics
• Facebook popular across a diverse mix of
demographic groups – most growth among seniors
• Pinterest - women still more likely than men to be
Pinterest users (42% of online population versus 13%)
• LinkedIn - especially popular among college
graduates and higher income households.
• Twitter and Instagram - younger adults, urban
dwellers, and non-whites.
• Substantial overlap between Twitter and Instagram
user bases
• Demographics of key social networking platforms –
useful for the detail
Pew Research Internet Project. Social Media Update 2014
Number of social media sites used
• 52% of internet
users use two or
more of the social
media sites
(Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest,
and LinkedIn) –
multiple site usage
being a rising trend
Pew Research Internet Project. Social Media Update 2014
Social media matrix
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The proportion of
Facebook users who also
use another platform
increased significantly
since August 2013 for
each platform. That is,
there are more Facebook
users this year who also
use another service.
Significant level of
overlap between
Instagram and Twitter
users – 58% of Twitter
users also use
Instagram, and 52% of
Instagram users also use
Twitter.
Pew Research Internet Project. Social Media Update 2014
Global Web Index January 2015
To end today’s class
• A look at your use of social media
• Short anonymous survey on Google Drive
• http://web.viu.ca/thomasb/mark_490_survey.html
• (link is also on the course website with the
materials for today’s class)