Social Networks

Tarnjeet Singh Plahe

1.Types of Social Networks2.Social Networks &

Business3.Benefits & Limitations4.Security of Information?5.Future of Social

Networks6.Social Media Revolution

(Video)

plahet@aston.ac.uk

1.

Typ

es o

f S

ocia

l N

etw

ork

s “Broad-range” social networking

sites All interests and backgrounds e.g.

“Niche” social networking sites Targeted at specific audiences e.g.

60 million members8

4 billion images5

400 million users1

75 million users2 1+ billion views a day20 hours uploaded every

minute3

15 million unique visitors6

125 million users4

30 million members7

2.

Socia

l N

etw

ork

s &

B

usin

ess

Businesses need to keep up with the pace of social media whilst leveraging its power to their greatest advantage

Public visibility Social networking strategy

Timing is key, as fast moving websites require timely updates and commitment to fresh posts on a regular basis.

Specialist blogs and online forums Competitive advantage

Article: The Guardian - BBC tell news staff to embrace social media Technology is changing the nature of journalism Wider range of opinion; giving access to range of voices Improves reporting – allows closer coverage i.e. Haiti earthquake Twitter and RSS readers allow journalists to better understand audience

3.

Ben

efi

ts &

Lim

itati

on

s Benefits

Cost effective strategy e.g. viral marketing Great knowledge sharing approach Opportunity to discover and be discovered by

collaborators and even potential employers Expanding upon and building a global business Builds credibility – increasing customers’

confidence

Limitations Risk of decline in employee productivity levels Can be time consuming and labour intensive Need to be adaptive to fast pacing changes in

social media Lack of anonymity Risk of scammers and identity theft

4.

Secu

rity

of

info

rmati

on

? Potential exploitation of security holes to access and abuse private details

Combination of personal details with visual images – potentially dangerous

Personal information is stored in countless databases

How secure is this information? Article:

Facebook: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit

Conspiracy theory…? An interesting video about who collects our

information on Facebook: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOfgUVpb1WA Is Big Brother really watching spying on us all?

5.

Fu

ture

of

Socia

l N

etw

ork

s

“ ”…we will no longer search for

products and services via a search engine, rather they

will find us via social media.9

A semantic web approach Social Searching

Sponsored listings Organic listings Social graph listings

Universal identities Aggregation of multiple profiles

on different social networking sitesClick for info on book

6.

Socia

l M

ed

ia R

evolu

tion

Long version (4 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Short version (2 mins): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhPgUcjGQAw

Th

an

k y

ou

for

watc

hin

gAny questions…

Refe

ren

ces

[1] ARTHUR, C. (2010). Facebook is the new threat to Google [online]. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/09/facebook-google-news-search [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[2] Network World. (2010). Is Twitter losing its luster? [online]. Available from: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/020110-social-networking-twitter.html [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[3] Google. (2010). General YouTube Stats (Sundance 2010) [online]. Available from: http://sites.pressatgoogle.com/sundance2010/general-youtube-stats [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[4 ] CrunchBase. (2010). MySpace Company Profile [online]. Available from: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/myspace [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[5] E-consultancy.com Ltd. (2010). 20+ mind-blowing social media statistics revisited [online]. Available from: http://econsultancy.com/blog/5324-20+-mind-blowing-social-media-statistics-revisited [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[6] Flixster. (2010). About Us [online]. Available from: http://www.flixster.com/misc/about [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[7] Wikipedia. (2010). Last.fm [online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last.fm [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[8] LinkedIn. (2008). About Us | LinkedIn - Public Relations [online]. Available from: http://press.linkedin.com/about [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]

[9] Socialnomics – Social Media Blog. (2010). 4 Social Media Questions Answered [online]. Available from: http://socialnomics.net/2010/02/03/4-social-media-questions-answered [Accessed 13 FEB 2010]