The document summarizes key topics discussed in a social media and online communities class. It begins by introducing different social media types like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. It then discusses in more detail how these services work, like using hashtags on Twitter, personal profiles versus Facebook pages, and using blogs to drive traffic. The document also covers mobile sharing apps, analytics and other functions of social media before concluding with blogging best practices.

1. COMP 113
Social Media & Online Communities, Summer School 2012
2: Services and blogging

2. Today
 Chat
 Class reps voting
 Project groups allocated (?)
 We are talking about:
– Social media types
– Blogging
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3. PART 1: Social media services
3

4. Logo quiz
1. Twitter 7. YouTube
2. Facebook 8. Myspace
3. Tumblr 9. FriendFeed
4. LinkedIN 10. Diigo
5. Google 11. Email
6. LastFM 12. RSS
4

5. Social Network Sites (SNS)
 Build, manage, and publish public connections to
friends, family, contacts, colleagues, strangers, ...
 Built around:
– Everyday life
– Business
– Photos
– Music
– Bookmarks
– Pets
– ...

6. 6

7. Facebook: what is it?
 Social network site (SNS)
 Advertising platform
 Developer platform
 Video and photo sharing
site
 Search engine
 Largest online community
in the world
 Successful business
 Culturally significant
 ...?
7

8. 8

9. Personal vs. Pages
Admin/like

10. Characteristics
 Separate from personal profiles
 Focus on “page” not individuals
 “Like” is not the same as “friend”
 Groups also available
 Own/administer more than one page
 Can identify as a “page”

11. http://www.involver.com/applications/

12. LinkedIN
 Largest professional social network site
 Users: 120 million
 Created in 2002
 Valuation: $8 billion
 Utility: networking, job recruitment, groups,
recommendations, subscriptions

14. Photo/video/audio sharing
 Easily publish and share
multimedia content
 Tags to identify and
organise
 Find and make connections
 E.g., Flickr, YouTube,
LastFM, ...

15. RSS Feeds & aggregators
Real
Simple
Syndication
 Subscribe to dynamic
content
 Construct own
“newspaper”
 Redistribute content, e.g.,
Facebook

16. Wikis
 Hawaiian word for "fast"
 Wikis are user/community editable web pages
 Anyone can add and edit content
 Changes saved and can be reverted

17. Discussion Forums
 Oldest form of online community
 Indexable therefore searchable
 Established community roles
 Issues include:
– arguments
– spam
– bots
– trolls

18. Blogs (Web Logs)
 Allows easy self-publishing
 Posts appear in descending
order
 Main Features:
– Journal Entries
– Comments
– Syndication (RSS)
– Authorship
 Services:
– Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger,
Posterous,

19. COMMERCIAL BREAK
Everyone outside!
19

20. Twitter
 Social messaging service (SMS)
 Simple, quick, immediate, and real-time
 Post “tweets” with max. 140 characters
 Publicly accessible (cf. RT radios)
 Follow and be followed (no reciprocity)
 Accessible by web, mobile, desktop (& space!)

21. What do people do?
Talk & share  Manage events
Break news  Monitor trends
Customer service  Discover new things
Build networks  Stalk celebrities
Crowd source …

22. Action examples
 Tweet  Search (tip!)
 Re-tweet  Lists
 Favourite  Hashtags (#)
 Follow/unfollow  Author attributions
 Block/Report (^..)
Working with your table mates:
• Find out what these are?
• Why they are needed?
22

23. Tweet breakdown
Retweet Shortened link
Reply
Hashtag

24. Author attribution
24

25. #newtwitter

26. #newnewtwitter

27. Following vs. followed
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28. [Made by the Common Craft Show]

29. Twitter data ecosystem & API
websites Tweeple
Tweet ...
Tweet ...
twitter
“The cloud” “The cloud”
Tweet ...
Tweet ...
API

30. Life Stream Aggregators
 Pull together personal media
 Better manage online activities
 Unify online identity
 Share with others
 E.g., Friendfeed, Soup.io

31. The mobile internet
 Instragram
 Twitter for iPhone
 Facebook
 Foursquare
 ...

32. Location sharing
 “Check-in” to:
– Venues
– Locations
– Businesses
 Comment on experience
 Share on other services
 “Gamification”

33. 33

35. Gamification
 Utilising gaming principles
to motivate participation
 Usually rewards system
based
 E.g., badges, mayoralties,
points, challenges,
completion

36. Social media analytics
 Measure social activity &
influence
 Real-time statistics
 Can be useful for ROI

37. 37

38. 38

40. Any others?

41. END OF PART 1

42. PART 2: Blogging
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43. Why blog?
 Drive traffic to your website (e.g., inbound
links, keywords)
 Create opportunities (serendipity)
 Develop & enhance reputation
 Attract new customers, fans, supporters, ...
 Generate a culture around the business
 Express a point of view

44. 45

48. How to blog?
 Choose your blog service - brand accordingly
 Integrate with website & social media
 Decide on publishing schedule
 Prepare range of topics (keywords)
 Follow general web writing guidelines
 Provide subscription options (email, RSS)

49. Services
 Posterous (http://posterous.com)
 Tumblr (http://tumblr.com)
 Blogger (http://blogger.com)
 Wordpress (http://wordpress.com)

50. Writing Guidelines
 Write descriptive, keyword laden titles
 Write short paragraphs (1-3 sentences)
 Be clear, simple & informal
 Incorporate keywords in text
 Include other media to augment story
 Invite replies with questions or comment
requests

51. END OF PART 2
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