Social media has enabled crowd behavior to become independent of time and location. Examples include the 2011 Egyptian revolution which relied on Facebook and the 2011 London riots which spread via social media. Virtual crowds can belong to multiple online communities simultaneously through tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit. These tools also allow information to spread virally very quickly with little direction. Businesses must track social media buzz using tools like Twitter, which allows public messaging and searching of tweets. Third party tools provide additional search capabilities and access to older tweets.

1. Web 2.0 and Social
Media for Business
Chapter 7: Social Buzz and Viral Phenomena: Part A
Roger McHaney, Kansas State University

2. Time and Geography Independence
Web 2.0 has enabled crowd behavior to become independent of time
and geographic location. Their manifestation can be vastly different
and can be triggered by social media.
Examples of social media enabling crowd behavior
Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square Revolution against former president Hosni
Mubarak relied heavily on Facebook pages maintained by a rotating
staff of twenty during the uprising (BBC News, 2011)
2011 London Riots where four days of looting and rioting moved across
the U.K. Made possible by rioters' use of social media, such as
Facebook and Twitter (Rutledge, 2011)
K-State Flash Mob Rave

3. Flash Mobs
YouTubeVideo

4. Virtual Crowds and Business
People can be separated in time and space, or belong to
multiple crowds simultaneously through use of social media
such as Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Reddit.

5. Social Media: Multiple Functions
• Someone may belong to
communities organized with
social media tools
• Same tools may result in crowd-
inspired “waves” that move
through these communities at
incredible rates
• Waves lack leadership or
common purpose
• Often referred to as viral
• Enormous Business Implications

6. Social Media Tools
• Twitter, StumbleUpon,
Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest,
Foursquare and others
create an infrastructure
conducive to social buzz
• Tools such as Social
Mention, Mention,
WhosTalkin, and Klout
help businesses track
social buzz
• Big players: Facebook
and LinkedIn

7. Twitter (What is it?)
Video

8. Twitter for Business
Fundamental mechanism to facilitate communication
between businesses and their customer base
Basic idea: send and receive public messages (Tweets) up to
140 characters in length
Messages can be seen publically
Also stored sequentially on Web pages that can be searched
and reviewed
Intended to share information with followers but can be
accessed through public searches
Tweets from user’s subscribed accounts stored in a timeline
Result: vast information network storing millions of messages
Excellent for research and business intelligence applications

9. Twitter Searches
Searches use a
variety of tools
provided by Twitter
and third-party
organizations
Example Results from
Twitter’s Search Page

10. Using Twitter’s Search
Page
http://twitter.com/search

11. Twitter’s TweetDeck
www.tweetdeck.com
Uses Firefox or Chrome
Create an Account
Track and Organize Tweets

12. TweetDeck Example

13. Twitter’s TweetDeck Video
Video

14. Other Tweet Searches
14 Twitter communication is public
so Tweets are available to
everyone
Twitter’s default search only
extends a couple of weeks
A wide variety of third-party
applications have emerged to
provide additional search
capabilities and interface with
business intelligence tools
Competition is fierce and new
applications appear regularly

15. Other Tweet Searches
15

16. More Tweet Searches
16

17. 17

18. 18

19. Twitter Limitations
Searches limited by time and number of Tweets
accessible at any given time
Vast unorganized volume of Tweets have been
generated since 2006
In April 2010, Twitter donated public tweet
archive to U.S. Library of Congress
Every public Tweet will be preserved and
eventually made available to public
Historic donation removes social responsibility
from Twitter and enables rich, grass-roots level
history, generated as people lived through
events

20. Mission Critical Twitter Use
Mission critical
information may
be discovered by
mining Tweets.
Business needs
sophisticated
search tools.
http://www.tweetarchivist.com

21. What is Provided by TweetArchivist?
• Ability to understand more about
Tweets.
• Tweet Volume, Top Tweeters,
Number of ReTweets, Top Words, Top
URLs and the source of Tweets are all
summarized
• Discovering social chatter source
• Allows businesses to understand
more about clients, potential
markets, and competitors
• Information regarding business
opportunities, quality management
efforts, and general improvement is
provided

22. Some Businesses Can’t Wait
• Some organizations that need to analyze older (this may mean only
a few months!) Twitter content and cannot wait for the Library of
Congress
• Twitter’s full data feed, called its Firehose, provides all Tweets being
sent through Twitter
• Gnip currently provides access to Twitter’s data streams and dozens
of other social media feeds
• Gnip is an authorized reseller of Twitter data.
• Gnip extracts the subset relating to a particular firm, its products,
and other interests

23. Gnip

24. Business Suggestions
Businesses use Twitter for a variety of purposes: from marketing to
customer service to product development. Twitter can be powerful for
new companies and can result in the quick dissemination of
information.

25. From Jill Duffy:
https://twitter.com/jilleduffy
Follow Dr. McHaney at: @mchaney

26. Web 2.0 and Social
Media for Business
End of
Chapter 7 Part A

27. Slide Media from:
Slides Prepared by Professor Roger McHaney
Kansas State University PresenterMedia.com
Twitter: @mchaney support@presentermedia.com
Blog: http://mchaney.com
Email : mchaney@ksu.edu
4416 S. Technology Dr
Sioux Falls, SD 57106