This document summarizes key aspects of social communities from a chapter in a textbook. It discusses how individuals create digital profiles to participate in social communities. It also describes presence indicators that allow users to project themselves, such as availability icons, mood icons, friend lists, and status updates. The document outlines different types of social interactions on these communities, including direct private messages and passive consumption of content. It also examines characteristics of social networking sites, such as their target audience, the social objects that mediate relationships, and their degree of openness. Finally, it discusses how marketers can use social communities for paid media, earned media through engagement, and user-generated content campaigns.

1. SOCIAL COMMUNITIES
1-5
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Copyright

2. Chapter Objectives
2-5
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Explain how social communities enable user
participation and sharing
Compare and contrast social networking sites in
terms of three key dimensions
Describe how marketers use social communities for
branding and promotion
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3. Social Communities Zone
3-5

Digital You: The Social Profile
 Your profile is the foundation of your participation in social
communities. It is basically your digital self.
 Skins (or themes) are visual elements used to change the
aesthetic of a web page
 Identity reflectors are an option to have one’s profile reflected
back to them from the perspective of others
Click here to examine what these identity reflectors say about a person
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4. Social Communities Zone
4-5
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Presence indicators enable individuals to project
an identity more vividly to others within a
community. These indicators include:
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Availability icons: icons that indicate whether a
member is online and available for chat
Mood icons: icons that function much like emoticons,
enabling members to indicate mood
Friend lists: lists of friends within the network
Status updates: posts to the sites’ newsfeed; posts are
shared with friends in the network
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6. 6-5
Social Activities in Online
Communities
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Two types of social media conversations:
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Directed communications
Consumption communications
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7. 7-5
Social Activities in Online
Communities

Directed communications are one-to-one interactions on a social network
between two user.

Two forms of direct communication exist:
 Direct messages
 Instant messages
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8. 8-5
Social Activities in Online
Communities

Consumption communications are passive
communications. (For example, reading the feeds
others post.)
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9. Social Networking Sites
9-5
How do we interact with others on
social media platforms?
we mingle, we chat, and we share
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10. Social Networking Sites
10-5
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Status Casting occurs when you broadcast updates
to your news feed or activity stream.
Activity streams are the news feeds or “wall” (as
it’s known in Facebook) social networks use to
establish an ongoing point of connection between
network nodes
A nudge is a tool for reminding someone to
socialize
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12. Social Networking Sites
12-5
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The top three reasons people share content “socially”
1.
They find it interesting and/or entertaining
2.
They think it could be helpful to others
3.
To get a laugh.
Click here to see what ShareThis Widget can do
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13. Social Networking Sites
13-5
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Typical sharing activities include:
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An activity stream is a tool to share a short piece of
content with a network.
Gift applications enable members to present virtual gifts to
their friends.
Ongoing sharing means working with partners to include
activities from other sites in an activity stream on a
partnered site.
Uploading functionalities are applications that make it
easy to share from many locations.
Embed codes let people share content where they wish.
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14. 14-5
Characteristics of Social
Networking Sites
Social networking sites typically vary in
terms of three important dimensions:
1. Audience and degree of specialization
2. The social objects that mediate the relationships
among members
3. Degree of decentralization or openness
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15. Audience Specialization
15-5
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Social networking sites can be internal or
external.

Internal social network provides a method of
communication and collaboration that is more
dynamic and interactive
External social network is open to people who are
not affiliated with the site’s sponsor.

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16. 16-5
Social Objects and Passion-Centric
Sites

The ability of an object to inspire social interaction
is known as a vertical network.
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17. 17-5
Decentralization, Identity
Portability, and Openness
One of the big issues social media needs to
confront is how to let people easily access multiple
sites and understand where they go and why.
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18. 18-5
Decentralization, Identity
Portability, and Openness
Many social networking site members are social
media omnivores – they eagerly participate in
several different platforms.
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19. 19-5
Decentralization, Identity
Portability, and Openness

Identity portability would allow an individual to
maintain a single profile that would provide access
across social networking sites with a single login
and shared information.
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20. 20-5
Decentralization, Identity
Portability, and Openness

Under the open source model, developers post
their programs on a public site and a community of
volunteers is free to tinker with them, develop other
applications using the code, then give their changes
away for free.
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21. 21-5
Marketing Applications in the Social
Community Zone
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Paid Media in Social Communities
Earned Media and Brand Engagement
User-Generated Content Campaigns
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22. Paid Media in Social Communities
22-5
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23. 23-5
Paid Media in Social Communities continued

Social ads are online display ads that incorporate
user data in the ad or in the targeting of the ad and
enable some form of social interaction within the
ad unit or landing page.

There are three variations on social ads:
1.
2.
3.
A social engagement ad contains ad creative (image
and text) along with an option to encourage the viewer
to engage with the brand (e.g., clickable “Like”
button).
A social context ad includes ad creative, an
engagement device, and personalized referral content
from people in the viewer’s network.
Organic social ads are shared on a person’s activity
stream following a brand interaction (such as liking the
brand).
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24. 24-5
Earned Media and Brand
Engagement
Earned reach (the breadth and quality of contact
with users) gained when people share positive
brand opinions and branded content with others is
invaluable because of the influence attributed to
individual, personalized brand endorsements.
Influence posts occur when an opinion leader
publishes brand-relevant content such as a blog
post in social media.
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26. User-Generated Content Campaigns
26-5
Brands can seed many forms of content in social
communities as they try to boost engagement and
sharing. One of the most popular tools is the use of:
User-generated content (UGC) campaigns –
these are campaigns that offer a way for brands to
invite consumers to engage and interact while they
develop shareable content.
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27. 27-5
Social Presence: Brands as
Relationship Nodes
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Brands may create a brand profile within selected
social networking communities. In this way, the
brand acts as a node in the network’s social graph.
The fan base is an indicator of the brand’s success
in establishing a known presence within a
community.
Return on emotion (conceptually) assesses the
extent to which a brand has delivered a value in
exchange for the emotional attachment fans have
awarded it.
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28. 28-5
Is The Brand Ready for Social
Communities?
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Brands should ask these questions before deciding
whether social relationships will work for a specific
brand.
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Is the brand set up for engagement?
If the brand participates in social media, where should the
brand be?
How can the brand’s profiles be developed in such a way as
to reflect the brand’s personality?
If “fan pages” exist among brand loyalists on social
networking sites, how can the brand leverage the fan sites
to better meet its objectives?
How can the brand integrate its social network presence
into other campaign components?
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29. ALL IN ONE READING
29-5
Book V

30. Getting Likes
30
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Use your brand’s Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest
accounts to bring in new community
members. Without spamming, invite people to join
your Facebook Page from time to time. If space
permits, also share the benefits of becoming a
member of your Facebook community.
Invite your community to share. While Facebook
frowns upon contests and events where people have
to like a Page to participate, there’s nothing wrong
with inviting your community to share content they
like.
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Hall

31. Getting Likes
31

Create the type of content your community will
share. Have you ever logged on to your personal
Facebook Page to find that your friends are sharing a
funny video, provocative image, or informative article?
This is the type of content people enjoy sharing on
their Walls. If your Facebook Wall is nothing but brand
updates, that’s not very compelling. Instead, share
informative or fun items with your community, and not
only will they share in return, but they may also inspire
others to like your brand.
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Hall

32. Getting Likes
32
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Place share buttons on your blog and website. If you
want people to share your content, you have to give
them a way to share. Having a Facebook share
button, included in those shown in Figure 1-8, on your
blog or website will encourage readers to like your
Page.
Be consistent. If you post engaging or compelling
content every day, folks are more likely to like your
brand. If you’re sporadic and haphazard with your
content, you won’t receive many Likes in return.
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33. Getting Likes
33

Place share information in offline content. If you
have offline content — for example, if yours is a
supermarket brand with a weekly flyer or a retail shop
with posters on the windows — be sure to let
shoppers know how they can follow your brand on the
social networks. If you’re a restaurant, add the URL
for your social networking channels on the back of
your menus or have postcards handy for customers.
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34. Goals
34
Drive sales: Has one of your customers been in the
news as a result of using your product? If so, share that
story. Do the ingredients in your products have health
benefits? If so, talk about them and share other healthy
living tips. Do you offer a business-oriented coaching
service? If so, use your Facebook Page to share tips
and best practices
 Grow your community: If your goal is to grow a
community of customers and fans, your content should
be more conversational. The people who join your
Facebook Page will do so because of the engaging
content, which will help to establish trust. This leads to
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. sales through customer loyalty
community growth and publishing as Prentice
Hall
and word-of-mouth marketing.


35. Goals
35
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Grow your mailing list: Do you want more people to sign
up for your newsletter? If so, offer sneak peeks of what
they will receive if they sign up.
Create brand awareness: When you share news and
updates regarding your brand, it shows up in News
Feeds belonging to the people in your brand. Depending
on how their settings are set up, when they Like or
comment on your posts, those actions can show up on
their friends’ and family’s News Feeds as well. When
people share your content it helps to turn your brand into
a household name.
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36. Goals
36
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Establish expertise: If your goal is to teach and make a
name for yourself as an expert, use Facebook to share
facts and drop tips. This is especially useful in selling
books, providing informational products and services, or
promoting blogs.
R
eceive feedback: If your goal is to receive customer
feedback, use Facebook to create pools, ask questions,
and pick the brains of the people who use your product
or service. Just be sure you’re ready to receive some
brutally honest answers.
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Hall

37. Goals
37

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Drive traffic: If your goal is to drive traffic, link
to your blog posts and web articles and create
discussions around the day’s topics.
Multiple goals: Most brands have multiple
goals for their Facebook brand Pages. Mixing
and matching content to serve many different
purposes is okay. As long as you’re not
spamming your community with links, you’ll be
fine.
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Hall

38. Good Facebook Content
38
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Don’t make everything serious and deep. People like to
keep brand interaction light. While thought-provoking
questions & discussions are part of a good content
strategy, don’t forget to add humor to the mix.
Brevity counts. Though you can be wordier than, say,
twitter, Facebook isn’t your blog. Keep updates brief.
Too many words and you begin to lose people.
Stay on topic. When you write about a mishmash of
different things having nothing to do with your niche,
people get confused.
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39. Good Facebook Content
39
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Try to create content that’s open-ended. Give your
community opportunity to respond. Ask questions or talk
about the sorts of things that provoke a discussion. Make
sure everything you post is inviting a response.
Let your comments be your guide. What kinds of questions
does your community ask on your page? What posts do
they respond most to? When they do respond, what do
they say? Look to your community for topics.
Proofread everything you post. When you don’t take the
time to read over everything and eliminate errors and
typos, it tells your community you don’t care enough about
them to communicate error free.
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40. Good Facebook Content
40

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Look to your blog or website traffic for ideas. If people
are using search terms, phrases, and certain topics to
land on your content, use these same topics when
creating content for your Facebook community.
Don’t be afraid to court controversy. You don’t want to
always have negativity and squabbles on your Facebook
Page, but the occasional controversial topic does
wonders to create a discussion.
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Hall

41. Desirable Content
41
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Photos: People share more photos than anything else.
Make sure that your photos are relevant, thoughtprovoking, discussion-worthy, and even amusing, but
please don’t make them offensive.
Funny or amusing content: People like to share content
that makes them laugh. There’s nothing wrong with
posting tasteful but amusing photographs, blog posts, or
videos.
Heartwarming stories: People love a good success or
comeback story. They enjoy hearing tales of folks who
beat the odds. People share inspiration.
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42. Desirable Content
42
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Discounts: Most people who follow brands do so in
hopes of receiving special perks that they can share with
their friends and family.
Viral videos: Admit it; you love to share a funny video.
That’s how videos go viral. Post relevant, fun videos on
your Page for more shares.
Lists, tips, and how to’s: People enjoy sharing learning
experiences. Share tips or steps to success.
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43. Polls, Quizzes, Contests
43
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Polls can be fun and frivolous, or you can use them to collect information
about the consumer. People like to participate in polls because they feel as
if they’re part of a campaign. Plus, creating a poll isn’t a big time
commitment; a simple click of the button, and you have their vote.
For even more community interaction, try creating quizzes. Quizzes aren’t
necessarily a way to gather information from your community, but if they’re
entertaining, the people who take the quizzes will share them with others in
the community.
Contests are another way to perform community outreach and raise
awareness of your brand. However, like selling, Facebook has specific rules
about contests. If you’re going to give something away or feature another
type of contest, you may only do so using a third-party app. Posting
contests as a status update is against Facebook’s Terms of Service.
Facebook’s app section and sites such as appbistro.com list many apps for
brands wishing to host contests on their pages
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44. The Right Mix of Content
44
Don’t make it about the sale. If you make your FB
community feel as if they’re only there to be pitched to,
they won’t stick around long. Have a true community and
make it about more than sales. Make it about
engagement, interaction, fun.
 Share things that catch attention in a good way. Visual
content always gets the best reaction. Photos and videos
represent the content that is most shared, liked,
commented on, and talked about on FB.
 Be mindful of how often you’re posting each day. Many
brands only post 1-2 times per day. Try not to go more
than 3 or 4 updates per day max. If you post too often,
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you’ll lose fans.
Hall
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45. The Right Mix of Content
45
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• Keep an editorial calendar. Having an editorial
calendar helps you space out the types of content you
post and also allows for consistency.
• Make your community feel special. Offer perks only
available to your Facebook community.
• Don’t overlook calls to action. Encourage your
Facebook fans to visit your website, check out deals,
and follow you on other social networks.
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