Introduction to Social Media (Week 1)

Introduction to Social Media
Assoc. Prof. Axel Bruns
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

a.bruns@qut.edu.au – @snurb_dot_info
http://mappingonlinepublics.net/

Linda Elen Olsen
University of Bergen, Norway

linda.olsen@infomedia.uib.no - @lindaeo

http://mappingonlinepublics.net

Course Outline
o Week 1:
o Introduction and setup: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
o Developing a social media persona / presence

o Week 2:
o Understanding social networks: audiences? followers? influencers?
o Social media analytics: Hootsuite and other tools

o Week 3:
o Social media campaigning: dos and don‟ts of corporate social media
o Ideas workshop and wrap-up


INTRODUCTIONS


Axel Bruns
o Associate Professor, Creative Industries Faculty
o ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation
o Research leader for social media: esp. blogs, Twitter
o See http://mappingonlinepublics.net/ for details


PLATFORMS: FACEBOOK


Facebook
o Overview:
o Largest global social
network
o ~1b worldwide users
o ~11m Australian
accounts
o Difficult to determine
unique users / active
accounts

(source: http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statistics/australia)


Facebook Basics
o “Social Graph” approach:
o Strong focus on social networks
o Reciprocal connections: friendship requests must be approved
o Detailed control over message visibility


Facebook Interactions
o Posting, mentioning, commenting, liking, sharing, …:
o Posts: to my own timeline, visible to everyone / friends /
custom groups…
o Mentions: posts referring to someone else, visible to them
o Comments: on a friend‟s post, visible to them and their
friends
o Likes: simple thumbs-up on a friend‟s post or
comment, visible to them and their friends
o Shares: pass along a post to your own or a friend‟s
timeline, to a group or page, or as a private message
o … and many more …

o Advanced interactions:
o Special types of activity: e.g. events, questions, etc.
o Activity updates by Facebook apps: e.g. music, games, …


Facebook Timeline
o Timeline:
o Recent introduction, meant to show all life events
o Users can add pre-Facebook events (birth, school, marriage, etc.)
o Criticised as blatant information grab – privacy concerns
o Potential to generate substantial new information base for Facebook
o Allows for more detailed user profiling (valuable for advertisers)


Facebook and Privacy
o Privacy concerns:
o Facebook business model built around visibility of content
o Push to encourage users to make everything they post public
o Frequent changes to privacy settings, often confusing
o New features usually introduced with „public‟ default setting

 Check and re-check your privacy settings frequently!


Facebook Groups and Pages
o Groups:
o Invited members only, different
visibility options
o Useful for established, stable
communities

o Pages:
o Public space for
brands, businesses, celebrities,
etc.
o Available from options bar:

o Users subscribe by liking the
page – no need for reciprocal
friendship approvals


PLATFORMS: TWITTER


Twitter
o Overview:
o Major global social network
o ~500m worldwide users
o ~2m Australian accounts
o Best guess on Australian userbase:
o 25-55 age bracket
o More likely to be urban, affluent, educated (male?)


Twitter Basics
o Flat, open network structure:
o Two types of accounts:
o Public – visible to all, even to non-registered visitors
o Private – visible only to approved followers
o No message-level visibility controls
o Non-reciprocal following
o Very limited options for customising profile pages

o Message format:
o Designed as SMS-style live medium – limit of 140 characters per post
o Simple functionality - @mentions, #hashtags, embedded links
o Viewing of older posts increasingly difficult as time passes


Twitter Interactions
o @mentions:
o Posts containing @user become visible to user (even without following)
o Posts beginning @user visible only to sender and receiver, and mutual followers –
convention to use .@user to bypass this
o “RT @user [original tweet]” is a
retweet of user‟s message (also
MT, HT, via, and other similar
variations), possibly with comments
o Alternative: „button‟ retweets

o #hashtags:
o Posts containing #topic are marked
as relating to topic
o Anyone can create a hashtag
o Users can search for / subscribe
to hashtags
o Hashtagged posts are visible even
without following
o Twitter tracks „trending‟ (rapidly
growing) hashtags


The Australian Twittersphere?

Follower/followee network:
~120,000 Australian Twitter users
(of ~950,000 known accounts by early 2012)
colour = outdegree, size = indegree

Real Estate
Jobs
Property
HR
Business
Parenting

Thematic Clusters
Design
Business
Property
Mums Craft
Arts
Web Social Media
Creative Tech Food
Perth PR Wine
Marketing / PR Advertising
IT
Beer
Tech
Creative
Social
Design
ICTs
NGOs Fashion
Utilities
Farming Social Policy Beauty
Services
Agriculture Net Culture
Adelaide
Opinion Books Theatre
Greens News Literature Film Arts
Publishing
ALP
Hardline Progressives
News @KRuddMP
Conservatives
@JuliaGillard Radio
Conservatives TV Music
Journalists Triple J
Talkback
Dance
Breakfast TV
Hip Hop
Cycling Celebrities
Union
Evangelicals Swimming
NRL V8s

Football Teens
Christians
Cricket Teaching Hillsong
AFL e-Learning
Schools Jonas Bros.
Beliebers

Twitter and Privacy
o Simple setup:
o Public vs. private accounts
o Does not protect from (manual) retweets

o Ephemeral medium:
o Older messages difficult to retrieve
o Twitter only provides 1-2 weeks of past messages (for users, hashtags,
keywords, etc.), even to original senders themselves
o But other archives may exist – e.g. Library of Congress Twitter archive

 Twitter is a public medium (more so than Facebook)


Twitter Lists
o Collections of Twitter accounts:
o Any Twitter user can create lists
o Can be public (visible to all) or private (visible only to the creator)
o Users can subscribe to public lists: i.e. follow all list members at once
o Useful for tracking accounts, following posts by specific groups, …


PLATFORMS: LINKEDIN


Introduction to Linkedin
15.01.2013
Linda Elen Olsen
Linda.Olsen@infomedia.uib.no

general uses

• Making new connections

• Maintaining relationships

• Updated information

• Awareness

why networking with linkedin
• Online visibility

• Searchable

• Ties become more visible

• Updated business card

• Easy to maintain weak ties, and re-connect

• People will help you!

PLATFORMS IN COMPARISON


Some Comparisons
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Personal Profile Yes Yes, but very limited Yes

Corporate Profile Yes, through pages Yes, but very limited Yes

Social network Strong focus on Flat network, strong Strong focus on
structure reciprocal connections and weak ties together reciprocal connections
Group functionality Yes – public and private None, except user lists Yes – public and private

Wider audience reach Yes, through pages Yes, through account Limited
itself
Message dissemination Mainly along friendship Can be fast and wide, Mainly through
lines especially for hashtags network connections
Real-time engagement Yes, but not core focus Yes – key function Limited
(except chat function)
Privacy settings Available but complex Simple but limited Available


SCENARIO WORKSHOP


Building a Network
o Scenario:
o You run the Twitter account for BeSpoke Bike Designs
– a small Brisbane shop creating custom designer
bicycles using the latest technology. You‟d like to
build a strong network of followers (potential
customers as well as influential supporters). What do
you do?

o Hint: have a look at Twitter to identify the people
you might want to connect with, and think about
how you could do so…


HOW TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA


Presenting yourself
in Social Media

15.01.2013
Linda Elen Olsen

First impressions

• People Google you

• Social media ranks high on Google

• Your chance to show off

professional presence

• Show your experience

• Share your expertise

• Increase confidence

• Make connections and grow your network

• Become more aware

privacy?

• Privacy paradox

• Offline vs. online

• Private vs. personal

be smart

• Everything is public

• Know your privacy settings

• Look at your industry - what is happening?

finding the balance

• Who is my audience?

• Who do I want to be my audience?

• What are my boundaries?

• What is OK to share / not share?

• What sort of community am I trying to be part of?

the importance of presence

• Help you control your own information

• Create a good first impression

• Drown bad publicity

• Opportunity to correct your mistakes

Introduction to Social Media (Week 1)

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