online communities: the social web
DESCRIPTION
An introduction to social media and social networks, covering the basic definitions, why they are important in today's web environment, and an overview of how to build a community yourself. Given at the Genesee Valley Psychological Association's 2009 Annual Conference.TRANSCRIPT
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Online Communities:
The Social Web
dave vogler, sparkhouse
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3 Questions:
What? Why?
How?
...is social media?
...is a social network?
...is this important?
...bother?
...do you build a community?
...do you keep it alive?
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What is Social Media?
• a platform for interaction and relationships
• conversation empowered by technology
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What is a social network?
• A group of interdependent people
• United by a common interest or cause
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What is a social network service?
• an online space where a group convenes
• a conversation enabled by internet technologies
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a little history... Four Major Landmarks in Human Communication:
Printing Press
Pictures/Movies
Telegraph/Telephone
Radio/Television
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The Internet
• Delivers all media types
• text
• images
• audio
• video
• Native support for conversation
• it took 35 years to figure this out
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Media Model
Thenone tomany
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Media Model
Thenone tomany
and back
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Media Model
Noweveryone
talks
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Why does this matter?
• 75% of North Americans use the internet
• 96% of Gen Y reports joining a social network
• Age 35+ is fastest growing demographic on facebook.com
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Why does this matter?
50 million users:
Radio TV
FacebookInternet
4 years
38 years 13 years
3 years
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Why does this matter?
• Facebook now has 300 million users
• the last 50 million since July
• that’s almost as big as the United States
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Why does this matter?
• YouTube: 1,000,000 viewers each month
• 15 hours of video uploaded per minute
• Wikipedia: 14 million articles
• 200 million blogs online
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Why does this matter?
• Pieces of content shared on Facebook in a single week:
2 Billion
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Why does this matter?
• By the end of 2008, social networks have surpassed email in popularity
• Social media is now mainstream
• Technological value becomes social value
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Types of social networks
• Extension of existing community
• Entirely new community
• Geographically independent
• Local to certain area
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Building a Community
• What do prospective members need?
• What are perceived communication gaps?
• Survey, poll, interview, gauge enthusiasm
• Benchmark similar sites
• Look for niche if needed
Research
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Building a Community
• Content strategy
• Engagement strategy
• Governance
• Feature list
• User experience
• Technology
Action Plans
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Content Strategy
• Authors, guest authors
• User-generated content (UGC)
• Aggregators
• Licensed content
Where will content come from?
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Engagement Strategy
• perceived value to new user
• flywheel:
• zero inertia at start
• participation attracts more participation
• incentivise participation
• avoid ‘ghost town’... keep size ‘just right’
UGC Drives Growth
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Engagement Strategy
• Face to face events
• Email newsletters
• Traditional promotion, word of mouth
• Your users become your evangelists
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Governance
• Convene your community, not control it.
• Community guidelines are key
• Moderation tools
• Community manager
• Listen well (both on and off site)
• Easily accessible feedback process
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Features
• Member database
• Blogs / Articles
• Article comments
• Discussion Forums
• Event Calendar
• News ticker
• Links to other
• Ranking/voting/polling
• Moderation control
• Photo galleries
• Video galleries
• File sharing
• “Mysite” customization
• Newsletters
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User Experience
• Good user experience= good impression
• Well designed interface delights users
• Verify workflows are reasonable
• Usability testing is cheap with big payback
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Technology
• Content Management System (CMS)
• Domain registrar
• Reliable hosting & database support
• Scalable hosting as traffic grows
• Service provider or custom- built
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Services
• groupsite.com
• socialgo.com
• ning.com
• blogger.com
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Custom Built
• Drupal
• Joomla
• ExpressionEngine
• MODx
• Elgg
• Proprietary
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thank you
sparkhouse.com