Exploring The Ways Organizations Can Use Social Media
Websites have all sorts of different features, structure, and target audiences. No two sites are the same though some can sport similar concepts. TwitterHistoryTwitter began as an idea that Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey (@Jack) had in 2006. Jack had originally imagined Twitter as an SMS-based communications platform. Groups of friends could keep tabs on what each other were doing based on their status updates.
Like texting, but not. During a brainstorming session at the podcasting company Odeo, Jack proposed this SMS-based platform to Odeo's co-founder Evan Williams (@Ev) and his co-founder Biz Stone (@Biz). Both gave Jack the go-ahead to spend more time on the project and develop it further. While the initial concept of Twitter was being tested at Odeo, the company was going through a rough patch. Faced with Apple's release of its own podcasting platform — which essentially killed Odeo's business model — the founders decided to buy their company back from the investors.
Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, Evan Williams and other members of Odeo staff facilitated the buyback. By doing this, they acquired the rights to the Twitter platform. There is some controversy surrounding how this all took place. It's questionable whether Odeo investors knew the full scope of the Twitter platform. Also, key members of the Twitter development team were not brought on to the new company, most notably, Noah Glass (@Noah). Twitter was now on the cusp of its biggest growth spurt. The 2007 South by Southwest (@sxsw) Interactive conference saw a huge explosion of Twitter usage. More than 60,000 tweets were sent per day at the event. The Twitter team had a huge presence at the event and took advantage of the viral nature of the conference and its attendees. Twitter had its fair share of growing pains during its formative years. Twitter's user base grew at astounding rates and quite frequently the service would be over capacity.
As Twitter's user base started growing, a funny thing started to happen: Users created new jargon and different ways to use the service. Think of it as innovation borne of necessity. Initially, users had no way of replying to one another on Twitter. Some users would include an @ symbol before a username to identify another user within a Tweet. This became such a prevalent way to acknowledge another user that the Twitter team added the functionality natively to the Twitter platform. The same thing happened with hashtags, which are now an integral part of the Twitter ecosystem. This user-driven functionality is also the source of retweets. Users wanted a way to re-post a message from a Twitter user while including credit to the user who originally tweeted it. Users started to add RT before sending the message, signaling to their followers that the following tweet was a report. In August 2010, this functionality was officially added to the platform.
Site features
Tweets
Tweets are the primary function of twitter and are how people make their status updates on the site. All the other site's features revolve around and are purposed towards tweets. Tweets are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to just their followers.
Users can tweet via the Twitter website, compatible external applications (such as smartphone apps), or by Short Message Service (SMS) available in certain countries.
Following
Users may subscribe to other users' twitter accounts. This is known as "following" and subscribers are known as "followers". When you choose to follow another Twitter user, that user's tweets appear in reverse chronological order on your main Twitter page. RetweetsIndividual tweets can be forwarded by other users to their own feed, a process known as a "retweet".
Likes
Individual tweets can also be “liked” by other users. This is a feature that allows users to express their enjoyment and support of certain content.
Hashtags
Users can group posts together by topic or type by use of hashtags which are words prefixed with a “#” sign. This allows users to find specific content which they are looking for.
Mentions
By using “@” sign followed by a username, people can mention and reply to other users in their tweets.
Trending Topics
When a word, phrase or topic is mentioned at a greater rate than others it is called a “trending topic”. This indicates that a topic has become popular be it due to a concentrated effort by users or an event which prompts users to talk about a specific topic. This helps twitter and its users understand what is happening around the world and what people's opinions are.
Verified Accounts
This feature was created to prevent impersonators of notable people. Though it is not yet a feature accessible to everyone it is still an important part of twitter as it makes it easier for users to find who they’re looking for. PollsPolls allow users to attach poll questions to their tweets. They can be open for up to 7 days, and voters are not personally identified. This is another interesting way twitter has allowed users to interact with each other.
History
In 2003, Zuckerberg, a second-year student at Harvard at the time, wrote the software for a website called Facemash. He put his computer science skills to questionable use by hacking into Harvard's security network, where he copied the student ID images used by the dormitories and used them to populate his new website. Website visitors could use the site to compare two student photos side-by-side and decide who was "hot" and who was "not. " Facemash opened on October 28, 2003, and closed a few days later, after it was shut down by Harvard execs. In the aftermath, Zuckerberg faced serious charges of breach of security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Though he faced expulsion from Harvard University for his actions, all charges were eventually dropped. On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched a new website called "TheFacebook. " He named the site after the directories that were handed out to university students to aid them in getting to know one another better. Six days later, he again got into trouble when Harvard seniors Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra accused him of stealing their ideas for an intended social network website called HarvardConnection. The claimants later filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg, but the matter was eventually settled out of court. Membership to the website was at first restricted to Harvard students.
Over time, Zuckerberg enlisted a few of his fellow students to help grow the website. Eduardo Saverin, for example, worked on the business end while Dustin Moskovitz was brought on as a programmer. Andrew McCollum served as the site's graphic artist and Chris Hughes became the de facto spokesperson. Together the team expanded the site to additional universities and colleges. In 2004, Napster founder and angel investor Sean Parker became the company's president. The company changed the site's name from TheFacebook to just Facebook after purchasing the domain name facebook. com in 2005 for $200,000. The following year, venture capital firm Accel Partners invested $12. 7 million in the company, which enabled the creation of a version of the network for high school students. Facebook would later expand to other networks such as employees of companies.
In September of 2006, Facebook announced that anyone who was at least 13 years old and had a valid email address could join. By 2009, it had become the world's most used social networking service, according to a report by the analytics site Compete. com. While Zuckerberg's antics and the site's profits eventually led to him becoming the world's youngest multi-billionaire, he's done his part to spread the wealth around. He's donated $100 million dollars to the Newark, New Jersey public school system, which has long been underfunded. In 2010, he signed a pledge, along with other wealthy businessmen, to donate at least half of his wealth to charity. Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have donated $25 million toward fighting the Ebola virus and announced that they would contribute 99% of their Facebook shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to improve lives through education, health, scientific research, and energy.
Site Features
News Feed
The news feed appears on every user’s homepage and highlights information including profile changes, upcoming events, and user’s friends' birthdays. Some issues with privacy lead to changes that allow users to control the information shared on this feed.
Friends
Users can send friend requests to others on Facebook, this is known as “friending”. The two people are Facebook friends once the receiving party accepts the request. The receiving party can also decline a friend request which removes the request but allows the sender to resend in the future. “not now” is another option which hides the request but doesn’t delete it meaning the user can come back to it another time. Users can also remove others from their friends list, this is known as “unfriending”. Facebook profiles also have privacy features to restrict content to certain users, such as non-friends.
Likes and Reactions
The like button enables users to easily interact with status updates, photos, and comments shared by friends and advertisements. When the like button is clicked by a user the designated content appears in the news feeds of that user’s friends.
Tumblr
History
Development of Tumblr began in 2006 during a two-week gap between contracts at David Karp's software consulting company, Davidville (housed at Karp's former internship with producer-incubator Fred Seibert's Frederator Studios, which was located a block from Tumblr's current headquarters). Karp had been interested in tumblelogs (short-form blogs) for some time and was waiting for one of the established blogging platforms to introduce their own tumblelogging platform.
As no one had done so after a year of waiting, Karp and developer Marco Arment began working on their own tumblelogging platform. Tumblr was launched in February 2007, and within two weeks the service had gained 75,000 users. Arment left the company in September 2010 to focus on Instapaper. In early June 2012, Tumblr featured its first major brand advertising campaign in conjunction with Adidas, who launched an official soccer Tumblr blog and bought placements on the user dashboard. This launch came only two months after Tumblr announced it would be moving towards paid advertising on its site.
On May 20, 2013, it was announced that Yahoo and Tumblr had reached an agreement for Yahoo! Inc. to acquire Tumblr for $1. 1 billion in cash. Many of Tumblr's users were unhappy with the news, causing some to start a petition, achieving nearly 170,000 signatures. David Karp remained CEO and the deal was finalized on June 20, 2013. Advertising sales goals were not met and in 2016 Yahoo wrote down $712 million of Tumblr's value. Verizon Communications acquired Yahoo in June 2017 and placed Yahoo and Tumblr under its Oath subsidiary. Karp announced in November 2017 that he would be leaving Tumblr by the end of the year. Jeff D'Onofrio, Tumblr's President and COO, took over leading the company.
Different ways businesses can use social media
- Creating an image or brand.
- Promoting products/services.
- Communicating with customers.
- Resolving queries and managing conflicts.
- Advertising.
- Linking to customers’ previous sites and searches.
- Website and mobile device integration.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
- Profiling – describing the business to visitors.
- Data analyzing.
- Audience profiles (age, gender, income) of different social media sites.
- Text, image, video, links, polls, quizzes etc.
- Content focus and meaning – information, humor, promotion, special offers, customer services.
- Keywords and their use in posted content.
- Developing an audience - ‘like’ and ‘follow’.
- Developing contacts – by ‘following’ and linking relevant businesses and individuals and sharing content posted by others.
- Direct and indirect advertising.
- Links to other commercial information.
- Relationship between social media site and company website.
- Negative comments and damage to reputation.
- Time constraints on social media interaction.
- Unforeseen consequences.
- Security issues – viruses, potential blackmail/ransom.
- Theft of company-sensitive information or personal information.
