The last blog of this course is
about social media and social networking. The first thing that comes to mind when
we listen to the word social media or social networking is Facebook. At the
moment, Facebook seems to be the reason for living for most of the people. People
post everything they do on Facebook as if it was a diary. However, there are
many more social networks around, including Twitter, Linked In, Bebo, and more…
Social Media
So, what is social media and
social networking?? Social media is all about web-based (and mobile-based)
technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue
among organizations, communities, and individuals. These build on the ideological
principles that the web is platform for information sharing, interoperability
and collaboration, and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated
content. This is enabled by scalable communication techniques, such as cloud
computing.
Figure 1: Popular
Social Networking Brands
Social Network
A social network is a social
structure made up of a set of individuals or organizations and the social
relation between these individuals or organizations. The social network
perspective provides a clear way of analyzing the structure of whole social
entities.
Figure 2: Popular
Social Networking Activity
Smart Phones
Smartphones have helped a lot in
this world of social media. People now have constant access to the web. Also,
the operating systems of such devices enable their users to constantly receive
updates from their favorite social networks. Also, it is much easier to upload
pictures and stuff to your profile. Friends from your social network are also
contacts in your mobile phone, which enable you to send a message instantly to
your friends Facebook account.
Figure 3: Facebook on
an Android Device
Social Game – Shake with Me
My colleagues at Webit Design
Studios Ltd produced a social game with very tight integration with Facebook,
one of the most popular social networks. While the game play is fairly simple,
the server side development is done with a huge insight. The game play is all
about shaking the device (IOS or Android) and with each shake the screen is
filled with water. The social aspect of the game is when the game integrates
with other friends from Facebook. You can invite other people to join you in a
game and who fills the screen first wins. It also includes suggesting friends
to play with you and other people whom you may not know but who are in your
area to play with you.
Figure 4: Shake with
Me
Statistics
Social networking is all about
numbers. People talk about how many statuses are posted, images shared, time
spent and more. These are some statistics for 2012:
Facebook Statistics 2012:
- An average Facebook user has 130 friends and likes 80 pages
- 56% of consumer say that they are more likely recommend a brand after becoming a fan
- Each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared
Twitter Statistics 2012:
- 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter
- 55% of Twitter users access the platform via their mobile
General Social Media Statistics 2012:
- 30% of B2B marketers are spending millions of dollars each year on social media marketing
- Nearly 30% of these users are not tracking the impact of this marketing
- 20% of Google searches each day have never been searched for before
- Out of the 6 billion people on the planet 4.8 billion have a mobile and only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush