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Engaging in the conversation; best practices in strategic social media

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ENGAGING IN THE CONVERSATION;
BEST PRACTICES IN STRATEGIC SOCIAL MEDIA

by

Patrick James Cavanaugh

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(STRATEGIC PUBLIC RELATIONS)

May 2009

Copyright 2009 Patrick James Cavanaugh

ii

Table of Contents
List of Tables iii
List of Figures iv
Abstract v
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: What is Social Media 4
Chapter 2: Online Community and Identity 10
Chapter 3: The Conversation 15
Chapter 4: Exploring Social Media Platforms 27
Blogs 29
Twitter 32
Facebook 38
Wikipedia 43
Digg 49
Flickr 54
Chapter 5: Bringing it all together - Storytelling 57
Conclusion 60
References 63

iii

List of Tables
Table 1: Number of Internet Users 1
Table 2: Community Types 10
Table 3: Obstacles to Trust 12
Table 4: Social Network Traffic 18
Table 5: Social Media Platform Categories 20
Table 6: Dos and Don’ts 23
Table 7: Blog SMO 30
Table 8: Digg Tactics 50

iv

List of Figures
Figure 1: OCRN Findings 7
Figure 2: Web of Social Media 19
Figure 3: Twitter Alexa Ratings 33
Figure 4: HP Labs Twitter Research 35
Figure 5: Facebook Alexa Ratings 39
Figure 6: Wikipedia Alexa Ratings 44
Figure 7: Walmart Wiki Contents 47
Figure 8: Digg Alexa Ratings 49
Figure 9: ShareThis Widget 53
Figure 10: Flickr Alexa Ratings 55
Figure 11: StoryTlr Entry 58

v

Abstract
In the Strategic Public Relations industry, professional communication is defined by
well-crafted messaging and carefully chosen distribution channels. As the Internet
becomes the prime channel of communication for much of the population—through
Social Media—professionals who are willing to engage in the conversation must come to
understand the world they are entering, and this paper provides both an introduction to
and a framework for discussing that medium. It is my contention that an understanding of
the principles of community and identity, as defined relative to a virtual reality, grants
insight to exploring the various platforms of Social Media and the norms and principles
that define each. As Social Media is an emerging phenomenon, this shall by no means
serve as the complete authority on the subject, however it is my aim to provide a
foundation for an ongoing review of best practices in Strategic Social Media.

1

Introduction
Looking at the Internet and its evolution over recent decades, one is hard-pressed to find
someone who believes it has not revolutionized how we live our daily lives. Yet, this
“series of tubes” is really just a series of interconnected computer networks, a “network
of networks,” and just as the Internet thrives on the transfer of data, so too do we, the
users of the Internet, thrive on the transfer of information that this technology allows.
And there are now scads of users: recent comScore data shows that Internet population
has recently reached above the billion mark.
1

Table 1: Number of Internet Users
Top 15 countries, by Internet population
China 179.7 million
United States 163.3 million
Japan 60.0 million
Germany 37.0 million
United Kingdom 36.7 million
France 34.0 million
India 32.1 million
Russia 29.0 million
Brazil 27.7 million
South Korea 27.3 million
Canada 21.8 million
Italy 20.8 million
Spain 17.9 million
Mexico 12.5 million
Netherlands 11.8 million
Worldwide Internet Audience
Asia Pacific 416 million (41.3%)
Europe 283 million (28.0%)
North America 185 million (18.4%)
Latin America 75 million (7.4%)
Middle East & Africa 49 million (4.8%)

1
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/23/comscore-internet-population-passes-one-billion-top-15-
countries/

2

Public Relations professionals need to realize the nature of the whole of the Internet as
the Forum; the classic message-board of online communication has expanded into a web
of content and comment logs. News articles, pictures, videos and blog posts each spark
their own thread of conversation and interaction for a community of “netizens.”
Aggregates serve as the pool from which a variety of topics and pieces of interest can be
drawn from and discussed. Microblogs are a bulletin board of events, RSS feeds are news
and headlines, and Media-sharing sites are buckets of pure content. As Stephen Baker
and Heather Green from BusinessWeek put it in their article Social Media Will Change
Your Business, “The divide between the publishers and the public is collapsing. This
turns mass media upside down. It creates media of the masses.”
2

With this paper I look to explore the Internet from the perspective of strategic
communications, looking at how the World Wide Web has increasingly become a prime
channel of communication for many parts of the world, how this is exemplified in the
tools and applications commonly referred to as “Social Media,” and how communications
professionals can best “engage in the conversation.”
After briefly introducing Social Media, I hope to establish a framework for analyzing
online communications from the perspective of Community and Identity. The Internet has
redefined human behavior and any guideline for participating is helped by an
understanding of the Obstacles to Trust and the Psychographics of Anonymity. From
there I look at various platforms and detail the keys to best practices, concluding with a
section on Social Media storytelling and how this content convergence benefits

2
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2008/db20080219_908252_page_2.htm

3

communicators and changes how news is reported. Finally, I end with an example of
what a Social Media startup would look like for an existing organization, utilizing the
different platforms to optimize the site for fully engaging in the conversation.

4

Chapter 1: What is Social Media?
Social Media are primarily Internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information
with other people. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology,
social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This
interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied
perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their
stories and experiences.
3
This is the Wikipedia definition, one I feel appropriate for an
academic discussion of this topic as this online encyclopedia exemplifies many aspects of
what Social Media entails. Indeed, the more authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica has no
reference for Social Media, only “virtual community”: a group of people, who may or
may not meet one another face to face, who exchange words and ideas through the
mediation of computer bulletin board systems (BBSs) and other digital networks.
4

Brian Solis, a thought-leader and key influencer in Social Media and author of a blog on
PR 2.0, wrote The Social Media Manifesto, a blogpost where-in he provides the
following definition:
First it’s an understanding that social media is about sociology and less about
technology. It’s a mashup of new and traditional media that spans across
advertising, PR, customer service, marcom, sales, and community relations…. An
understanding of the role people play in the process of not only reading and
disseminating information, but also how they in turn, share and also create content
for others to participate….[and] With the injection of social tools into the mix,
people now have the ability to impact and influence the decisions of their peers
and also other newsmakers.
5

3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media
4
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1495829/virtual-community/1495829main/Main
5
http://www.briansolis.com/2007/06/future-of-communications-manifesto-for.html

5

Before going any further, it’s important to dispel certain myths that exist about Social
Media and its applications.
Myth #1: Social Media is cheap and easy
Many of the tools of Social Media are free, and appear very easy to use. This has directly
led to a rush of businesses signing up and logging in to every new application without a
strategic plan or concrete understanding of the medium. Not only can this lead to
inconsistent messages, but also confusion over brand identity—missteps can be exposed
more readily, threatening future credibility and reputation. If the brand is not hip, why is
it trying so hard to be on a hip site?
Setting up shop online should grant as much preparation and investment as opening a
store on the street. Mack Collier, a Social Media consultant, wrote a blogpost in response
to questions about how much time bloggers need to spend on their sites.
…while it might not cost a lot to get your social media efforts off the ground, you
still need to make a time investment. And the more time you can invest, the better
your results. Don't enter into the social media space unless you can commit to
being here for the long haul, and unless you can commit the time that this space
requires. If you can't invest hours at first, then start slowly, and as you get more
accustomed to these sites and tools, and as your efforts improve, then devote more
time.
6

Reality: Just as a Strategic Public Relations Campaign would utilize any other
communication channel, Social Media requires a strategic plan and the necessary
resources to succeed.
Myth #2: Companies can foster community, engagement, and relationships
around everyday products.

Creating a relationship between brands and consumers helps public relations

6
http://www.searchengineguide.com/mack-collier/social-media-can-be-cheap-but-its-not-fr.php

6

professionals tell their stories and makes their jobs easier. Social Media goes a long way
in contributing to this dynamic by providing tools to help engage communities of users,
but only so far. For example, Tide officials made a decision to create a brand page on
Facebook for “America’s Favorite Stains.”
7
Members were encouraged to upload photos
of stains and vote on their favorites; think of it as an American Idol, with stains instead of
singers. It seems P&G didn’t quite garner the engagement they wanted (though there are
still 500 “fans” lingering around), and the page has become another abandoned Social
Media ghost town.
Drama 2.0, a well-known blogger, summarizes the key learning here as before brand
marketers invest their money implementing marketing campaigns, they should consider
their position in the world and in an average consumer’s life. Without a realistic
assessment of their position and how they can best relate their product/brand-relationship
to the consumer, their social media marketing campaigns are probably doomed to
mediocrity at best and complete failure at worst.
8

Reality: People interact, engage and build communities around passions, causes, ideas,
fantasies - not everyday products.
9

Myth #3: Public relations campaigns which utilize Social Media are difficult to
measure, monitor, or track.

A common criticism of Public Relations is the difficulty with which proper evaluation
and cost analysis metrics can be applied to any campaign. This critique has followed the
industry’s progression onto the Internet, where there are no circulation estimates or ad-

7
http://www.facebook.com/pages/2x-Ultra-Tide-Presents-Americas-Favorite-Stains/10963072348?ref=s
8
http://www.drama20show.com/2008/02/14/note-to-tide-detergent-is-detergent/
9
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3016-a-case-study-in-social-media-success

7

space pricing to provide comparison. The Return on Investment generated by
implementing a Social Media campaign seems improbable, if not impossible, due to the
still emerging business models of the medium.
The Online Community Research Network initiated the Online Community ROI Models
and Reporting research in February 2008. The study was created to investigate further
into the ROI research conducted in the last half of 2007, and to gain insight into
specifically how organizations were valuing and reporting on their online communities
activities.
10
Here are highlights:
Figure 1: OCRN Findings
Q16: Which of the following quantitative and qualitative metrics are critical for
communication ROI at your organization?

10
http://redplasticmonkey.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/online-community-roi-models-and-reporting-
research-study-posted/

8

Figure 1: OCRN Findings (Continued)

Q23: What were the 1-2 compelling sources of value from your community or
social media efforts that you constantly communicate?

(a) Community helps problem solve faster and more efficiently than
Customer Support, saving our company time and money
(b) Availability of information and content for specific areas of interest
(c) Increases site traffic / more engaged relationship with us
(d) Idea Creation / What we learn from members of the community
(e) Lead Generation / Conversion / Loyalty

Reality: Communication professionals have found adequate measures for online
behavior. Referral logs tell you exactly where people first engaged with your content,

9

Google Trends identifies prominent search terms, and usage data and analytics
statistically define levels of consumer interaction.

10

Chapter 2: Online Community and Identity
Online communities can be defined with reference to communities in the real word.
Through the Internet, people across continents become virtual neighbors, and Social
Media is comparable to a cocktail party in the community clubhouse. Lee Komito
outlines four types of community and how these relate to those on the Internet.
11

Table 2: Community Types
Type Identifier
Moral Individuals share a common ethical system
that constrains interactions among
members, emphasizing mutual benefit
above self-interest or personal goals. This
is community as communal solidarity.
Normative The existence of agreed-upon rules of
appropriate behavior.
Proximate People interact with each other not in terms
of roles or stereotypes, but as individuals.
Fluid, or Nomadic Temporary aggregations of individuals.
There is often little sense of collective
identity. Membership in a community is
voluntary and temporary, and individuals
move and groups are redefined.

Similar to a fan convention or a club meeting, common-interest communities abound on
the Internet; the beauty of being online is that no matter what appeals to you, whatever
your interests are, there are like-minded others out there. Moreover, the culture of the
Internet (especially with the more recent transformation from “Web 1.0” to “Web 2.0”) is
fundamentally participatory, but there are both benefits and consequences to this.

11
“The Net as a Foraging Society: Flexible Communities” by Lee Komito, in Information Society 14, #2,
1998, pp. 97-103.

11

In what has been termed the “In Strangers We Trust” Conundrum by Matthew
LeVeque,
12
online users currently view each other as reliable sources of information, with
the anonymous reviewers on Amazon and Yelp impacting purchase decisions. There is an
underlying assumption that the reviews on these sites are posted by members of the
community themselves—3
rd
Parties with no direct brand affiliation—and their inherent
disinterest implies credibility. It is the sense of community that provides trust. As Ryan
Light writes in his paper Like Strangers We Trust: Social Trust, Identity, and Latent
Affiliation Networks, “Social trust is affected by latent affiliations and latent affiliations
function as identities.”
13

There are, however, the inherent consequences to “mob” rule. For example, one of the
platforms discussed later in this paper is a content aggregate site where a community of
users submits content and votes on the submissions. It appears to be a very open and
democratic system, but Giles Bowkett has found an inherent flaw with the idea that
published content should appeal to the majority.
When you build a system where you get points for the number of people who
agree with you, you are building a popularity contest for ideas. However, your
popularity contest for ideas will not be dominated by the people with the best
ideas, but the people with the most time to spend on your web site. Votes appear
to be free, like contribution is with Wikipedia, but in reality you have to register
to vote, and you have to be there frequently for your votes to make much
difference. So the votes aren't really free - they cost time. If you do the math, it's
actually quite obvious that if your popularity contest for ideas inherently, by its
structure, favors people who waste their own time, then your contest will produce
winners which are actually losers. The most popular ideas will not be the best

12
USC Professor and Senior VP at the Rogers Group.
13
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/8/4/3/9/pages184397/p184397-
13.php

12

ideas, since the people who have the best ideas, and the ability to recognize them,
also have better things to do and better places to be.
14

Additionally, most of the online world is still relatively new to much of the population,
and the rapid pace of development in Social Media can be overwhelming for the
unprepared. Helen Nissenbaum writes that “Novelty, or unfamiliarity, can in itself stall
the formation of trust. Beyond sheer novelty, however, there are more specific features of
the online world that bear on the formation and sustenance of trust…” Nissenbaum posits
the following as Obstacles to Trust Online:
15

Table 3: Obstacles to Trust
Obstacles Characteristics
Missing Identities If we imagine identity as a thread upon
which we string the history of interactions
with others, then without that thread we
lose the ability to learn from past
experiences of either indicated trust or
betrayal…. Finally, because identity is also
bound up with accountability, people might
presume that anonymous agents are less
likely to act responsibly.
Missing Personal Characteristics Online, we are separated from others in
time and space; we lack cues that may give
evidence of similarity, familiarity, or
shared value systems.

14
http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/05/summon-monsters-open-door-heal-or-die.html
15
“Securing Trust Online: Wisdom or Oxymoron?” by Helen Nissenbaum, in Virtual Publics; Policy and
Community in an Electronic Age, 2003, pp. 144-146.

13

Table 3: Obstacles to Trust (Continued)
Inscrutable Context One casualty [of IC online] is role
definition, because, at least for now, we
cannot rely on traditional mechanisms for
articulating and supporting social,
professional, and other roles…. Just as
roles are still relatively unformulated, so
are background constraints and social
norms regarding qualities like fidelity,
virtue, loyalty, guile, duplicity, and
trickery.

These obstacles to trust are inherent to the psychographics of anonymity. A film on
VideoJug titled “How To Behave On An Internet Forum” playfully details this defining
characteristic of Internet communication. By-and-large, the trouble with the Internet, and
forums in particular, is that everyone gets to be anonymous. This essentially gives them
free reign to be as snooty and argumentative as they like, and has directly lead to the
introduction of “trolls,” “griefers,” and other assorted online characters whose only
pleasure is derived by causing others pain.
16
A ‘troll' posts deliberately controversial or
annoying messages on forums while a ‘griefer’ attempts to enter and undermine games or
virtual worlds, for the specific purpose of getting a rise out of people and initiating a
hate-filled and overly-argumentative reaction.
The New York Times Magazine published an article in August 2008 explaining these
malicious techniques.
17
“The Trolls Among Us,” written by Mattathias Schwartz, outlines
the issue quite well, by focusing on 4chan.org, a collection of content-specific message
boards where a post consists of an image and a few lines of text. Almost everyone posts

16
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-behave-on-an-internet-forum
17
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin

14

as “anonymous.” The group Anonymous responsible for much of the recent Scientology
protests in Los Angeles has been linked to 4chan, specifically to /b/, or the “random”
board. Schwartz describes /b/ thusly:
Measured in terms of depravity, insularity and traffic-driven turnover, the culture
of /b/ has little precedent. /b/ reads like the inside of a high-school bathroom stall,
or an obscene telephone party line, or a blog with no posts and all comments filled
with slang that you are too old to understand.

They do this in pursuit of “lulz”
18
and the appropriate course of action is simply not to
respond. No matter how superior your logic nor the invalidity of the troll-logic, this is an
argument you will not win. Don't feed the troll.

18
Definition from Urban Dictionary: Beginning as a plural variant of lol, Lulz was originally an
exclamation but is now often used as a noun meaning interesting or funny internet content. Lulz is the one
good reason to do anything… “I did it for the lulz.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lulz

15

Chapter 3: The Conversation
WHO - When engaging in the conversation in Social Media, your identity is defined by a
Profile/Username, your Post Count/History, and your Karma/Reputation.
A username illustrates something about the user, an interest or a nickname, a favorite
character, or part of an inside joke. In addition, within the larger communities, a
username can define adoption rate, with the more common names being registered early
on and perhaps, along with post count, characterizing the influential “veterans” who were
there from the beginning. Every time you post, your post count goes up by one. Some
people seem to think that the higher the post count, the more worthy and valuable they
are to society at large. Frankly, the exact opposite seems to be the case; posting just to up
your count without making a significant contribution brings disfavor, so make sure all
your messages add to a discussion in some way.
19
And finally, there are sites that track
karma points for users, with the community “modding” your behavior by way of votes,
positive and negative. Even in sites without inherent karmic capabilities, users have
personal reputations—in Twitter, for instance, your number of followers and who you
follow become character traits.
WHAT – When users go online, it’s usually because they are looking for something.
Whether they’re looking for news, entertainment, reference, info on a purchase decision
or even a date, by going on the Internet people are interacting with media content. It is
content that provides much of glue for communities within Social Media. Content is
King. Television shows like Lost inspire entire message boards devoted to discussing the

19
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-behave-on-an-internet-forum

16

latest episode. IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Database, relies upon its users to submit
film reviews and write plot summaries.
There are sites now developed to help companies or individuals create and publish their
own content. Demandmedia.com is such a site, with a freelancer network and studio
capabilities to develop content that can help businesses grow through Social Media.
20

Demand Media owns and operates several branded websites, including LiveStrong.com,
eHow.com, and Cracked.com. More than 26 million people visit eHow each month for
tips on how to do just about anything.
21

Cracked is a website which retains its own membership community while consistently
appearing on many social bookmarking sites. The articles and funny videos are made
almost entirely by individual content creators and fans, giving contributors an audience in
the millions and helping them establish a credibility and visibility they wouldn’t have
otherwise. Editors, bloggers, contributors and readers are all collaborators in creating the
content they enjoy.
22

WHEN – Social Media has changed the timeframe for audience interaction with media
and messaging. No longer can the length of a news cycle determine whether crises will
disappear if you just ignore and rely upon interest waning. Baker and Green state:
[Social Media]'s wrapped up far more in people's day-to-day lives. It's
connected to time…. [Blogs] evolve with every posting, each one tied to a
moment. So if a company can track millions of blogs simultaneously, it gets a
heat map of what a growing part of the world is thinking about, minute by
minute. E-mail has carried on billions of conversations over the past decade.
But those exchanges were private. Most blogs are open to the world. As the

20
http://www.demandmedia.com/
21
http://www.demandmedia.com/brands/
22
http://www.demandmedia.com/brands/cracked/

17

bloggers read each other, comment, and link from one page to the next, they
create a global conversation.
23

There is a context and timeframe for much of online communication. It is ongoing, and
has been ever since the Internet gained widespread use (in some circles, this is nearly 20
years). A concrete example of this is the existence of online ‘Memes,’ cultural artifacts
arising from and transferring through interaction. These can be jokes, beliefs, or ideas
that have evolved from acceptance and dispersion.
24
One Internet meme that reached
beyond virtual reality is the Rick Roll. “Rick-Rolling” someone entails sharing a
purported link with a user that when clicked actually references a music video of Rick
Astley’s “Never Going To Give You Up” on Youtube. This meme had enough far-
reaching influence that when the New York Mets baseball team held a poll for fans to
vote on a new sing-along song for the 8
th
Inning, they were unwittingly rick-rolled.
25

WHERE – Social Media is not the Internet, but the Internet is Social Media. The scope
of the term covers a broad range of different websites, networks, and communication
platforms. Social Networks are the definitive online community, where millions of
members access each other through a single portal. Nielsen Online ratings provides a
glance at the breadth of the conversation:
26

23
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/feb2008/db20080219_908252_page_6.htm
24
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
25
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1584640/Rickrolled-New-York-Mets-fall-victim-to-Rick-
Astley-online-prank.html
26
Nielsen Online; US, Home and Work; Month of February 2009

18
Table 4: Social Network Traffic

Top 20 Social Network Sites, Dec 2008
Feb-09 Feb-08 YOY Growth
Site Unique Audience Time/Person Unique Audience Time/Person Unique Audience Time/Person
Facebook 65,704,000 2:59:55 20,043,000 1:06:43 228% 170%
Myspace.com 54,164,000 1:35:31 56,313,000 2:16:05 -4% -30%
Classmates Online 15,545,000 0:08:12 12,955,000 0:10:21 20% -21%
LinkedIn 13,418,000 0:12:26 7,392,000 0:10:31 82% 18%
Reunion.com 11,220,000 0:04:12 4,323,000 0:04:34 160% -8%
Twitter.com 7,038,000 0:08:07 475,000 0:06:45 1,382% 20%
Club Penguin 6,073,000 0:40:07 4,727,000 0:09:04 28% 20%
Ning 3,944,000 0:13:56 1,464,000 0:04:43 169% 95%
AOL Community 3,637,000 0:10:29 3,337,000 0:36:58 9% -72%
Tagged.com 3,488,000 1:16:33 1,316,000 0:11:51 165% 146%
Bebo 3,165,000 0:11:17 2,255,000 0:12:42 40% -11%
Imeem 2,665,000 0:06:57 2,187,000 0:05:28 22% 27%
Flixster 2,520,000 0:12:30 2,619,000 0:07:38 -4% 64&
Multiply 2,394,000 0:06:34 821,000 0:05:59 192% 10%
Last.fm 2,262,000 0:03:41 1,980,000 0:06:39 14% -45%
MyYearbook 2,248,000 1:01:17 1,738,000 1:00:02 29% 2%
Meetup.com 2,216,000 0:07:33 1,940,000 0:12:16 14% -38%
Care2.com 2,120,000 0:03:55 1,765,000 0:04:34 20% -14%
CarDomain Network 1,627,000 0:03:00 1,322,000 0:05:04 23% 41%
Gaia Online 1,544,000 4:06:10 1,222,000 2:20:08 26% 76%

19

Nielsen has lumped these sites under the common Social Network title, a general term
which undermines the true scope of Social Media, seen below.
Figure 2: Web of Social Media

20

The multi-various applications can be organized into four distinct categories:
Communication, Collaboration, Multimedia, and Entertainment.
Table 5: Social Media Platform Categories
Category Platform
Communication
Blogs: Blogger (service), Livejournal,
TypePad, Wordpress, Vox,
Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku
Social networking Avatars United, Bebo, Facebook,
LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock,
Netlog
Social network aggregation FriendFeed, Youmeo
Events Upcoming.org, Eventful, Meetup.com
Collaboration
Wikis Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint
Social bookmarking Delicious, StumbleUpon
Social News Sites Digg, Mixx, Reddit
Opinion sites epinions, Yelp, TrustedOnes
Multimedia
Photo sharing Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket,
SmugMug
Video sharing YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Revver
Livecasting Ustream, Justin.tv, Stickam
Audio and Music Sharing imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm,
ccMixter
Entertainment
Virtual worlds Second Life, The Sims Online
Online gaming World of Warcraft, Everquest, Age of
Conan
Game sharing Miniclip.com

This categorical distinction, as defined by the Social Media article on Wikipedia,
27
belies
the cross-interaction that takes place throughout the realm of Social Media. Applications
not only share audiences, but reference and embed links to and from other platforms, in

27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

21

addition to an increasing convergence of capabilities. For instance, in Entertainment,
World of Warcraft is a multiplayer online game, but finds itself within Multimedia when
videos of epic battles are uploaded to Youtube, as a part of Collaboration with Wikipedia
articles providing background story, and as not only a means of providing material for
bloggers and journalists but as a tool of Communication itself. A former professor of
mine worked with EA Games, and their business meetings had been taken out of the
boardroom and into WoW—projects could be discussed and ideas brainstormed while the
team was raiding a dungeon and utilizing group chat.
WHY - The Internet has provided the opportunity for instant reference and
communication. To communicate, you can either talk to them, or give them something to
talk about. The results for businesses who engage are an up-to-the-minute read on what
their audiences are thinking and discussing. Movie studios are monitoring blogs to see
which films are generating the desirable buzz, advertisers are tracking responses to their
newest ads, and political candidates are tracking down constituents for their campaigns.
As Henry Jenkins puts it, all this exists within a certain context, one that has developed
over recent years to dominate media consumption and communication. It’s a context of
sharing:
1. New tools and technologies enable consumers to archive, annotate,
appropriate, and recirculate media content.
2. A range of subcultures promote Do-It-Yourself (DIY) media production, a
discourse that shapes how consumers have deployed those technologies.
3. Economic trends favoring the horizontally integrated media conglomerates
encourage the flow of images, ideas, and narratives across multiple media
channels and demand more active modes of spectatorship.
28

28
“Interactive Audiences? The “Collective Intelligence” of Media Fans,” by Henry Jenkins, in Fans,
Bloggers, and Gamers; Exploring Participatory Culture, 2006.

22

And what if you or your organization opts out of this paradigm? There is an entire
industry still coming to terms with the new context—the recording industry is engaged in
a war of attrition with its own consumers, headed by the RIAA and the bevy of lawsuits
they’ve filed for the past decade. Looking at the scenario from the point-of-view of new
media, the problem with the music industry is that their product has reached
obsolescence. What they sold was a means of distributing media, a record or CD that
delivered music to the consumer. Digital technology allows for digital release, thus
negating the need for a delivery device—the content creator need no longer rely upon an
industry for their distribution. Bands can now simply upload their music to their Myspace
page, and everyone can share their disgust about the evil corporations and their assault on
fans everywhere.
The RIAA, instead of embracing their audiences and recognizing the role of the Internet
in their daily lives, opted out of the conversation and took their case to the courts.
Companies who similarly choose to opt out of Social Media lose the opportunity to
genuinely communicate with their stakeholders, to gain trust and credibility, and the
ability to quickly engage in damage control whenever there are online crises or threats to
the company’s reputation.
HOW - Learning the dialectic of the conversation is important; for those who embrace
the new dynamic, the connections provided by Social Media applications, and the
communities that are thereby formed, allow for a conversation to take place, an ongoing
dialogue between limitless numbers of participants about any possible topic of interest.

23

Message boards and discussion forums allow users to feel like they are part of something,
and thus they interact.
And yet before a professional should engage, he or she must also learn the best practices
of online behavior. Eric Brantner posted an excellent summary of what can be called
proper Social Media etiquette.
29
These rules help provide some of the Dos and Don’ts of
online interaction, but basically, all of this can be boiled down to Eric’s final point, Be
Nice.
Table 6: Dos and Don’ts
Do:
Give More than You Receive If you want to receive attention from
others online, you have to be willing to
give it first. It’s the old “I’ll scratch your
back if you scratch mine” routine. You
can’t bust onto a social media site with a
sense of entitlement thinking you should
be a top user immediately. You have to
earn respect from others. How do you do
this? By giving more than you receive.
Add Value to the Site At the end of the day, the thing that will
earn you great connections with others is if
you add value to the community. This
means not submitting content that nobody
cares about and not constantly promoting
your brand. Before you ever submit
anything to a social media site, ask
yourself “Does this article really add value
to the community?” If not, reconsider
submitting it.

29
http://digitallabz.com/blogs/the-11-rules-of-social-media-etiquette.html

24

Table 6: Dos and Don’ts (Continued)

Build Quality Relationships People are more willing to help those who
they really know. By building quality
relationships with other users, you’ll
always have someone in your corner to
back you up. Remember, relationships
require the participation of both parties; so,
always be a good participant in your social
media relationship.
Respect the Community This might be the most important rule of
social media etiquette. Show respect to the
community. It’s not that hard to do. Just
make sure you don’t step out of line, and
always treat everyone the way you want to
be treated. These are simple social skills
you should already be following in real
life; now, you just have to follow them
online too.
Don’t:
Be a Keyboard Gangsta (Troll) Probably the worst thing about the Internet
is the keyboard gangstas. You’ve surely
run across at least one of these in your
lifetime. They sit at their keyboard talking
trash to everyone they encounter. They say
things online that they would never have
the nerve to say to a real person’s face.
Don’t try to ruin everyone else’s online
experience because you don’t have any
friends in real life.
Sabotage Other’s Efforts This is self-explanatory. Drop all of your
e-beefs and hatred. Don’t try to bury others
just for the sake of getting ahead. Making
enemies on social media sites will get you
nowhere fast, and you really do reap what
you sow.

25

Table 6: Dos and Don’ts (Continued)

Cheat Instead of trying to game the system, why
don’t you focus on building a successful
social media presence the right way? Sure,
you might be able to get some amazing
results by cheating, but eventually, you
will get caught. And once everyone sees
you for the cheater you are, you can’t un-
ring that bell.
Push the Envelope One of the fastest ways to alienate people
online is to constantly flood them with
requests for helping you out. Whether
you’re constantly shouting your content or
always Tweeting asking people to
comment on your blog, eventually,
everyone will lose their patience with you.
It’s like the boy who cried wolf. People
will tune you out if you’re constantly
pushing the envelope.

There are also practices that should be called Mortal Sins of Social Media. Astroturfing,
for instance, is where an individual disguises the efforts of a commercial entity as an
independent public reaction to a product, service or event. It's an orchestration of overt
outreach tactics by covert means.
30
This manifests itself not only when professionals
interact with online communities without transparency, but also with companies hiring
community members to promote their product, giving the impression of popular
approval. Considering that many Internet users have IT-related skills, addresses can be
tracked and real identities uncovered. Don’t Astroturf.
Another is forgetting that when engaging in Social Media, everything you say can and
will be used against you. Once something makes it online, its there forever, at least in a
Google cache. James Andrews is a Ketchum Public Relations employee who was

30
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

26

traveling to Memphis for a meeting with his client, FedEx. This meeting was to provide
Social Media consultation and advice. Upon landing in Memphis, Andrews posted this
message on his Twitter account: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I
scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’” Eventually this reached one
of the corporate communications people at FedEx, and the result was a lengthy response
which promptly spread across blogs and news/gossip sites:
…Mr. Andrews, If I interpret your post correctly, these are your comments about
Memphis a few hours after arriving in the global headquarters city of one of your
key and lucrative clients, and the home of arguably one of the most important
entrepreneurs in the history of business, FedEx founder Fred Smith. Many of my
peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars
FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work
your company does for us around the globe. We are confident, however, it is
enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your
position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of
social networking is people will read what you write….
31

31
http://www.davidhenderson.com/2009/01/21/key-online-influencer/

27

Chapter 4: Exploring Social Media Platforms

I’d like to now briefly illustrate some of the different platforms and applications that are
utilized within Social Media. Each of the categories will have a few examples given an
overview, user data gleaned from Alexa.com for a sense of metrics (except blogs since
this incorporates multiple sites), and examples of what could be considered best practices
for each. Although the best source for traffic metrics would be the host server itself, as a
3
rd
Party tool Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of
Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources.
32
Websites
are ranked according to “reach” and “pageviews,” which are typically expressed as
percentages of all Internet users who visit a given a site. Reach is determined by the
number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day while Pageviews are the
total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site.
33

These platforms are not necessarily the best or only important ones on the Internet. A few
may even not exist in a few years. However, what matters is not which platforms are the
most popular, but what these platforms are used for. Digidave (real name David Cohn), is
a former reporter for Wired magazine and a confirmed guru on Web 2.0—he’s a Top 50
user on Digg.
34
In a guest lecture at the University of Southern California, he made a
crucial point, that no matter whether Facebook, Myspace, Flickr or iPhoto, Digg or

32
http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more
33
http://www.alexa.com/site/help/?index=12
34
http://www.digidave.org/about.html

28

Reddit become obsolete, what isn’t going away is the act of “Lifestreaming,” the act of
“putting our lives online for others to see.”
35

35
Guest Lecture at USC, 2/2/09, Jour 568, Prof. Jay Wang.

29

COMMUNICATION
Blogs
Blogs, or web-logs, are online “journals” where the author, or blogger, has created a web
page in order to regularly post articles, images, or any other content they find interesting
or blog-worthy. All entries are usually archived, and displayed in reverse-chronological
order according to time of post or update. Collectively, the whole community of blogs
and bloggers can be referred to as the “blogosphere.” This concept of a community
includes not simply the authors themselves, but the readers of blogs who oftentimes offer
their own comments and contribute to the conversation that way.
Technorati.com is a site dedicated to blogs, serving as a centralized database for millions
of blogs currently online and providing tools which make searching for topics within the
blogosphere easier and more accessible. Since 2004, Technorati has published a “State of
the Blogosphere” report, an annual study of the trends and themes of blogging. Gauging
the depth and breadth of the blogosphere is no easy task, and though there have been
numerous studies aimed at understanding the true size of the Blogosphere, these have
yielded widely disparate measures of both the number of blogs and blog readership,
largely due to the very nature of a community still evolving. These are recent numbers
posted on Technorati:
36
! comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
o Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
o Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million
o Total internet audience 188.9 million
! eMarketer (May 2008)
o 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)

36
http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/

30

o 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)
! Universal McCann (March 2008)
o 184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US
o 346 million WW read blogs | 60.3 US
o 77% of active Internet users read blogs

When making the decision to publish a blog, the “author” should be positioned as either
an insider/expert, such as a CTO for a tech company, or a common staffer bringing a day-
in-the-life perspective. This helps build interest and credibility into your contribution to
the conversation. Authorship does not have to be limited to a single person however, and
even separate, distinct blogs can be grouped under a single portal. The Huffington Post,
functioning as an “online newspaper,” features news and commentary from a community
of bloggers, pundits, journalists and simple spectators.
37

In order to build an audience for the blog, the content should be configured for both
Social Media and Search Engine Optimization. SMO means providing easy means for
users to access and share your content with others, by embedding the necessary tools for
bookmarking, and designing an intuitive User Interface on a site. Another tactic is
Repurposing Content for blog SEO. Lee Odden posted on the Online Marketing Blog
specific ways content can be better utilized when blogging.
38

Table 7: Blog SMO
Get more power out of PowerPoint Turn PowerPoint decks into articles and/or
blog posts and vice versa. It’s smart
marketing anyway, to build supporting
editorial visibility to a topic you’re
speaking on at conferences, with
prospective clients or other situations
requiring PowerPoint.

37
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
38
http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/08/5-ways-to-re-purpose-content-for-blog-seo/

31

Table 7: Blog SMO (Continued)
Let interviews do the talking If you’re fortunate to be interviewed by
other bloggers, typically via email,
leverage the answers you’ve given into a
blog post or an article. Many such
interviews do not include the full text of
your reply, which you can use for your own
online content. Another scenario is when
the interview is by phone, podcast or video
and you’ve been given prep questions in
advance. Answer the prep questions in text
and you have a great basis for several blog
posts or an article.
Turn press releases into lemonade Press releases written in AP style are pretty
boring for consumers. Heck, they’re pretty
boring for everyone. Take the key
messages of the press release and rewrite
conversationally as blog post making sure
to cite examples, offer tips and to link out
to relevant resources - ideally other
influential blogs on the topic.
Utilize Assets When you shoot a video for online
promotion, take screen shots of appealing
moments. Share them on image sharing
sites and social networks with a link back
to the blog post where the video is
embedded.

If content is king, links are queen in engaging in the conversation and fully utilizing
social media. No blog is an island. Bloggers can get their message out by reading others’
work in the greater blog community, gaining a sense of what the ongoing conversation is
within their interest or industry. By then commenting on other blogs and becoming a
more familiar and visible entity, your blog establishes a position within the dialogue and
can then contribute.

32

Twitter - Microblogs
Twitter.com is a privately funded startup with offices in the SoMA neighborhood of San
Francisco, CA. Started as a side project in March 2006, Twitter has grown into a real-
time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. Twitter asks
one question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length and
can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web.
39
Users have profiles, and
must “follow” other users to receive their updates. In turn, users can follow you to get all
of your updates, and user-specific responses can be made with a reply function.
Measurement for Twitter is distinct from other web applications, with click rate and site
visit data undermined by many of the users updating their Twitter from a mobile device
and never visiting the site itself. Nonetheless, statistics from Alexa show steady growth in
the last six months, and Nielsen shows an astronomical 1,300% YOY.
40

39
http://twitter.com/about#about
40
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/twitter.com

33

Figure 3: Twitter Alexa Ratings

Tweetrush is a web site that provides estimated stats on Twitter usage over a period of
time. Specific users can be searched, and overall numbers charted down to hourly
averages. Their service is based upon their proprietary Rush Hour engine, which “instead

34

of looking at page view and clicks, looks at actions and events. These can be located
anywhere in the logic that drives any web application.”
41

Recently, HP Labs completed a study using research data from Twitter “in order to find
out how relevant a list of ‘friends’ is to members of a network.”
42
Distinguishing friends
from followers, the authors were hoping to determine key drivers in Twitter usage, how
ideas and trends spread by word-of-mouth. With a sample size of about 6% of the
Twittersphere, their findings show that links between people don’t necessarily imply
interaction:
In conclusion, even when using a very weak definition of “friend” (i.e., anyone
who a user has directed a post to at least twice) we find that Twitter users have a
very small number of friends compared to the number of followers and followees
they declare. This implies the existence of two different networks: a very dense
one made up of followers and followees, and a sparser and simpler network of
actual friends.

41
http://tweetrush.com/about
42
http://www.hpl.hp.com/research/scl/papers/twitter/twitter.pdf

35

Figure 4: HP Labs Twitter Research

36

An article posted by Beth Harte gives a clear picture of the considerations involved when
joining Twitter.
43
There has been recent backlash against some brands who have failed to
engage by not embracing the spirit of Twitter—sharing information—but those who do it
well can easily bring a sense of openness and transparency to their organization while
interacting with their stakeholders.
1. Decide before you join how you want to use Twitter; what is your communication
goal and how does this platform fit in? Will it be used for Customer Support (like
Comcast does via @ComcastCares) or will it be used to offer promotional deals
(like Zappos the on-line shoe site via @Zappos) or will it be to socially network
to build up business?

2. If using a business name be sure to use something like "Name_Business Name"
(Jane_ABCCompany). That way more than one employee can use Twitter and
represent the company. Zappos does a great job with this one.

3. Be sure to use a photo (and not a logo), fill out the description (tell folks why they
should be interested in following) and include a link to the company's website.

4. Let everyone be authentic while remaining consistent. Twitter isn't about just
tweeting news about your company or promotional deals. It's about developing
relationships. If you or an employee loves music, let that come through too.

5. Realize that it will take time to develop a following.

6. Don't follow hundreds or thousands of people just because you can. Try to find
those people in your target market or that have common interests. (Following too
many people at once can make you look like a potential spammer)

7. For finding more followers, there are tools available. With Tweetscan, you can
search for topics, people, places, anything. You can also search and make sure
that you have seen all the replies to you that other Twitter members have left. Just
search for '@YourTwitterName'.
44

8. Have something relevant to say. For example, if you have your marketers on
Twitter, make sure they understand the industry well enough to have a

43
http://www.searchengineguide.com/beth-harte/thinking-about-starting-up-a.php
44
http://www.searchengineguide.com/mack-collier/so-how-do-you-find-people-on-twitter.php

37

conversation with people who just might be potential customers (and not fluff,
deep industry knowledge).

9. Don't just take, share valuable information as well.

10. Have fun! Twitter can be a lot of fun from a business perspective. When people
are real, it shows, and that leads to a lot of great help and insightful conversations.

For professionals who wish to utilize Twitter but are afraid of the time commitment the
application can appear to become, there are ways to automate messages to be broadcast at
specific times. Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of
branded communications with your customers.
45
While this is definitely not a
recommended approach for communicators, due to the lack of engagement and direct-
reply capability, it can be useful as a promotional tool, part of a grander Social Media
strategy. However, it is critical that each Twitter profile, even if it is meant to serve as the
mouthpiece of an entire organization, operates under the sole ownership of a single
person. This ensures a consistent message for followers who expect a consistent voice.

45
http://www.twittertise.com/

38

Facebook – Social Networks
Facebook.com has largely become the “face” of Social Media, due to its impressive
growth over the last few years and the rate at which the audience is diversifying. Millions
of people use Facebook everyday to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of
photos, share links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.
46
Founded on
February 4, 2004 as a closed social network for Ivy League Universities, the population
bloomed once non-.edu email addresses were allowed to register profiles. Profiles allow
the users to choose a picture, list some basic information about school, work, and
interests, and communicate with other users on their public “wall” or through private
messages. In addition, there is media-sharing capability, with photos, videos, and songs
which can be posted in albums or within application widgets.
With an Alexa traffic rank of 5, Facebook has grown to retain a substantial portion of
current web traffic.
47

46
http://www.facebook.com/facebook
47
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/facebook.com

39

Figure 5: Facebook Alexa Ratings

There are a variety of different communities within the greater Facebook network. Each
profile exists within both a friend and school/work/region network, and then there is an
additional option to join different groups. These groups are about practically anything,
from classes to common interests; they can be about inside-jokes, missing phone

40

numbers, and even political activism. Brands have recently entered the platform with fan
pages, and there has been a much larger marketing presence with the overhaul that took
place June 2008.
48
Metrics for these initial campaigns have relied upon friend or post
count, in addition to impressions.
Besides communicating with others by way of messages, pokes, or “wallposts,” friends
can play games or send gifts, mostly through the thousands of applications that are now
available. A great way of engaging with the audience is through this interaction, though
professionals should be mindful of repeating Tide’s mistake of not understanding the
medium (see Myth #1). Anu Shukla provides good advice for utilizing the platform in a
way that incorporates the different features into a single motivational function:
Wise application developers know to integrate advertising offers into their app in
a way that contributes to, rather than distracts from, the overall user experience.
For example, participants in the (Lil) Green Patch application need what are
called “GreenBucks” in order to choose the types of plants they want to send to
friends. By signing up for Blockbuster, for example, or by participating in any
number of advertising offers such as completing surveys, requesting insurance
quotes, downloading ringtones, etc., they can get a hold of that foxglove they
planned to give to their aunt Agatha, or a lily they hoped would brighten the day
of a friend. By tapping into the user’s social activities and motivations—in this
case, sending a virtual gift—advertisers’ offers essentially provide the fuel that
enables consumers to interact with each other within an application.
49

Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice” promotion
50
should prove to be a case-study in how
a Social Media campaign can follow this idea. BK created a Facebook application where
users could “sacrifice” 10 of their friends in exchange for a free Whopper. These friends

48
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24764555/
49
http://mashable.com/2008/12/18/virtual-currency/
50
http://whoppersacrifice.com/

41

would be deleted from the user’s friend list, and sent a message from the application that
they had been sacrificed.
This was part of a campaign surrounding the new “Angry Whopper.” The microsite was
created and promoted with a Facebook application of the same name. It succeeded due to
its creative norm-reversal of Facebook interaction, in that instead of encouraging support
by creating a group and getting BK fans to join, they created a service that taps into an
existing behavior on the platform. Normally, when a user de-friends somebody, they
receive no notice, and only realize the action when they attempt to look at the user’s
profile or can no longer read their status updates; in effect, they are locked out of that
user’s information. With this application, BK helped illustrate the tenuous relationship
most online “friends” have with each other, and how easy it is to sever what little bond
there is.
Facebook disabled the application after a single week. Over the time that the Whopper
Sacrifice campaign was live, 233,906 friends were sacrificed by Facebook users in the
pursuit of a free Whopper.
51
The campaign was a Social Media phenomenon, hitting the
front pages of aggregates like Digg and Reddit, where it engaged the audience in
discussions beyond simply a burger coupon, into questions of behavior and values.
The following is an example of a comment thread, a single dialogue amongst the 563
comments that were posted beneath the link to the microsite on Reddit:
mattiasl - Facebook and other social networking sites have devalued the meaning
of the word "friend". I have tens of "friends" on facebook who I've only met a few

51
http://www.sogoodblog.com/2009/01/14/facebook-disables-whopper-sacrifice/

42

times when walking around the college campus and never said more than a "Hi"
to.
52

Dagon - But yet, one day, you may want to borrow money from them.

mattiasl - I don't understand. It's a bad idea to borrow money from friends. And
why on earth would random acquaintances on facebook ever want to lend me
money?

Dagon - Yes it is, and no, they wouldn't. I was being facetious and ironically
remarking upon so many people having that sort of 'friend' on Facebook (I do,
myself) and constructing a reason why people add them. A teenage co-worker of
my wife's is consistently annoyed that I don't add her on Facebook. It's partly
because I've not said more than two words to her, ever, and partly because she
consistently annoys me by being a teenage girl.

52
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/7oc4o/get_rid_of_10_facebook_friends_for_a_free_wopper/

43

COLLABORATION
Wikipedia
Wikipedia.org is a multilingual, free-content encyclopedia project. It is an online social
encyclopedia providing reference from the source of collective intelligence, or what
Pierre Levy calls the “cosmopedia” of online information.
53
A “Wiki” is a type of
collaborative Web site that can be created about anything. Similar to GoogleDocs, these
shared online documents are great tools for internal communications, providing common
space for work groups.
Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional
information, and are written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world;
anyone can edit it. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the
largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008. There
are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in
more than 260 languages. (As of 1/22/09), there are 2,710,054 articles in English. Every
day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of
thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by
the Wikipedia encyclopedia.
54

In a wiki, articles are never “finished.” They are continually edited and (often) improved
over time. In general this results in an upward trend of quality and a growing consensus
over a fair and balanced representation of information. Articles can be created about any

53
“Interactive Audiences? The “Collective Intelligence” of Media Fans,” by Henry Jenkins, in Fans,
Bloggers, and Gamers; Exploring Participatory Culture, 2006.
54
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

44

subject, and users can even request a new article to be written, but there are underlying
preferences for submitting the article under an appropriate topic heading.
55

Many users of the encyclopedia utilize Wikipedia as a first reference, a way to peruse a
new subject with additional sources provided for further reference. Alexa gives
Wikipedia.org a traffic rank of 8.
56

Figure 6: Wikipedia Alexa Ratings

55
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles
56
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/en.wikipedia.org

45

Figure 6: Wikipedia Alexa Ratings (Continued)

The journal Nature commissioned a study in 2005 comparing Wikipedia with the
professionally produced online Encyclopedia Britannica, and found that the accuracy of
the articles was about the same for each: “the average science entry in Wikipedia
contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.”
57
This study helped
illustrate the self-correcting nature of citizen-produced digital media. John Pavlik
describes this dynamic when he writes “Whereas traditional media organizations feature
professional training and editing as its primary means of minimizing error, citizen-
produced digital media feature collective knowledge and widespread public review as
principal mechanisms to minimize and correct error.”
58

However, Wikipedia is not a “real” encyclopedia. In an article from 2004, Simon
Waldman of The Guardian praises the success of the “idea,” but maintains that “To its

57
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html
58
Media In The Digital Age, by John V. Pavlik, 2008, p. 118.

46

detractors - mostly those from the traditional world of encyclopedias and librarianship, it
is barely worthy of the label “encyclopedia”.”
59
Nicholas Carr, formerly the executive
editor of the Harvard Business Review, takes the criticism farther, citing Wikipedia as the
paradigm of “The Cult of the Amateur,” a symptom of “The amorality of Web 2.0,” his
blogpost on Rough Type about this subject:
60

In theory, Wikipedia is a beautiful thing - it has to be a beautiful thing if the Web
is leading us to a higher consciousness. In reality, though, Wikipedia isn't very
good at all. Certainly, it's useful - I regularly consult it to get a quick gloss on a
subject. But at a factual level it's unreliable, and the writing is often appalling.

Nonetheless, it is essential for all public relations professionals to be cognizant of what
information is on the Wikipedia article for their company/organization/etc., especially so
for any “controversial” organization. With the editing capability that is in place, updates
are quick, and there are track-back options for reverting to a previously saved draft in
cases of vandalism. Following the edit activity on Wikipedia belongs in any complete
crisis communications plan.
Wal-Mart’s entry stands as an example of how companies can be defined on Wikipedia.
This page was not necessarily created by employees of the organization, but details a
wealth of information nonetheless, including the following:

59
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/oct/26/g2.onlinesupplement
60
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php

47

Figure 7: Walmart Wiki Contents
61

Contents

! 1 History
o 1.1 Incorporation and growth
o 1.2 Recent initiatives

! 2 Subsidiaries
o 2.1 Wal-Mart Stores Division U.S.
! 2.1.1 Wal-Mart Discount Stores
! 2.1.2 Wal-Mart Supercenter
! 2.1.3 Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market
o 2.2 Sam's Club
o 2.3 Marketside
o 2.4 Wal-Mart International
o 2.5 Private label brands

! 3 Corporate affairs
o 3.1 Financial
o 3.2 Governance
o 3.3 Competition
o 3.4 Customer base
o 3.5 Employee and labor relations
o 3.6 Diversity

! 4 See also
o 4.1 Advocacy groups
o 4.2 Television
o 4.3 Other

! 5 References

! 6 External links

Though much of the article serves as a backgrounder, detailing company history and
outlining the subsidiaries, there are also visible critiques including Wal-Mart’s struggles

61
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart

48

with women and labor relations and past lawsuits concerned with diversity and unethical
hiring practices. These points of negativity, rather than pointedly deleted and revised,
bring a sense of balance and credibility to the article; as long as they are edited for the
true facts of the situation, Wal-Mart’s entry embraces the ideals of Wikipedia, while
simultaneously getting their messages across.

49

Digg – Social Bookmarking, Content Aggregates

Digg.com is a website for viewing, sharing, and interacting with online content. Similar
to other online aggregates, users can register with the site and post links or stories, with
the community voting on the submission or making comments about it. A vote-up for a
particular submission is called a “Digg” and those that have been “Dugg” the most appear
on the front page of the site. A vote-down is called a “Bury” and users have the ability to
digg or bury both the link and any comments that have been posted.
With an Alexa rank of 284, traffic patterns show a steady usage rate, an artifact of an
engaged community of users who consistently return to the site for new and updated
content.
62

Figure 8: Digg Alexa Ratings

62
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/digg.com

50

Figure 8: Digg Alexa Ratings (Continued)

Digg’s self-proclaimed mission is “democratizing digital media.” Users within the
community participate in determining all site content by discovering, selecting, sharing,
and discussing what appeals to them—news, videos, etc. Ways for new users getting
involved are provided on a How Digg Works page; most aggregates can be navigated in
much the same manner, though each has their own nuances.
63

Table 8: Digg Tactics
Discover
Submit your favorites. Find an article, image, or video online and
submit it to Digg.com. Your submission
will immediately appear in “Upcoming
Stories,” where other members can find it
and, if they like it, Digg it.

63
http://digg.com/how

51

Table 8: Digg Tactics (Continued)
Become popular. Once a submission has earned a critical
mass of Diggs, it becomes “popular” and
jumps to the homepage in its category. If it
becomes one of the most popular, it
qualifies as a “Top 10”. If a submission
doesn't receive enough Diggs within a
certain time period, it eventually falls out
of the “Upcoming” section.
Select
Discover media on Digg. Visit the “Upcoming” section to discover
recently added news, and videos. Track
submissions as they come in with Swarm,
Stack, Big Spy or Arc, our real-time Flash
visualization tools in Digg Labs. Or use
Spy to watch the titles and descriptions as
they roll down the page. Of course, you can
always check the topic homepages to see
what's newly popular. And you can
subscribe to RSS feeds of particular topics,
popular/upcoming sections, individual
users, and the search terms of your choice.
Share
Digg. Participate in the collaborative editorial
process by Digging the stuff that you like
best. As you Digg, you contribute to the
popularity of any given item. You also
build a history of Digging that you or your
friends can view.
Bury. If you find stories with bad links, off-topic
content, or duplicate entries, click “Bury.”
That’s how we get the spam out of the
system and let the good stuff rise to the top.
The system only works when users actively
participate on a large scale, so make sure to
do your part and Digg and Bury content
that matters to you!

52

Table 8: Digg Tactics (Continued)
Build a network. Invite your friends or find them on Digg
and add them to your friends list. Then
your friends can track what you’re Digging
and you can see what they Digg as well,
enabling you to collectively find news
together. Send your friends (Diggers or
non-Diggers) the stories that you Digg.
Discuss
Comment. Share your opinions by commenting on
stories, images, and videos as well as
Digging and Burying comments by other
users.

In the “What” section of the 5 W’s of Social Media, I referenced the notion of
community lifecycles being determined by a popularity contest of ideas. Digg’s
democratization of digital media illustrates more fully this notion of how user-moderated
content reflects trends in bias and perspective. The Top 10 articles, the ones that have
received the most Diggs and are listed on the front page, are then the ones that most
appeal to the majority.
Appealing to that majority comes by following the site over time, getting a sense of the
context within the top submissions, and creating one that both sparks interest and
generates a level of interaction. Ryan Deal explains in a “How-To”article the three main
factors to consider if you want to garner that attention:
Title: Choosing a title for a Digg submission is a lot like writing a headline for a
newspaper article; you need to attract the reader without misleading them.
Misleading titles will earn some negative comments and a bunch of people
burying your submission.

53

Description: People want to know what they’re getting into. Sometimes a good
title is all you need, but for submissions that require additional information, make
sure you include it. Remember, the point is to get people interested.

Category: Some categories are more popular than others, so if you want a better
chance of getting your submission to the front page, you’ve got to get it into the
right category. Take for example a video of a dog falling asleep while running.
Funny right? So, you think, put it in “Comedy.” However, although “Comedy” is
an appropriate category, if you choose “Pets & Animals,” which is also relevant,
you’re submission is more likely to see the light of day.
64

In addition to submitting content directly to Digg or other aggregates, other users can do
this for you with embedded sharing tools on your site. These widgets are designed with
the logos of each of the different sites, and are placed at the bottom of either the site
window or the content itself. Rather than coding each of the different platforms
individually, there are tools that do all of this for you, such as ShareThis.
65

Figure 9: ShareThis Widget
ShareThis

64
http://mashable.com/2009/01/20/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-digg/
65
http://sharethis.com/

54

MULTIMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT

Flickr – Media Sharing

Flickr.com is an online photo management and sharing application utilized by people
who have created media and want to make their content available to people who matter to
them, or really anyone, by enabling new ways of organizing photos and video. “Flickr is
the WD-40 that makes it easy to get photos or video from one person to another in
whatever way they want.”
66
With digital technology, it has become easier than ever to
take a massive number of photos or videos and publish them on the web. In Flickr, the
media can be published as public or private, and users can give their friends, family, and
other contacts permission to further organize their posts—not simply by adding
comments, but also notes and tags. Groups devote themselves to collections of different
interests, from pets to landscapes, where members can find like-minded users who follow
similar themes.
Without delineating between members and viewers, Alexa ranks Flickr at 32.
67

66
http://flickr.com/about/
67
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/flickr.com

55

Figure 10: Flickr Alexa Ratings

Flickr provides its members’ measurement capabilities with a tool that delivers statistics
on how other people are finding an individual user’s photo. Currently only for “pro”
users, Flickr says “There are stats available for people surfing on Flickr itself - where the
referrer is flickr.com - and stats about people coming from other websites. We can show

56

you the sorts of things people search for on search engines where your photos turn up,
and tell you how many views your photos have.”
68

Communications professionals have the ability to utilize this platform to distribute their
media assets. Photos from an event can be posted, tagged, and organized in such a way
that stakeholders can access the images, add their comments, and share. In addition, these
uploads can be embedded onto other sites, providing a further distribution channel. By
allowing this, however, Flickr does add an important proviso to this function in its
community guidelines:
Do link back to Flickr when you post your Flickr content elsewhere.
The Flickr service makes it possible to post content hosted on Flickr to outside
web sites. However, pages on other web sites that display content hosted on
flickr.com must provide a link from each photo or video back to its page on
Flickr.
69

On many occasions, posts on Flickr and similar media-sharing content sites become the
link to which other communities find each other. An internet user, when they find
something interesting or entertaining, can now share this with everybody, and the
discovery of this piece of media content becomes a message to be communicated,
something to interact with for the community. Currently, there is an emerging trend of
cross-platform convergence for media sharing, with Twitpics now available on Twitter
and Facebook now hosting over 10 billion photos on the site.
70
It remains to be seen
which sites become obsolete or simply unnecessary.

68
http://www.flickr.com/help/stats/
69
http://flickr.com/guidelines.gne
70
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=30695603919

57

Chapter 5: Bringing it all Together - Storytelling
Looking back over all the different Social Media platforms, each exists as a separate,
distinct community operating within a certain network. But the sphere of influence
generating the user interaction extends beyond a single website. Many of the key
influencers within Social Media involve themselves in multiple networks, driving cross-
platform integration and communication.
A great way of engaging in the conversation is to look at each of these websites as parts
of a larger whole, a true “web” of interconnected sites that can be utilized in driving your
communications plan when committed to a Social Media campaign. Postings on a blog,
updates sent over Twitter, and media uploaded to Flickr can be pulled together to create a
complete story.
Storytlr.com started as a project designed to create an updated “personal” page, a
platform for users to organize all their online activities on a single profile. Like an
Internet diary, there is a “Lifestream” which lists bookmarked articles, shared links, and
recent updates from the user, and a “Stories” feature that creates simple event-based
timeline of photos, videos and tweets. These stories can then be embedded onto other
sites as a single, compelling album of multimedia content.
For example, one of the designers recently went on a hiking trip through the British
countryside. Along the way, he took photos of the verdant landscapes, recorded video of
the activities, and updated his contacts on Twitter with information on his destination.

58

Following his return, he was able to pull together each of these content artifacts in a way
that more fully captured his adventure.
71

Figure 11: StoryTlr

Storytelling can be useful in engaging in the conversation, and Social Media has
expanded the ways in which people interact by sharing the events of their lives. This now
includes news broadcast, and the rise in citizen-journalism has illustrated the impact new
technologies and new channels of communication have on media.
In addition to the normal categories—world, business, politics, etc.—CNN.com now
includes a special iReport section of their online news.
iReport.com is a user-generated site which means the stories submitted by users
are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only the stories marked

71
http://eschnou.com/story/1-night_hike.html

59

“On CNN” have been vetted by CNN for use in CNN's global news coverage….
Lots of people argue about what constitutes news. But, really, it’s just something
that happens someplace to someone. Whether that something is newsworthy
mostly depends on who it affects—and who’s making the decision.
72

Many of the submissions include not only text, but also additional multimedia content,
and CNN provides easy tools for users to upload and share their experience.
CNN's iReporters recently led some of the news coverage of the terror attacks in Mumbai
in late 2008. Due to the speed with which messages can be communicated across Social
Media, many of the traditional news outlets found themselves relying on stories provided
by way of these platforms.
…an estimated 80 messages, or "tweets," were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS
every five seconds, providing eyewitness accounts and updates. Many Twitter
users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in
Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties. Others
sent information about helplines and contact numbers for those who had friends
and relatives caught up in the attacks. Tweeters were also mobilized to help with
transcribing a list of the dead and injured from hospitals, which were quickly
posted online…. Flickr also proved a useful source of haunting images
chronicling the aftermath of the attacks. Journalist Vinukumar Ranganathan's
stream of photos were published by CNN and other major broadcasters.
73

Even though there were incidents of fake updates and falsified information, overall Social
Media provided a valuable component of the traditional media coverage. However,
considering the nature of citizen-journalism allows for immediate broadcast without
appropriate fact-checking, there is always a risk of widespread rumor mongering with a
negative impact upon the subject.
In October, a story on iReport claimed that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a massive
heart attack. Rumors had been swirling about Jobs health problems due to his appearance

72
http://www.ireport.com/about.jspa
73
“Tweeting the Terror: How Social Media Reacted to Mumbai,” by Stephanie Busari, CNN.

60

of losing weight. This story seemingly confirmed these concerns, and with Jobs influence
over Apple as the face of the company, the stock tanked. According to Sarah Perez of
ReadWriteWeb, the story was false, not to mention troubling for CNN and the field of
citizen journalism, at least temporarily. “[D]o false reports like this damage CNN’s
credibility? The answer is yes, absolutely. This particular report may even lead to an SEC
investigation where CNN will be asked to provide an IP address for the user who posted
the story.”
74

74
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/technology/2008/December/Citizen-Journalists-Brought-Mass-
Coverage-to-Mumbai-Attacks.html

61

Conclusion – A Prototype
Perhaps the best way to summarize the key learnings of this paper would be to illustrate
how a Social Media campaign would look like as part of an ongoing communications
plan for an existing organization. The University of Southern California—like most
colleges and universities in the States—has a web portal that links together the different
schools, departments and student communities within the institution. In December 2008,
USC hired a sustainability program manager named Matthew Oden to launch the USC
Sustainability Program, an initiative to help reduce USC’s environmental impact.
We are so pleased that Matthew Oden has joined USC – he will work with all
departments to envision and implement organizational strategies to help USC
become a national model of sustainability in higher education,” said Charlie Lane,
USC associate senior vice president for Career and Protective Services. “In
addition, he will help develop broad awareness of the many sustainability
initiatives currently under way and develop a university-wide process to support
sustainability inquiry, change and assessment.
75

Among Oden’s proposed program goals is the launch of a USC Sustainability website, a
resource for both internal and external audiences that would serve as both an information
database and a communication channel for community outreach. As part of the greater
USC web presence, this site must align itself with the existing portal to retain
organizational consistency, while at the same time reaching beyond the network to
engender greater awareness for the program. This is where Social Media comes in.
The site should have a blog and Twitter account, authored by Oden himself or edited by a
public relations professional, detailing current activities and his progress with the
initiative. Content could include video interviews with Oden and key leaders and

75
http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/16328.html

62

influences at USC as well as within the greater sustainability/environmental community,
in addition to articles highlighting recent findings and/or innovative ideas for reducing
environmental impact. Users who register with the site can comment on the articles, share
them with friends utilizing embedded sharing tools like ShareThis, and engage with the
site by making suggestions for and giving feedback on the Sustainability Program. Events
like the Earth Week launch can be chronicled with pictures, tweets, and videos packaged
into a story and published as a multimedia calendar. A Facebook group could be formed
or an application developed where members can track their own environmental impact
and rate their scores under a ranking system. And the Wikipedia article on USC deserves
an update and revision with current and correct information.
In sum, Social Media can provide the means to extend the reach of the site through
audience engagement. Rather than become a depository for statistical data for impact
metrics at USC, the site becomes a waypoint for explaining what all the information
means and why it matters, allowing stakeholders to share in the progress by engaging in
the conversation with strong, interesting, and original content. For no matter how many
tools and platforms become available, which networks fail to engender a massive and
consistent audience or even reach obsolescence, content is still King.
The online community is alive, and its streaming daily through Social Media.

63

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Asset Metadata

Creator Cavanaugh, Patrick James (author)

Core Title Engaging in the conversation; best practices in strategic social media

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Strategic Public Relations

Publication Date 05/06/2009

Defense Date 04/01/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Communications,Internet,OAI-PMH Harvest,Public Relations,social media

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Floto, Jennifer D. (committee chair), LeVeque, Matthew (committee member), Wang, Jian (Jay) (committee member)

Creator Email cavanaugh.patrick@gmail.com,pcavanau@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2197

Unique identifier UC160689

Identifier etd-Cavanaugh-2846 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-237913 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2197 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Cavanaugh-2846.pdf

Dmrecord 237913

Document Type Thesis

Rights Cavanaugh, Patrick James

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu