Chapter 8: Social Media Information Systems

  • Introduction 
    • Do you have a social media strategy? Will using social media affect their bottom line?
  • Q8-1: What is a social media information system (SMIS)? 
    • Social media (SM) - using IT to support the sharing of content among a network of users 
    • Communities (of practice) - groups of related people with a common interest
    • Social media information system (SMIS) - the IT that supports content sharing among network of users
    • Social Media is a convergence of disciplines: psychology, organization theory, marketing, MIS, computer science, and sociology
    • Three SMIS Roles:
      1. Social media providers - platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. that enable the creation of social networks (compete for attention of users for associated advertising dollars)
        • Attract & target certain demographic groups
        • Social networks - social relationships for people with common interest
      2. Users - both individuals & organizations using SM sites to build relationships
        • Organizations can be users / providers / both > hire staff to maintain SM presence, build relationships, promote products, and manage their image.
        • Internal platforms = wikis, blogs, and discussion boards
      3. Communities 
        • formed based on mutual interests > transcend geographic, familial, and organizational boundaries 
        • Most people belong to several / many different communities 
        • How the SM site relates the communities depend on its goals
          • Pure publicity = viral hook - inducement for passing communication along
    • SMIS Components
      • Hardware - mobile devices, laptops, desktops, etc. used to process SM sites
      • Software - mobile applications for variety of platforms: iOS, Android, Windows / Provider: applications, NoSQL, DBMS, analytics
      • Data
        • Content data - responses to data / data, contributed by users
        • Connection data - relationship data > like particular pages / relation to friends
      • Procedures - designed to be easy to learn & use > informal, evolving, and socially oriented
        • Organization procedures to create content, manage user responses, remove obsolete / objectionable content, and extract value 
      • People - goals and personalities influence what people do > key users, adaptive, can be irrational
  • Q8-2: How do SMIS advance organizational strategy?
    • Strategy determines value chain > business processes > information systems
    • Social media is very dynamic by nature > cannot be designed or diagrammed
    • Social Media and the Sales and Marketing Activity
      • Social CRM - dynamic, CRM process that is SM-based
      • As both organization & customers create and process content, emerge in dynamic process > each customers crafts own relationship with company
      • Relationship emerge from joint activity so customers same control as organizations
      • Organizations struggling to transition from controlled, structured, traditional CRM > wide-open, adaptive, dynamic social CRM processes
      • Risk: loss of credibility and bad PR
    • Social Media and Customer Service
      • Product users willing to help each other solve problems, without pay
      • Primary risk of peer-to-peer support = loss of control
    • Social Media and Inbound & Outbound Logistics
      • Benefits
        • Numerous solution ideas and rapid evaluation 
        • Solutions to complex SupChain problems 
        • Facilitates user created content/feedback for problem solving 
      • Risk: 
        • Loss of Privacy 
        • Open discussion of problem definitions, causes, and solution constraints
    • Social Media and Manufacturing & Operations
      • Develop supplier relationships, and operational efficiencies
      • Crowdsourcing - employing users to participate in product design or product redesign
      • Business-to-consumer (B2C) - market products to end users
      • Business-to-business (B2B) - promoting brand awareness and generating new leads to retailers
      • Risk: loss of efficiency / effectiveness
    • Socials Media and Human Resources
      • SM used for finding employees, recruiting candidates, or for candidate evaluation
      • Risk: error to form conclusions about employee & loss of credibility 
  • Q8-3: How do SMIS increase social capital?
    • Capital - resources invested for future profit; physical = factories, machines, equipment, etc.
    • Human capital - investing in human knowledge and skills for future profit
    • Social capital - investing in social relations with expectation of returns in marketplace
    • What is the value of social capital? > Relationships provide:
      • Information - about opportunities, alternatives, problems, etc. that are important to business professionals 
      • Influence - opportunity to influence decision makers 
      • Social credentials - bask in glory with whom you are related 
      • Personal reinforcement - in professional's identity, image, and position
      • Value of social capital - determined by number of relationships in social network
    • How do social networks add value to businesses?
      • Elements of social capital: number of relationships, strength of relationships, and resources controlled by "friends" 
    • Using social networking to increase the number of relationships
      • Influencer - your opinion may force a change in others' beliefs and behaviors
      • Express opinion by word-of-mouth to social network, SMIS allow scale of relationships
    • Using social networks to increase the strength of relationships
      • Strength of relationship - how likely the other entity (organization or person) in the relationship will do something that benefits the organization
    • Using social networks to connect to those with more resources
      • Social capital = number of relationships x relationship strength x entity resources
      • Huge network of people with few resources = less valuable than a smaller network of people with substantial resources 
      • Resources MUST be relevant
  • Q8-4: How do (some) companies earn revenue from social media?
    • Hyper-social organization - transforms interactions with customers, employees, and partners into mutually satisfying relationships with them and their communities
    • You are the product 
      • Monetize - free product to attract users, but how do they make money from their application, service, or content?
      • Make users the product
    • Revenue Models for Social Media 
      • Advertising 
        • Pay-per-click - advertisers display ads to potential customers for free and pay only when the customer clicks 
        • Use increases value - the more people using a site, the more value it has > the more people will visit 
      • Freemium - offering users basic service for free and then charges premium for upgrades or advanced features (revenue model)
        • Ad-blocking software - filter out advertising content, rarely see internet ads
    • Does mobility reduce online ad revenue?
      • Average click-through rate of smartphones is 4.12% but just 2.39% on PC
      • Ads take up so much more space on mobile devices than on PC, sometimes accidental click
      • Paid search, display, or banner ads, mobile ads, classifieds, or digital video ads
      • Conversion rate - measures frequency that someone who clicks on ad, makes a purchase
  • Q8-5: How do organizations develop an effective SMIS? 
    • Organizations should focus strategy to: being cost leader OR differentiate their products from competition
    • Social Media Plan Development:
      1. Define your goals
        • Brand awareness, conversion rates, web site traffic, and user engagement
      2. Identify success metrics
        • Success metrics / key performance indicators (KPI) - metrics that will indicate when you have achieved your goals
        • Metrics - measurements used to track performance
      3. Identify target audience
      4. Define your value
        • Competitive analysis - identify strengths and weaknesses in competitors' use of SM > what they're doing right and wrong > use to see how you can add value
      5. Make personal connections
      6. Gather and analyze data
  • Q8-6: What is an enterprise social network (ESN)?
    • Enterprise social network (ESN) - using social media through a software platform to facilitate cooperative work of people within an organization
    • Improve communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing, problem solving, and decision making
    • Enterprise 2.0
      • Web 2.0 - dynamic, user-generated content systems
      • Enterprise 2.0 - inside companies, use of emergent social software platforms
      • SLATES - search, links, authoring, tags, extensions, and signals
      • Folksonomy - content structure emerging from processing of use tags
    • Changing communication
      • Communication channels - way of delivering messages
      • Using ESNs, employees can bypass managers and post ideas directly for CEO
      • Quickly identify internal experts to solve unforeseen problems
    • Deploying successful enterprise social networks 
      • Best practices - ensuring successful implementation of ESN through methods that have been proven to produce successful results in prior implementations
      • Strategy, sponsorship, support, and success
      • Develop strategic plan for using SM internally via same process as used for external social media use
  • Q8-7: How can organizations address SMIS security concerns?
    • Managing the risk of employee communication
      • Social media policy - develop and publicize a statement, delineating employees' rights and responsibilities 
      • Intel Corporation:
        • Disclose - be transparent, truthful, & be yourself
        • Protect - don't tell secrets, slam competition, or overshare
        • Use common sense - add value, keep it cool, and admit mistakes
    • Managing the risk of inappropriate content
      • User-generated content (UGC) - content contributed by users on your SM site
      • Problems from external sources:
        • Junk contributions 
        • Inappropriate content
        • Unfavorable reviews
        • Mutinous movements 
      • Responding to social networking problems: 
        • Leave it 
        • Respond to it
        • Delete it
      • Internal risks from social media
        • Affect ability to secure information resources / threats to info security > unintentional leak of information
        • Employees using SM could inadvertently increase corporate liability 
        • Increase SM use may lead to decreased employee productivity
  • Q8-8: 2026?
    • New mobile devices with innovative mobile-device UX, coupled with dynamic and agile IS based on cloud computing and dynamic virtualization
    • BYOD - bring your own device
    • Non routine cognitive skills more important
    • Digital is Forever >> Transmitting personal info using internet can make victim, impossible to delete, stored on numerous servers / server farms > Digital Zombie
    • Companies analyze everything you digitally say or do
    • Big Data = Big Money >> personal data illegally accessed or sold on black market
      • Legally accessed by companies and sold to others
    • Steps to mask / remove digital footprints > Clear cookies, encrypt emails, avoid using real name, VN mask internet Protocol 
    • Develop your personal brand (understand importance and value)
      • Social media presence one component of a professional brand
      • Traditional sources of personal branding like personal networks f2f relationships, important