Social media is a computer-mediated technology that allows individuals, companies and NGOs to share and create information, ideas, career interest, and other expressions via virtual communities and networks. There are many social media services available, both standalone and integrated. However, there are certain common features.
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Social media is interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based apps.
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User-generated content, such as comments or text, digital photos, or videos, is the lifeblood for the social media ecosystem.
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Users create service-specific profiles on the app or website that are maintained by the social media organisation. Social media facilitates the creation of online social networks through the linking of a user’s profile to those of other people and/or groups.
Social media uses web-based and mobile technology on smartphones and tablets to create highly interactive platforms where individuals, communities, and organizations can share and co-create content, discuss, modify, and even delete content created by users or content that has been posted online. They make communication easier between individuals, businesses, communities, and organizations. Social media has a profound impact on the communication between individuals and large companies. Technoself studies is a new field that studies these changes.
In many ways, social media is different from traditional media like TV broadcasting or paper-based media. These include quality, reach and frequency, usability, permanence, and immediacy. Social media use a dialogic transmission model (many sources to many recipients). This contrasts with traditional media which operates in a monogenic transmission model (one source to many recipients), such as a newspaper that is distributed to many subscribers. Facebook, WhatsApp, Tumblr and Instagram are some of the most used social media sites. These social media sites have over 100,000,000 registered users.
Social media usage has been observed to have both positive and negative effects. Social media can improve people’s sense of connection with other online and real communities. Additionally, social media can be a powerful communications (or marketing?) tool for businesses, entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations, advocacy groups, political parties, and governments. However, there have been concerns about the possible link between heavy social media usage and depression, as well as the potential issues of online harassment, cyberbullying and trolling. Nielsen reports that Internet users spend more time on social media sites than any other site. The total amount of time Americans spent on social media sites across mobile and PC devices rose 99 percent to 121billion minutes in July 2012, compared to the 66 billion minutes recorded in July 2011. Participating in social media has many benefits for content creators. They can build their reputation, bring in career opportunities, and make a living from their work.
Management
Social media monitoring tools allow companies and marketers to track and analyze conversations online about their products and brands. This tool can be used to track advertising campaigns and public relations, as well as measure return on investment, competitor auditing, and general public engagement. There are many tools available, from basic, free applications to more advanced, subscription-based options. Companies can also use social media tracking to quickly respond to any online criticisms of their products or services. This helps companies to reduce negative online reviews about their products and services by responding quickly to customer complaints. For example, in the US, if someone criticizes major hotels’ cleanliness or service standards via social media, a representative of the company will be alerted immediately to the post. The representative can then go online to express concern and offer the complainant a coupon or discount for their next purchase.
The “honeycomb framework”, which describes how social media services are focused on one or more of seven functional building blocks, is called the “honeycomb framework”. These blocks are used to explain the engagement needs of social media users. LinkedIn users care more about their identity, reputation and relationships than YouTube users. YouTube’s main features include sharing, conversations and groups. Many companies create their own social “containers”, which attempt to connect the seven functional building blocks that surround their brands. These private communities engage people around a narrower theme, such as a brand, vocation, or hobby. They are not social media containers like Google+, Facebook and Twitter. Public relations departments are often faced with significant difficulties when dealing with negative sentiment on social media about organizations and individuals (referred to as “sentimental”), which could be in response to an announcement or other event. Jan H. Kietzmann and Kristopher Hermkens describe the honeycomb relationship in a 2011 article. They say that it “present[s]] a framework which defines social media using seven functional building blocks, identity, conversations and sharing, presence and relationships, reputation and groups.”
These are the elements of the honeycomb structure:
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Identity: This block shows how many users have revealed their identities on social media. This could include disclosing personal information like name, gender, occupation, location, or information that depicts users in certain ways.
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Conversations: This block shows how many users interact with each other in a social media environment. Many social media platforms are intended to facilitate conversation between individuals and groups. There are many reasons for these conversations. To meet new people, find a partner, boost self-esteem or keep up with the latest trends and ideas, users tweet, blog, comment online, and leave messages. Others see social media as a way to make their point and have an impact on humanitarian issues, economic problems, political debates, or environmental problems.
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Sharing: This block shows how users share, distribute and receive content. It can be anything from a brief text post to a link, or a digital picture. Social refers to exchanges between people. Sociality, in many cases, refers to the objects that facilitate these ties between people. These are the reasons why they connect online and become friends.
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Presence: This block shows how users can determine if others are available. This includes being able to see where other users are located in the virtual and/or real worlds, as well as whether they are available. Some social media sites offer icons that show when others are online.
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Relationships: This block shows how many users can be linked up or related to each other. Two or more users can have an association that allows them to communicate, share objects of common interest, send messages or texts, meet up, or just list themselves as friends or fans.
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Reputation: This is the level to which users are able to identify the status of others in a social networking setting. Social media platforms can give reputation different meanings. Reputation is usually a matter about trust. However, information technologies are still not good at determining these highly qualitative criteria. Social media platforms rely on “mechanical Turks”, tools that automatically combine user-generated data to determine trustworthiness. Social media can also be used to manage reputation.
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Groups: This block shows the ability of users to form communities or sub-communities with people from similar backgrounds, demographics, and interests. The larger a network is, the more friends, followers, contacts, and connections can be formed.
The most popular websites
This list shows the top social networks according to the active user accounts. It was created in April 2016.
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Facebook: 1,650,000,000 Users
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WhatsApp has 1,000,000,000 users
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Facebook Messenger: 900,000,000 users.
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QQ: 853,000,000 Users.
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WeChat: 706,000,000 Users
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QZone has 653,000,000 users.
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Tumblr: 555,000,000 Users
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Instagram: 400,000,000 Users
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Twitter: 325,000,000 users
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Baidu Tieba: 300,000,000 users.
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Skype: 300,000,000 users
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Viber: 280,000,000 Users
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Sina Weibo has 222,000,000 users.
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Line: 215,000,000 Users
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Snapchat: 200,000,000 users
Criticisms
We fear that social media could become a virtual spa. Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons is an infectious disease doctor Santa Barbara County Public Health Department.
Criticisms of social media range from criticisms of the ease of use of specific platforms and their capabilities, disparity of information available, issues with trustworthiness and reliability of information presented, the impact of social media use on an individual’s concentration,ownership of media content, and the meaning of interactions created by social media. Some social media platforms allow users to post simultaneously on multiple platforms. However, there have been criticisms of social media platforms for their inability to interoperate between them, leading to information silos. One social media platform may contain isolated data pockets. It is also possible to argue that social media has positive effects, such as democratizing the Internet and allowing people to make friends and advertise. Others have pointed out that “social” does not refer to the technological aspects of a platform. Therefore, the level of sociability should depend on the actual performance of its users. With the rise of online predators and cyberbullying, face-to-face interactions have decreased dramatically. Children may be exposed to images of alcohol, tobacco and other sexual activities via social media. Discuss. It has been shown that people who have not been bullied online have better mental health than those who have had to deal with cyberbullying.
Marketers are increasingly targeting Twitter as a target. They use advanced scripts and manipulation techniques to manipulate social media. This is done in an effort to gain large numbers of followers. Twitter encourages students to connect with each other. Twitter can be used to improve communication and critical thinking. Domizi (2013) used Twitter to facilitate a graduate seminar that required students to post weekly tweets in order to expand classroom discussions. According to reports, students used Twitter to communicate with other students and content. Students also found Twitter useful for their professional and personal lives. Andrew Keen, a British-American entrepreneur, wrote that social media was “governing the infinite monkeys now putting away on the Internet the law of digital Darwinism. This is the survival of the loudest, most opinionated.” These rules dictate that intellectually dominant means infinite filibustering. This is also relevant to the topic of “justice” on social networks. The phenomenon of the “Human flesh search engine”, which was discovered in Asia, raised questions about the “private-law” that social networking platforms bring to the table. Jose van Dijck, a comparative media professor, argues in her book “The culture of connectivity” (2013) that social media’s technological dimensions must be linked to the social and cultural to fully understand their impact. Six social media platforms are analyzed by her. One of her conclusions is that Facebook has managed to frame the term “sharing” in a way that allows for intra-user connectivity and neglects third-party use of user data.
Privacy:
Privacy advocates warn users about the potential uses of information gathered via social media. Some information can be gathered without users’ knowledge or consent. This includes electronic tracking and third-party applications on social media. Other uses include law enforcement, government use of the information, and data mining techniques that can be used to gather social media intelligence. Privacy concerns also arise from the potential impact of employers monitoring social media postings by workers. A 2010 survey was conducted at different universities and revealed that there is a line between professional and personal lives. Many users who were surveyed admitted to making false statements online. Employers can be worried because employees’ social media accounts reflect their personal and not professional lives. However, they are being censored by their employers on the Internet.
Employers using social media to screen potential employees raise privacy concerns. This raises ethical issues that can lead to a conflict between what some view as an employer’s rights and what others see as discrimination. Employers are not prohibited from using social media profiles to decide whether someone should be hired, except in California, Maryland, or Illinois. Title VII also prohibits discrimination in employment, including hiring, firing, recruiting, and testing. Employers and employees have been experiencing conflict as social media integration has occurred. Employers have found Facebook to be a popular way to find out more about potential employees. Maryland was the first state to experience this conflict. An employer asked for and received an employee’s Facebook username, and password. In 2012, state legislators introduced legislation to ban employers from asking for passwords to social accounts to obtain a job or keep a job. Canada, Germany and 11 U.S. States passed or proposed legislation to prevent employers from accessing employees’ private social accounts.
Many countries in Western Europe have implemented laws restricting the regulation of social networking at work. States like Arkansas, California and Colorado have passed legislation to protect current and potential employees from employers who require them to reveal their username and password for a Social Media Account. This includes states such as New York, Connecticut, North Dakota and California. Many states have similar laws to protect college and university students from being denied access to their social networking accounts. Eight states have passed legislation that bans post-secondary institutions from asking for social media login information from students or prospective students. Privacy legislation has also been introduced in 36 states or is pending as of July 2013. Eight states have passed legislation that prohibits post secondary institutions from asking for social media login information from students. Privacy legislation was also introduced or is pending in 36 states as of July 2013.
