Online Social Networking of Consumers
• Touching the Void (1988) • Into Thin Air (1998)
Objectives
• To define and explain the concept on Online Social Networking (OSN) • To identify various forms of OSN • To discuss the implications of OSN vis-àvis Marketing Strategy in an Internetbased environment
SN Portal Values
• Facebook, (launched in a Harvard dormroom by Mark Zuckerberg) was offered $900 Million by Yahoo!, holding out for more. • Google bought YouTube for $1.6 Billion • MySpace, was bought for $580 Milion by FOX interactive (Rupert Murdoch), valued now at $15 billion
SN Portal Values: Another Dot Com Bubble? • These sites have stickiness, since members invest a lot in writing profile, uploading pictures, and building friends’ network • Have shown ability to generate revenue: MySpace signed a 3-year, $900 Million deal with Google to show sponsored ads
Online Social Networking defined
• An Online Social Network (OSN) is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations, primarily interacting in an online environment. • The network structure of the Internet is conducive to creation of OSN.
• Computer as a device - from calculation to communication • “Internet is not about aggregation of information, instead it is about aggregation of people” • Myopic focus on business-to-consumer or business-to-business connections
Internet as mapped on June 28, 1999
OSN manifests in many terms
• • • • • • • Web 2.0 Virtual Community Blogs (xanga.com) Chat rooms Internet Forums Newsgroups Folksonomies (del.isio.us; flickr)
A personal friendster network to 3 hops out (myself, my "friends", my friends' friends, and my friends' friends' friends, 47471 people connected by 432430 friendship relations
Major Themes
• • • • OSN as a target market OSN and consumer learning Participation in OSN as a leisure pursuit OSN for vicarious consumption
OSN as a Target Market
• Similarity along some dimension that defines community • Bargaining power of collectives • Keeping track of transactions • Reaching out through banners, key words, emails
Continued……
OSN as a Target Market
• Selling member information • Reduction in wasteful marketing expenditure
Continued……
OSN as a Target Market
• Buzz/Viral Marketing • Long Tail
Definition: Viral Marketing or Buzz Marketing • Marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of a computer virus.
Proponents of Social Networking
• • • • P&G (for Cover Girl and Old Spice) Razr Gmail Ilovebees.com (Halo 2 campaign)
OSN and Consumer Learning
• Experts and Novices • Word-of-Mouth (WOM) and Word-on-Line (WOL)
– Public, ease in reproduction, and citing
• New Product Diffusion
Participation in OSN for leisure
• Playing interactive games
– Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) – Shown here: Final Fantasy IV (allows both PC and console players to interact) and World of Warcraft (Most popular MMORPG in USA)
OSN for Vicarious Consumption of Cult Products
• Enhancement of consumption pleasure • Niche products with cult following (Long Tail)
Linkages with Marketing Actions
• Consumer forums on websites • Tapping lead users for educating newbie • Deciding on product/brand positioning based on feedback • Increasing consumer involvement • Following conversation thread to clarify rumors • Augmenting brand equity through rich media presentation • B-to-B virtual communities