Digital Communities

Hey everyone, this week we are covering Chapter 4, this chapter is about digital communities, which is defined as a group of people who are guided by community policies to come together and communicate online. The chapter focuses on different types of communities, their structure, and the characteristics that make up the community and their interactions. The chapter also covers how certain types of communicators lead or direct conversations or initiate the flow of information within the community that influence other members; and also how these influences can lead to indirect capitol gains for businesses in the form of relationships, connections, and information.

The strengths in the chapter is that it covers a lot of vocabulary that the average social media user is not even aware has an official term, I think having the knowledge alone of these terms helps the user to better understand how to utilize social media to their advantage. The weakness in the chapter is on the evolution of online communities, I would have liked to read more about how our connections to the online world have changed our physical world interactions, and how might businesses communicate in ways that help the members of the community to feel more connected and create positive interactions that can be used in the physical world as well.

Five terminologies that I’ve never heard of:

 Nodes- members that make up a social network that make connections through their relationships with other people in the network.

Small-World Network- a mathematical model that states that most nodes in a network are not directly connected to ‘friends’, but are indirectly connected through other ‘friends.’

Flaming- the use of all caps to express anger in a post.

Homophily- is the degree to which two people are connected base on their level of education, social status, and beliefs.

Anomie- is a condition of modern society that causes members of the society to feel alienated even with modern advances, which potentially could lead to suicide.

The majority of my connections on Facebook are weak-ties; they are people I used to interact with in the physical world on a regular basis, but now because of distance or time apart I no longer have direct contact with. My strong-ties would consist of 6 people; they are my husband, mom, dad, sister, and two of my best friends. I would consider them my strong-ties because they are all people I talk to on the phone on a regular basis or have seen in person on a semi-regular basis (three are in Alaska and one is outside of Baton Rouge). I think Facebook helps me to feel more connected to the people that are far away or that I haven’t actually talked to in awhile, but on the other hand, it does give that false sense of connection because you aren’t talking to each other the same way you might in person or if you were able to go out to lunch/dinner or spend an afternoon with them.

One of my favorite people is Suze Orman the financial guru, so I looked up #suzeorman on Twitter, and the other tags associated with that hashtag were, #studentloandebt #terminsurance #MotivationMonday #FICO #stocks #equities #productivitytips #savings #financialfreedom. I don’t have a Twitter account so I can’t really see much, but this pretty much raps up Suze Orman’s message, she likes to give everyone the knowledge to make informed decisions about their finances in the economic downturn we live in, so that her followers can be prepared for anything financially, which ultimately is a behavioral activity that most people don’t understand.

I do feel that this chapter has helped me to better understand social communities, as I said before simply knowing the terminology that goes along with these communities and communications gives users a better understanding of how this can be applied to merchandising.