Which Of The Following Would Characterize An Applied Research Effort?

The concept of Social Media is top of the agenda for many business executives today. Decision makers, as well as consultants, try to identify ways in which firms can make profitable use of applications such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life, and Twitter. Yet despite this interest, there seems to be very limited understanding of what the term "Social Media" exactly means; this article intends to provide some clarification. We begin by describing the concept of Social Media, and discuss how it differs from related concepts such as Web 2.0 and User Generated Content. Based on this definition, we then provide a classification of Social Media which groups applications currently subsumed under the generalized term into more specific categories by characteristic: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Finally, we present 10 pieces of advice for companies which decide to utilize Social Media.

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Users of the world, unite! The challenges and

opportunities of Social Media

Andreas M. Kaplan * , Michael Haenlein

ESCP Europe, 79 Avenue de la Re

´publique, F-75011 Paris, France

1. The specter of Social Media

As of January 2009, the online social networking

application Facebook registered more than 175

million active users. To put that number in perspec-

tive, this is only slightly less than the population of

Brazil (190 million) and over twice the population of

Germany (80 million)! At the same time, every

minute, 10 hours of content were uploaded to the

video sharing platform YouTube. And, the image

hosting site Flickr provided access to over 3 billion

photographs, making the world-famous Louvre

Museum's collection of 300,000 objects seem tiny

in comparison.

According to Forrester Research, 75% of Internet

surfers used ''Social Media'' in the second quarter of

2008 by joining social networks, reading blogs, or

contributing reviews to shopping sites; this repre-

sents a signiﬁcant rise from 56% in 2007. The growth

is not limited to teenagers, either; members of

Generation X, now 35—44 years old, increasingly

populate the ranks of joiners, spectators, and crit-

ics. It is therefore reasonable to say that Social

Media represent a revolutionary new trend that

should be of interest to companies operating in

online space–—or any space, for that matter.

Yet, not overly many ﬁrms seem to act comfort-

ably in a world where consumers can speak so freely

Business Horizons (2010) 53 , 59—68

www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

KEYWORDS

Social Media;

User Generated

Content;

Web 2.0;

Social networking sites;

Virtual worlds

Abstract The concept of Social Media is top of the agenda for many business

executives today. Decision makers, as well as consultants, try to identify ways in

which ﬁrms can make proﬁtable use of applications such as Wikipedia, YouTube,

Facebook, Second Life, and Twitter. Yet despite this interest, there seems to be very

limited understanding of what the term ''Social Media'' exactly means; this article

intends to provide some clariﬁcation. We begin by describing the concept of Social

Media, and discuss how it differs from related concepts such as Web 2.0 and User

Generated Content. Based on this deﬁnition, we then provide a classiﬁcation of Social

Media which groups applications currently subsumed under the generalized term into

more speciﬁc categories by characteristic: collaborative projects, blogs, content

communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds.

Finally, we present 10 pieces of advice for companies which decide to utilize Social

Media.

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: mail@andreaskaplan.eu (A.M. Kaplan),

haenlein@escpeurope.eu (M. Haenlein).

doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003

with each other and businesses have increasingly

less control over the information available about

them in cyberspace. Today, if an Internet user types

the name of any leading brand into the Google

search, what comes up among the top ﬁve results

typically includes not only the corporate webpage,

but also the corresponding entry in the online

encyclopedia Wikipedia. Here, for example, cus-

tomers can read that the 2007 model of Hasbro's

Easy-Bake Oven may lead to serious burns on chil-

dren's hands and ﬁngers due to a poorly-designed

oven door, and that the Firestone Tire and Rubber

Company has been accused of using child labor in its

Liberian rubber factory. Historically, companies

were able to control the information available about

them through strategically placed press announce-

ments and good public relations managers. Today,

however, ﬁrms have been increasingly relegated to

the sidelines as mere observers, having neither the

knowledge nor the chance–—or, sometimes, even the

right–—to alter publicly posted comments provided

by their customers. Wikipedia, for example, ex-

pressly forbids the participation of ﬁrms in its online

community.

Such an evolution may not be surprising. After all,

the Internet started out as nothing more than a giant

Bulletin Board System (BBS) that allowed users to

exchange software, data, messages, and news with

each other. The late 1990s saw a popularity surge in

homepages, whereby the Average Joe could share

information about his private life; today's equivalent

would be the weblog, or blog. The era of corporate

web pages and e-commerce started relatively re-

cently with the launch of Amazon and eBay in

1995, and got a right ticking-off only 6 years later

when the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. The current

trend toward Social Media can thereforebe seen as an

evolution back to the Internet's roots, since it re-

transforms the World Wide Web to what it was

initially created for: a platform to facilitate informa-

tion exchange between users. But does that mean

that Social Media is just old wine in new bottles?

Probably not! As we will delve into further, the

technical advances that have been made over the

past 20 years now enable a form of virtual content

sharing that is fundamentally different from, and

more powerful than, the BBS of the late 1970s.

This article discusses the challenges and opportu-

nities that emerge from this evolution for ﬁrms, and

provides structure to better understand the rapidly

evolving ﬁeld of Social Media. We begin by providing a

deﬁnition and classiﬁcation of Social Media by looking

at their historical roots, technical speciﬁcities, and

differences from other entities such as Web 2.0 and

User Generated Content. We then focus on six

types of Social Media–—collaborative projects, blogs,

content communities, social networking sites, virtual

game worlds, and virtual social worlds–—and present

ways in which companies can efﬁciently make use of

these applications. Based on this analysis, we then

derive a set of 10 recommendations companies

should follow when thinking about developing their

own Social Media strategy, be it with respect to these

aforementioned types or other applications which

might emerge in the future.

2. What is Social Media–—And what is it

not?

As highlighted, the idea behind Social Media is far

from groundbreaking. Nevertheless, there seems to

be confusion among managers and academic re-

searchers alike as to what exactly should be includ-

ed under this term, and how Social Media differ from

the seemingly-interchangeable related concepts of

Web 2.0 and User Generated Content. It therefore

makes sense to take a step back and provide insight

regarding where Social Media come from and what

they include.

By 1979, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis from Duke

University had created the Usenet, a worldwide

discussion system that allowed Internet users to

post public messages. Yet, the era of Social Media

as we understand it today probably started about 20

years earlier, when Bruce and Susan Abelson

founded ''Open Diary,'' an early social networking

site that brought together online diary writers into

one community. The term ''weblog'' was ﬁrst used

at the same time, and truncated as ''blog'' a year

later when one blogger jokingly transformed the

noun ''weblog'' into the sentence ''we blog.'' The

growing availability of high-speed Internet access

further added to the popularity of the concept,

leading to the creation of social networking sites

such as MySpace (in 2003) and Facebook (in 2004).

This, in turn, coined the term ''Social Media,'' and

contributed to the prominence it has today. The

most recent addition to this glamorous grouping

has been so-called ''virtual worlds'': computer-

based simulated environments inhabited by three-

dimensional avatars. Perhaps the best known virtual

world is that of Linden Lab's Second Life (Kaplan &

Haenlein, 2009c).

Although the list of the aforementioned applica-

tions may give some idea about what is meant by

Social Media, a formal deﬁnition of the term ﬁrst

requires drawing a line to two related concepts that

are frequently named in conjunction with it: Web

2.0 and User Generated Content. Web 2.0 is a term

that was ﬁrst used in 2004 to describe a new way in

which software developers and end-users started to

60 A.M. Kaplan, M. Haenlein

utilize the World Wide Web; that is, as a platform

whereby content and applications are no longer

created and published by individuals, but instead

are continuously modiﬁed by all users in a partici-

patory and collaborative fashion. While applications

such as personal web pages, Encyclopedia Britannica

Online, and the idea of content publishing belong to

the era of Web 1.0, they are replaced by blogs, wikis,

and collaborative projects in Web 2.0. Although Web

2.0 does not refer to any speciﬁc technical update of

the World Wide Web, there is a set of basic function-

alities that are necessary for its functioning. Among

them are Adobe Flash (a popular method for adding

animation, interactivity, and audio/video streams to

web pages), RSS (Really Simple Syndication, a family

of web feed formats used to publish frequently

updated content, such as blog entries or news head-

lines, in a standardized format), and AJAX (Asynchro-

nous Java Script, a technique to retrieve data from

web servers asynchronously, allowing the update of

web content without interfering with the display and

behavior of the whole page). For the purpose of our

article, we consider Web 2.0 as the platform for the

evolution of Social Media.

When Web 2.0 represents the ideological and

technological foundation, User Generated Content

(UGC) can be seen as the sum of all ways in which

people make use of Social Media. The term, which

achieved broad popularity in 2005, is usually applied

to describe the various forms of media content that

are publicly available and created by end-users.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development (OECD, 2007 ), UGC

needs to fulﬁll three basic requirements in order

to be considered as such: ﬁrst, it needs to be

published either on a publicly accessible website

or on a social networking site accessible to a select-

ed group of people; second, it needs to show a

certain amount of creative effort; and ﬁnally, it

needs to have been created outside of professional

routines and practices. The ﬁrst condition excludes

content exchanged in e-mails or instant messages;

the second, mere replications of already existing

content (e.g., posting a copy of an existing newspa-

per article on a personal blog without any modiﬁ-

cations or commenting); and the third, all content

that has been created with a commercial market

context in mind. While UGC has already been

available prior to Web 2.0, as discussed above,

the combination of technological drivers (e.g.,

increased broadband availability and hardware

capacity), economic drivers (e.g., increased avail-

ability of tools for the creation of UGC), and

social drivers (e.g., rise of a generation of

''digital natives'' and ''screenagers'': younger age

groups with substantial technical knowledge and

willingness to engage online) make UGC nowadays

fundamentally different from what was observed in

the early 1980s. Based on these clariﬁcations of Web

2.0 and UGC, it is now straightforward to give a more

detailed deﬁnition of what we mean by Social Me-

dia. In our view–—and as used herein–—Social Media is

a group of Internet-based applications that build on

the ideological and technological foundations of

Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange

of User Generated Content.

Within this general deﬁnition, there are various

types of Social Media that need to be distinguished

further. However, although most people would prob-

ably agree that Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, and

Second Life are all part of this large group, there is no

systematic way in which different Social Media ap-

plications can be categorized. Also, new sites appear

in cyberspace every day, so it is important that any

classiﬁcation scheme takes into account applications

which may be forthcoming. To create such a classiﬁ-

cation scheme, and to do so in a systematic manner,

we rely on a set of theories in the ﬁeld of media

research (social presence, media richness) and social

processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure), the

two key elements of Social Media. Regarding the

media-related component of Social Media, social

presence theory (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976)

states that media differ in the degree of ''social

presence''–—deﬁned as the acoustic, visual, and phys-

ical contact that can be achieved–—they allow to

emerge between two communication partners.

Social presence is inﬂuenced by the intimacy (inter-

personal vs. mediated) and immediacy(asynchronous

vs. synchronous) of the medium, and can be expected

to be lower for mediated (e.g., telephone conversa-

tion) than interpersonal (e.g., face-to-face discus-

sion) and for asynchronous (e.g., e-mail) than

synchronous (e.g., live chat) communications. The

higher the social presence, the larger the social

inﬂuence that the communication partners have on

each other's behavior. Closely related to the idea of

social presence is the concept of media richness.

Media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) is based

on the assumption that the goal of any communica-

tion is the resolution of ambiguity and the reduction

of uncertainty. It states that media differ in the

degree of richness they possess–—that is, the amount

of information they allowto be transmitted in a given

time interval–—and that therefore some media are

more effective than others in resolving ambiguity and

uncertainty. Applied to the context of Social Media,

we assume that a ﬁrst classiﬁcation can be made

based on the richness of the medium and the degree

of social presence it allows.

With respect to the social dimension of Social

Media, the concept of self-presentation states that

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media 61

in any type of social interaction people have the

desire to control the impressions other people form

of them (Goffman, 1959 ). On the one hand, this is

done with the objective of inﬂuencing others to gain

rewards (e.g., make a positive impression on your

future in-laws); on the other hand, it is driven by a

wish to create an image that is consistent with one's

personal identity (e.g., wearing a fashionable outﬁt

in order to be perceived as young and trendy). The

key reason why people decide to create a personal

webpage is, for example, the wish to present them-

selves in cyberspace (Schau & Gilly, 2003). Usually,

such a presentation is done through self-disclosure;

that is, the conscious or unconscious revelation of

personal information (e.g., thoughts, feelings,

likes, dislikes) that is consistent with the image

one would like to give. Self-disclosure is a critical

step in the development of close relationships (e.g.,

during dating) but can also occur between complete

strangers; for example, when speaking about per-

sonal problems with the person seated next to you

on an airplane. Applied to the context of Social

Media, we assume that a second classiﬁcation can

be made based on the degree of self-disclosure it

requires and the type of self-presentation it allows.

Combining both dimensions leads to a classiﬁca-

tion of Social Media which we have visualized in

Table 1. With respect to social presence and media

richness, applications such as collaborative projects

(e.g., Wikipedia) and blogs score lowest, as they are

often text-based and hence only allow for a rela-

tively simple exchange. On the next level are con-

tent communities (e.g., YouTube) and social

networking sites (e.g., Facebook) which, in addition

to text-based communication, enable the sharing of

pictures, videos, and other forms of media. On the

highest level are virtual game and social worlds

(e.g., World of Warcraft, Second Life), which try

to replicate all dimensions of face-to-face interac-

tions in a virtual environment. Regarding self-pre-

sentation and self-disclosure, blogs usually score

higher than collaborative projects, as the latter

tend to be focused on speciﬁc content domains.

In a similar spirit, social networking sites allow

for more self-disclosure than content communities.

Finally, virtual social worlds require a higher level of

self-disclosure than virtual game worlds, as the

latter are ruled by strict guidelines that force users

to behave in a certain way (e.g., as warriors in an

imaginary fantasy land). We will now provide more

detail on each of these six different types of Social

Media, and discuss the challenges and opportunities

they offer companies.

3. The challenges and opportunities of

Social Media

3.1. Collaborative projects

Collaborative projects enable the joint and simul-

taneous creation of content by many end-users and

are, in this sense, probably the most democratic

manifestation of UGC. Within collaborative proj-

ects, one differentiates between wikis–—that is,

websites which allow users to add, remove, and

change text-based content–—and social bookmark-

ing applications–—which enable the group-based col-

lection and rating of Internet links or media content.

Exemplary applications within this category include

the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, a wiki currently

available in more than 230 different languages, and

the social bookmarking web service Delicious, which

allows the storage and sharing of web bookmarks.

The main idea underlying collaborative projects is

that the joint effort of many actors leads to a better

outcome than any actor could achieve individually;

this is similar to the efﬁcient-market hypothesis in

behavioral ﬁnance (Fama, 1970 ). From a corporate

perspective, ﬁrms must be aware that collaborative

projects are trending toward becoming the main

source of information for many consumers. As such,

although not everything written on Wikipedia may

actually be true, it is believed to be true by more

and more Internet users. This may be particularly

crucial as regards corporate crises. For example,

62 A.M. Kaplan, M. Haenlein

Table 1. Classiﬁcation of Social Media by social presence/media richness and self-presentation/self-disclosure

when online book retailer Amazon started to test

the idea of dynamic pricing, comments declaring

such a practice as unfair showed up instantaneously

under the Wikipedia entry on ''time-based pricing.''

Yet, collaborative projects also provide some unique

opportunities for ﬁrms. Finnish handset manufac-

turer Nokia, for instance, uses internal wikis to

update employees on project status and to trade

ideas, which are used by about 20% of its 68,000

staff members. Likewise, American computer soft-

ware company Adobe Systems maintains a list of

bookmarks to company-related websites and con-

versations on Delicious.

3.2. Blogs

Blogs, which represent the earliest form of Social

Media, are special types of websites that usually

display date-stamped entries in reverse chronologi-

cal order (OECD, 2007 ). They are the Social Media

equivalent of personal web pages and can come in a

multitude of different variations, from personal

diaries describing the author's life to summaries

of all relevant information in one speciﬁc content

area. Blogs are usually managed by one person only,

but provide the possibility of interaction with others

through the addition of comments. Due to their

historical roots, text-based blogs are still by far

the most common. Nevertheless, blogs have also

begun to take different media formats. For exam-

ple, San Francisco-based Justin.tv allows users to

create personalized television channels via which

they can broadcast images from their webcam in

real time to other users. Many companies are al-

ready using blogs to update employees, customers,

and shareholders on developments they consider to

be important. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Micro-

systems, maintains a personal blog to improve the

transparency of his company; so does automotive

giant General Motors. Yet, as is the case with col-

laborative projects, blogs do not come without

risks. These generally present in two fashions. First,

customers who–—for one reason or another–—turn

out to be dissatisﬁed with or disappointed by the

company's offerings may decide to engage in virtual

complaints in the form of protest websites or blogs

(Ward & Ostrom, 2006 ), which results in the avail-

ability of potentially damaging information in online

space. Second, once ﬁrms encourage employees to

be active on blogs, they may need to live with the

consequences of staff members writing negatively

about the ﬁrm. Microsoft's former ''technical evan-

gelist'' Robert Scoble, for example, had a tendency

to ﬁercely criticize the products of his employer–—

before he decided to leave the Redmond-based

software company in 2006.

3.3. Content communities

The main objective of content communities is the

sharing of media content between users. Content

communities exist for a wide range of different

media types, including text (e.g., BookCrossing,

via which 750,000+ people from over 130

countries share books), photos (e.g., Flickr), videos

(e.g., YouTube), and PowerPoint presentations

(e.g., Slideshare). Users on content communities

are not required to create a personal proﬁle page;

if they do, these pages usually only contain basic

information, such as the date they joined the com-

munity and the number of videos shared. From a

corporate viewpoint, content communities carry

the risk of being used as platforms for the sharing

of copyright-protected materials. While major con-

tent communities have rules in place to ban and

remove such illegal content, it is difﬁcult to avoid

popular videos–—such as recent episodes of comedy

dramas–—being uploaded to YouTube only hours after

they have been aired on television. On the positive

side, the high popularity of content communities

makes them a very attractive contact channel for

many ﬁrms; this is easy to believe when one con-

siders that YouTube serves over 100 million videos

per day. In 2007, Procter & Gamble organized a

contest for its over-the-counter drug Pepto-Bismol,

whereby users were encouraged to upload to You-

Tube 1-minute videos of themselves singing about

the ailments Pepto-Bismol counteracts, including

heartburn and nausea. In a similar spirit, kitchen

appliances manufacturer Blendtec became popular

for its bevy of inexpensive ''Will it blend?'' videos,

which have been watched by millions of people.

Other ﬁrms, such as Cisco and Google, rely on

content communities to share recruiting videos,

as well as keynote speeches and press announce-

ments, with their employees and investors.

3.4. Social networking sites

Social networking sites are applications that enable

users to connect by creating personal information

proﬁles, inviting friends and colleagues to have

access to those proﬁles, and sending e-mails and

instant messages between each other. These per-

sonal proﬁles can include any type of information,

including photos, video, audio ﬁles, and blogs. Ac-

cording to Wikipedia, the largest social networking

sites are U.S.-based Facebook (initially founded by

Mark Zuckerberg to stay in touch with his fellow

students from Harvard University) and MySpace

(with 1,500 employees and more than 250 million

registered users). Social networking sites are of such

high popularity, speciﬁcally among younger Internet

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media 63

users, that the term ''Facebook addict'' has been

included in the Urban Dictionary, a collaborative

project focused on developing a slang dictionary

for the English language. Several companies are

already using social networking sites to support

the creation of brand communities (Muniz &

O'Guinn, 2001) or for marketing research in the

context of netnography (Kozinets, 2002 ). To pro-

mote the movie ''Fred Claus,'' a 2007 Christmas

comedy ﬁlm, Warner Brothers created a Facebook

proﬁle via which visitors could watch trailers, down-

load graphics, and play games. Likewise, the Adidas

custom soccer community on MySpace allows visi-

tors to associate themselves with one of two brands

of elite soccer cleats produced by the German sports

apparel manufacturer, and to access product re-

views and information on professional soccer play-

ers who play using ''their'' shoes. Some ﬁrms even go

one step further and use Facebook as a distribution

channel. Consider U.S.-based ﬂorist 1-800-Flower-

s.com, which offers a widget on Facebook called

''Gimme Love'' whereby users can send ''virtual

bouquets'' to friends or, with a click of the mouse,

be directly transferred to the company's website to

send real ﬂowers.

3.5. Virtual game worlds

Virtual worlds are platforms that replicate a three-

dimensional environment in which users can appear

in the form of personalized avatars and interact with

each other as they would in real life. In this sense,

virtual worlds are probably the ultimate manifesta-

tion of Social Media, as they provide the highest

level of social presence and media richness of all

applications discussed thus far. Virtual worlds come

in two forms. The ﬁrst, virtual game worlds, require

their users to behave according to strict rules in the

context of a massively multiplayer online role-play-

ing game (MMORPG). These applications have gained

popularity in recent years, as standard game con-

soles–—such as Microsoft's X-Box and Sony's Play-

Station–—now allow simultaneous play among a

multitude of users around the globe. Examples of

virtual game worlds include the cod-medieval

''World of Warcraft,'' which counts around 8.5 mil-

lion subscribers who explore the virtual planet of

Azeroth in the form of humans, dwarves, orcs, or

night elves, to ﬁght monsters or to search for trea-

sure; and Sony's EverQuest, in which 16 different

races of players (e.g., wizards, clerics) travel the

fantasy world of Norrath. The rules of such games

usually limit the degree of self-presentation and

self-disclosure possible, although some users spend

so much time with these applications that their

character–—be it a warrior, a wizard, or a dragon

hunter–—starts to more and more closely resemble

their real life personality. Besides their use for in-

game advertising (similar in idea to product

placement in blockbuster movies), the high popu-

larity of virtual game worlds can also be leveraged

in more traditional communication campaigns.

Japanese automotive giant Toyota, for example,

used pictures and mechanics from the World of

Warcraft application in its latest Tundra commercial

to reach the 2.5 million players in the U.S. alone.

3.6. Virtual social worlds

The second group of virtual worlds, often referred to

as virtual social worlds, allows inhabitants to choose

their behavior more freely and essentially live a

virtual life similar to their real life. As in virtual game

worlds, virtual social world users appear in the form

of avatars and interact in a three-dimensional virtual

environment; however, in this realm, there are no

rules restricting the range of possible interactions,

except for basic physical laws such as gravity. This

allows for an unlimited range of self presentation

strategies, and it has been shown that with increasing

usage intensity and consumption experience, users of

virtual social worlds–—or ''residents,'' as they prefer

to be called–—show behavior that more and more

closely mirrors the one observed in real life settings

(Haenlein & Kaplan, 2009; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2009a,

2009b). Arguably, the most prominent example of

virtual social worlds is the Second Life application,

founded and managed by the San Francisco-based

company Linden Research Inc. Besides doing every-

thing that is possible in real life (e.g., speaking to

other avatars, taking a walk, enjoying the virtual

sunshine), Second Life also allows users to create

content (e.g., to design virtual clothing or furniture

items) and to sell this content to others in exchange

for Linden Dollars, a virtual currency traded against

the U.S. Dollar on the Second Life Exchange.

Some residents are so successful in this task that

the virtual money earned that way complements

their real life income. Virtual social worlds offer a

multitude of opportunities for companies in market-

ing (advertising/communication, virtual product

sales/v-Commerce, marketing research), and human

resource and internal process management; for a

more detailed discussion, see Kaplan and Haenlein

(2009c).

4. Ten pieces of advice for companies

deciding to use Social Media

Social Media is a very active and fast-moving do-

main. What may be up-to-date today could have

64 A.M. Kaplan, M. Haenlein

disappeared from the virtual landscape tomorrow.

It is therefore crucial for ﬁrms to have a set of

guidelines that can be applied to any form of Social

Media, whether they are part of the aforementioned

list or not. Next, we provide such a set of recom-

mendations. Given that Social Media have both a

social- and a media-component, we split our advice

into two sections: ﬁve points about using media and

ﬁve points about being social.

4.1. Five points about using media

4.1.1. Choose carefully

There are dozens–—if not hundreds–—of Social Media

applications, and new ones are appearing on the

horizon every day. If you still need time to run your

core business, you simply cannot participate in them

all, especially since ''being active'' is one key re-

quirement of success (see below). Choosing the

right medium for any given purpose depends on

the target group to be reached and the message

to be communicated. On the one hand, each Social

Media application usually attracts a certain group of

people and ﬁrms should be active wherever their

customers are present. For example, if your main

target audience is book lovers, a content community

via which users share self-written novels or poems is

likely better suited to your purpose than a virtual

world which centers on ﬁghting dragons and ﬁnding

treasures. On the other hand, there may be situa-

tions whereby certain features are necessary to

ensure effective communication, and these features

are only offered by one speciﬁc application. For

example, when the U.S. Army undertook an initia-

tive in 2007 to reach the Hispanic community,

it decided to utilize the social networking site

Univision rather than the more popular Facebook.

This choice was driven in part by the fact that

Univision–—a Spanish-language television network

in the U.S. and Puerto Rico–—is the social networking

application with the largest Latin American audi-

ence, due to an extensive range of telenovelas and

Mexican programs produced by Grupo Televisa.

However, another reason Univision was chosen is

because it offers a moderating service which checks

comments from users for appropriateness before

posting them on the site. In contrast, other appli-

cations, including Facebook, allow users to post

messages without supervision.

4.1.2. Pick the application, or make your own

Once you know which game you're playing, the next

decision involves whether to make or buy. In some

cases, it might just be best to join an existing Social

Media application and beneﬁt from its popularity

and user base. After all, there is no need to reinvent

the wheel if somebody has already done it, espe-

cially given that Social Media show positive network

externalities in the sense that they get more attrac-

tive to join the more participants they already have.

But in some cases, the right application might just

not be available yet. Japan's Fujiﬁlm, for example,

recently launched its own social network to build a

community of photo enthusiasts. In a similar spirit,

U.S.-based department store ﬁrm Sears collaborat-

ed with MTV music television to create a social

network around back-to-school shopping. Yet, what-

ever the ultimate decision–—to buy, make, or both–—

it is vital that there is an understanding of the basic

idea behind Social Media. It's all about participa-

tion, sharing, and collaboration, rather than

straightforward advertising and selling.

4.1.3. Ensure activity alignment

Sometimes you may decide to rely on various Social

Media, or a set of different applications within the

same group, in order to have the largest possible

reach. In this case, it is crucial to ensure that your

Social Media activities are all aligned with each

other. A prime example in this context is computer

manufacturer Dell and its ''Digital Nomads'' cam-

paign. Dell uses a combination of social networking

sites (Facebook, LinkedIn), blogs, and content com-

munities (YouTube videos) to show how its range of

laptop computers enable individuals to become a

nomadic mobile workforce. In a similar spirit, Chrys-

ler's Jeep brand connects with its customers by

combining photos shared on the content community

Flickr, with groups on social networking sites such as

MySpace and Facebook. Using different contact

channels can be a worthwhile and proﬁtable strate-

gy. But remember: one goal of communication is the

resolution of ambiguity and reduction of uncertain-

ty, and nothing is more confusing than contradicting

messages across different channels.

4.1.4. Media plan integration

What is true for different types of Social Media also

holds for the relationship between Social Media and

traditional media: Integration is key! While you may

consider these two arenas to be completely differ-

ent, in customers' eyes they are both part of the

same: your corporate image. Consider the actions of

soft drink giant Coca-Cola. In June 2006, a pair of

performance artists shot a video featuring a series of

geysers they created by dropping Mentos brand

mints into 2-liter bottles of Coke; the clip became

a major hit on YouTube. Realizing customers' enthu-

siasm for this performance, Coca-Cola fostered the

sensation by airing the video on late-night television

and ensuring broad digital distribution across differ-

ent content communities. Besides the advantage of

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media 65

high impact/low cost media coverage, the campaign

also resulted in a measurable sales uplift.

4.1.5. Access for all

Although this might sound elementary, once the ﬁrm

has decided to utilize Social Media applications, it is

worth checking that all employees may actually

access them. Commonly, ﬁrms block Facebook,

YouTube, and Second Life on corporate PCs for fear

that staff might spend too much time networking

instead of working. While this is certainly a consid-

eration, it cannot imply that employees must have

special permission to be able to access the company

blog. At the same time, there is a need to curtail the

possibility of the entire organization spending all its

time producing funny videos and uploading them to

YouTube. One possible approach involves deﬁning

groups of employees whose primary objective is the

management of corporate Social Media; all other

staff members are treated as occasional partici-

pants. Under this scenario, the ﬁrst group is given

administrator rights–—which allows the opening of

new discussion threads and deletion of inappropri-

ate posts–—while the second group is not. Also, at

some point, it will be necessary to develop certain

guidelines for Social Media usage; as done, for

instance, by ''Big Blue'' IBM, which has a corporate

charta for appropriate behavior within Second Life.

For example, it is important to highlight that every

employee needs to identify himself or herself as

such when posting a comment on the corporate

blog. Otherwise, end-consumers could get the

impression that anonymous accounts are used to

enable employees to post fake messages and over-

ly-positive feedback, which could severely damage

the credibility of your whole Social Media campaign.

4.2. Five points about being social

4.2.1. Be active

If you want to develop a relationship with someone,

it is always advisable to take the lead and to be

active. Social Media are all about sharing and inter-

action, so ensure that your content is always fresh

and that you engage in discussions with your cus-

tomers. Consider the aforementioned blog kept by

Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Via this

outlet, the ﬁgurehead discusses–—on an ongoing

basis–—his corporate strategy, new product develop-

ment projects, and company values, and replies

directly to correspondence received. In considering

your Social Media efforts, be aware that ﬁrm in-

volvement must extend beyond responding to neg-

ative comments and defending product offerings.

Social Media is less about explaining why your baking

mix, detergent, or shampoo is better than anyone

else's than it is about engaging others in open and

active conversation. Participants on Social Media

applications have the desire to actively engage

and to become both producers and consumers of

information, so-called ''prosumers'' (Tofﬂer, 1980).

Be considerate of this need and act accordingly.

4.2.2. Be interesting

Let's face it: nobody is interested in speaking to a

boring person. As such, if you would like your cus-

tomers to engage with you, you need to give them a

reason for doing so–—one which extends beyond

saying you are the best airline in town, or manufac-

ture the most robust kitchen blender. The ﬁrst step

is to listen to your customers. Find out what they

would like to hear; what they would like to talk

about; what they might ﬁnd interesting, enjoyable,

and valuable. Then, develop and post content that

ﬁts those expectations. Coffee powerhouse Star-

bucks, for example, created the ''My Starbucks

Idea'' platform, via which customers can submit

new ideas for the company. These ideas are subse-

quently voted on by other users, with the winners

being considered for implementation by Starbucks

top management. As stated by Oscar Wilde in his

novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey : The one sin for

which there is no forgiveness is ennui.

4.2.3. Be humble

Never forget that Social Media existed before you

decided to engage in them; indeed, in many cases,

even before you knew about their existence. In this

light, do not expect that you know better how to use

them than others who have spent countless hours on

Facebook or Second Life, for example. Before you

enter any application, ﬁrst take some time to dis-

cover it and to learn about its history and basic

rules. Only once you have gained the necessary

understanding, start to participate. When aero-

space and defense ﬁrm Boeing decided to launch

its ﬁrst corporate blog, the site was designed such

that users were not allowed to comment on what

they saw. Yet, interaction and feedback are critical

elements of all Social Media, blogs included. Hence,

many readers perceived the Boeing blog as a fake,

and simply corporate advertising in disguise. If there

is one certain path to failure, it involves thinking

that Social Media is just about posting existing TV

spots on YouTube or putting prefabricated press

announcements on corporate blogs.

4.2.4. Be unprofessional

Have you ever noticed that in Hollywood blockbust-

er ﬁlms, it's not usually the handsome guy who ends

up with the girl, but rather the clumsy, charming

one? The same goes for Social Media, and ﬁrms

66 A.M. Kaplan, M. Haenlein

would be wise to avoid overly-professional content

offerings. There's no need to spend $100,000 to

design the perfect MySpace presence, or hire a

professional writer to manage your corporate blog.

Instead, try to blend in with other users and don't be

afraid to make mistakes! Bill Marriott, Chairman and

CEO of the Marriott International Hotel chain, uses

his blog, for example, to post regular updates and

stories from his travels to Marriott properties around

the world–—very much in the same way as would a

work colleague when describing her last vacation.

Social Media users are people like you, who under-

stand that things do not always go smoothly. And, if

you're nice to them, they may even give you free

advice on how to do it better the next time.

4.2.5. Be honest

Last but not least, be honest and respect the rules of

the game. Some Social Media–—such as Wikipedia–—

may not allow companies to be involved, so do not

try to force your way in. Consider Anheuser-Busch,

owner of SeaWorld marine mammal parks. Anheus-

er-Busch tried to ''rectify'' misleading information

on Wikipedia through the use of PR ﬁrms, and failed

miserably at it. Never expect that other participants

may not ﬁnd out who stands behind some anonymous

user account; after all, you're dealing with some of

the most technologically sophisticated people on

the planet.

5. Nothing to lose but their chains

Today, everything is about Social Media. Some in-

dustry gurus claim that if you do not participate in

Facebook, YouTube, and Second Life, you are not

part of cyberspace anymore. Social Media allow

ﬁrms to engage in timely and direct end-consumer

contact at relatively low cost and higher levels of

efﬁciency than can be achieved with more tradi-

tional communication tools. This makes Social Media

not only relevant for large multinational ﬁrms, but

also for small and medium sized companies, and

even nonproﬁt and governmental agencies. Using

Social Media is not an easy task and may require new

ways of thinking, but the potential gains are far from

being negligible. Dell, for example, states that its

use of Twitter–—a micro blogging application that

allows sending out short, text-based posts of 140

characters or less–—has generated $1 million in in-

cremental revenue due to sales alerts. Some ﬁrms

may even be too successful for their own good, as

illustrated by Burger King's ''Whopper Sacriﬁce''

campaign: In December 2008, the fast food giant

developed a Facebook application which gave users

a free Whopper sandwich for every 10 friends they

deleted from their Facebook network. The cam-

paign was adopted by over 20,000 users, resulting

in the sacriﬁcing of 233,906 friends in exchange for

free burgers. Only one month later, in January 2009,

Facebook shut down Whopper Sacriﬁce, citing pri-

vacy concerns. Who would have thought that the

price of a friendship is less than $2 a dozen?

A new trend is on the horizon, though; Watch out

for Mobile Social Media! Mobile Web 2.0 is very similar

to Web 2.0, as discussed earlier. In contrast to its

predecessor Mobile Web 1.0, which relied on propri-

etary protocols (e.g., WAP) and use-based pricing,

Mobile Web 2.0 is characterized by open standards

(e.g., a transition to the TCP/IP protocol, the tech-

nical foundation of the World Wide Web) and ﬂat-rate

systems. Even the manual entry of web addresses

using small and difﬁcult-to-handle keyboards is

becoming history. Soon, all items around you will

be equipped with Radio Frequency Identiﬁcation

(RFID) tags that will be able to automatically connect

to your mobile phone and send URLs to them, similar

to today's text messages. This technical evolution is

laying the groundwork for moving Social Media ap-

plications away from desktop PCs and laptops, to-

ward mobile devices. Why log into Facebook if you

can easily update all your friends using Twitter? Why

wait until you return home to watch the new YouTube

video if you can do so conveniently on your iPhone?

According to Jupiter Research, the market for

Mobile Web 2.0 evolutions will grow from a mere

$5.5 billion today to an impressive $22.4 billion by

2013. Mobile Social Media applications are expected

to be the main driver of this evolution, soon ac-

counting for over 50% of the market. In one way, this

surge toward Mobile Social Media can even be seen

as another step toward Internet democratization

and closing the digital divide between developed

and emerging countries. In India, for example, mo-

bile phones outnumber PCs by 10 to 1. In Thailand,

only 13% of the population owns a computer, versus

82% who have access to a mobile phone. It is there-

fore not surprising that the Pew Research Center–—a

Washington-based think tank–—estimates that by

2020, a mobile device will be the primary Internet

connection tool for most people in the world. Making

Social Media applications mobile is likely to tap a

currently unexploited base of new users. Even if per-

capita spending in these countries may still be low,

vast population numbers make them relevant for

virtually any ﬁrm.

Obviously, Mobile Social Media does not come

without a price. Some would argue that while it

enables the detailed following of friends half-way

across the world, it can foster a society where

we don't know the names of our own next-door

neighbors. Be that as it may, and independent of

Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media 67

whether or not one approves of such an evolution, it

seems undisputable that (Mobile) Social Media will

be the locomotive via which the World Wide Web

evolves. Businesses, take note–—and don't miss this

train!

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68 A.M. Kaplan, M. Haenlein

... The concept of 'Social Media' can be defined as "A group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content" (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Effing and Spil (2016) coined social media as "A goal-directed planning process for creating user-generated content, driven by a group of internet applications, to create a unique and valuable competitive position". ...

... Based on the literature review, it can be surmised that SM marketing has a deepening connection with e-marketing. According to Kaplan & Haenlein (2010), social media can be referred to as an online based application. Hence, it would be relevant to classify SM marketing as a subset of a broader range of e-marketing. ...

Ahmed Al Asheq

In recent times, many small and medium-sized business firms have embraced different avenues of social networking sites precisely in their business communication model, which has triggered an intensive transformation in business firms' marketing dynamics. Acceptance, adoption, and leverage of social media (SM) marketing has become a common marketing practice tool for business firms and this new model of marketing tool extends an unexplored and new opportunity for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to integrate social media platform into their daily marketing activities. This scenario calls for an in-depth research study towards the marketing researchers to examine the impact of SM marketing on the business and marketing performance of SME firms. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to review relevant literature to determine what group of factors might have an impact on the SMEs' decision to accept and adopt SM marketing into their organizational process. The proposed topic of this current paper offers future research studies a holistic conceptual framework of SM marketing adoption among SMEs, which is still not fully established in the existing literature. Moreover, the paper also extends a useful means to investigate the types of researches which need to be studied and investigated to facilitate empirical evidence based on additional research advancement in the domain of SM marketing.

... According to Carr and Hayes [39], social media are "Internet-based channels that allow users to easily and selectively interact with each other and gain value from user-generated content" [40]. Based on Mangold and Fowled [41], social media are divided into 15 types, including social networking sites, creativity sharing sites, user-sponsored blogs, etc. Kaplan [42] and Haenlein argues that social media are characterized by the features of Web.2.0 technology, including user-generated content, information exchange, and social networking, thus creating a high degree of social interaction [43]. ...

This paper aims to investigate how social network marketing affects consumers' sustainable purchase behavior (CSPB) while considering the role of Eco-friendly attitude. The statistical population of the study included Iranian users of online social networks with at least one online purchasing experience. An online questionnaire was distributed on Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp platforms as the most popular networks in the country. By use of convenience sampling, commonly used in quantitative studies to overcome bias, 450 out of 475 returned questionnaires were acceptable, showing a response rate of 94.7%. The results indicated that an increase in Eco-friendly attitude positively increases the effect of word of mouth on consumers' sustainable purchase behavior. Meanwhile, Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) revealed that to reach a 50% level of consumers' sustainable purchase behavior, six essential necessary conditions are required: an eco-friendly consumers' attitude at no less than 50%, the trend at no less than 57.1%, word of mouth at no less than 45.5%, interaction at no less than 42.9%, customization at no less than 35.3% and entertainment at no less than 26.7%. Furthermore, the Importance-Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) was investigated as a strategic tool. The results of IPMA showed that "buy products that use biodegradable material in packaging", "buy those products that are picked up and recycled", and "buy biodegradable products even if they belong to a less well-known company" show desirable performance and high importance and there is a great opportunity for expansion in this area.

... One increasingly popular method of navigating these discipline-specific challenges is engaging with fellow academics on Twitter, hereafter referred to as "Academic Twitter". Twitter is a microblogging platform that was established in 2006 (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). On Twitter, account holders send tweets, or short statements, that are limited to 280 characters. ...

Previous research has demonstrated the impact that Twitter can have for promoting and discussing a feminist agenda. Given the gendered neoliberalism that exists within academia, tweets under the hashtag "#AcademicTwitter" may also be an important space for feminist praxis. Yet, to our knowledge, there is no empirical work analysing the function of "Academic Twitter" from a distinctly feminist perspective. Thus, we asked "How is Academic Twitter used for feminist praxis?". We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of 596 tweets containing the hashtag #AcademicTwitter. This generated four themes showing how Academic Twitter can be a valuable site for feminist praxis, by enabling academics to "give testimony to academia", "access the hidden curriculum", and engage in both "academic kindness" and "resistance and advocacy". Despite these benefits, we also observed a tension between Academic Twitter as a site for feminist practice yet also as potentially complicit in promoting the competitiveness and overwork that pervades academia. We recommend that future feminist research interrogates the ways in which more diverse forms of feminist praxis, including more negative experiences , are negotiated on Academic Twitter.

... Although social media is not the only medium for sensemaking during crisis events, research suggests that social media plays a key role as a communication platform during extreme times [7]. The nature of social media facilitates two-way communication during crisis events in real time [13]. Such participation leads to sensemaking of the crisis within the social media platform [7] and creates user-generated content ripe for analysis [11,14,15]. ...

David J. Pauleen

COVID-19 has ruptured routines and caused breakdowns in what had been conventional practice and custom: everything from going to work and school and shopping in the supermarket to socializing with friends and taking holidays. Nonetheless, COVID-19 does provide an opportunity to study how people make sense of radically changing circumstances over time. In this paper we demonstrate how Twitter affords this opportunity by providing data in real time, and over time. In the present research, we collect a large pool of COVID-19 related tweets posted by New Zealanders–citizens of a country successful in containing the coronavirus–from the moment COVID-19 became evident to the world in the last days of 2019 until 19 August 2020. We undertake topic modeling on the tweets to foster understanding and sensemaking of the COVID-19 tweet landscape in New Zealand and its temporal development and evolution over time. This information can be valuable for those interested in how people react to emergent events, including researchers, governments, and policy makers.

... Social media strategies have evolved based on web 2.0 thinking and digital technologies . Several category frameworks exist to classify social media strategies, all involving dimensions such as content arrangement, conversation (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010;Kietzmann et al., 2011). In subsequent work, Effing and Spil (2016) defines social media strategy as "a goaldirected planning process for creating user generated content, driven by a group of Internet applications, to create a unique and valuable competitive position." ...

Yuying Liu
Xinxin Liu
Meng Wang
Decheng Wen

Enterprises often post branded content on social media and adopt a proactive response approach to improve digital customer engagement to gain a competitive advantage. However, there are many brands which fail to operate social media as effectively as expected. The effective use of brand social media strategies to improve digital customer engagement remains an ongoing challenge for the enterprises. Based on firm-generated content theory and social presence theory, this study aims to identify the impact of brand social media strategies on different levels of digital customer engagement, including positive filtering, cognitive and affective processing as well as advocacy from content strategy and response strategy. Based on 1,519 brand posts on the official Weibo pages of eight of the top 500 Chinese brands in 2021, this study uses a multiple linear regression model to examine the impact of brand social media strategies on digital customer engagement and the moderating effects of brand image and discretionary purchases. The findings show that, on the one hand, among the brand social media content strategies, action content strategy is associated with higher levels of digital customer engagement. On the other hand, different brand social media response strategies have a differential impact on digital customer engagement levels, with cohesive response being the best strategy for increasing digital customer engagement level. In addition, the effectiveness of brand social media response strategy in digital customer engagement is further moderated by the brand image and discretionary purchases. In contrast, the effectiveness of brand social media response strategy in digital customer engagement is stronger when the brand image emphasizes its "competence" or the discretionary purchases focus on "material purchases." This study not only enriches the research on digital customer engagement but also provides a reference for the brand strategy selection, design and management based on social media.

Cornelia Walter

Digital Transformation did not only change society and our connection to media, it also changed the field of media education. A variety of new issues and techniques as well as new players entered the market of media education. The imparting of media literacy is one of the biggest challenges of our times. As a subject concerning the society as a whole, media education is also bargained in the public sphere. Media coverage serves as an indicator for the public debate as it sets issues and specifies frames in which the topic is discussed. But how is media education presented in the public opinion? Via a quantatitive content analysis this thesis examines the news coverage about media education of two opinion leading newspapers in Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2009 and 2019. Results show that the news coverage about media education changed from 2009 to 2019. In 2019 the coverage is based on topics rather than events. Furthermore news coverage is more extensive and also changed contentwise. Media education in schools as well as media education in families gains more influence. The debate about algorithms and fake news led to a broader news coverage about the evaluational dimension of media literacy in 2019. Whereas media education gains space in content and extent of coverage, political claims of media educators are more or less ignored by the Press. This shoud be a wake up call for media educators, to find new ways to express their expertise and demands more publicly.

Digital entrepreneurship refers to the means or methods of creating fresh and innovative businesses, products or commodities as well as services that are enabled, permitted and provided via the Internet. Social media also refers to the mode by which people interact through the exchange of ideas and information in virtual networks. There are plenty of social media platforms in existence today; amongst the most popular are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. The use of social media platforms for digital entrepreneurship can create opportunities like working remotely, on-the-go and at any time in the world. This chapter offers an insight into social media, its advantages on digital entrepreneurship as well as the potential future of social media for digital entrepreneurship.

Sandrine Prom Tep

Member contributions are the lifeblood of online communities (OC) and a critical factor in their success. To help managers foster contributions, this research investigates how the level of social features (i.e., the number of social features shown in the OC interface) shapes member contribution at divergent levels of involvement. A 2 × 2 factorial design experiment (presence vs absence of members' profiles and evaluations, respectively; N = 353) was performed in a realistic setting on actual members of a North American health-related community. Member contribution was gauged by the attitude toward contribution and the social value of contribution measured. The results show that, while the level of social features has a positive and linear effect for members with low involvement in the community's theme, the effect is nonlinear (U-Shaped) for the highly involved members. Therefore, to improve contribution of members with low involvement, a community's administrator should offer more social features. However, for members with high involvement, affording one social feature (an interface offering either members' profiles or their evaluations) should be avoided because it lessens contribution.

Although numerous studies investigated service quality in online environment, the social network quality has been inadequately captured by previous empirical research. Thus, the present study focuses on measuring social network quality. Specifically, it aims to examine potential differences in perceived social network quality between two popular social networks, namely Facebook and Instagram. The empirical data are based on gathering primary data using questionnaire based on SNSQUAL model, developed by Phillips et al. (2016). Descriptive and bivariate statistical analysis were conducted using data collected from undergraduate and graduate students who use social networks on regular bases. The study results show significant differences in 16 out of 27 social network quality items, revealing that Instagram's social network quality was rated significantly higher than Facebook's. These findings may contribute to the development of service excellence approach that aims to enhance social networks' performance.

The authors contributed equally to this work and are listed in alphabetical order. The authors thank the managers from the market research firm, Repères, especially François Abiven and Emilie Labidoire, for their help during data collection. The authors may be contacted at the following e-mail addresses: haenlein@escpeurope.eu; mail@andreaskaplan.eu ABSTRACT Virtual hyperrealities, also referred to as virtual social worlds, have experienced increasing managerial interest in recent years. Although they have also received some attention in the academic literature, the extent to which corporate presences within such environments can influence attitude toward the brand and purchase intent in real life remains unclear. Based on a survey conducted among 580 Second Life residents, we show that exposure to flagship brand stores within virtual worlds positively influences attitude toward the associated brand and real life purchase intent. We furthermore show that a user's purchase experience (shopping frequency, purchase frequency, spending per purchase) and the gratification derived from the use of their purchases have a significant moderating effect on these relationships. Our results are of managerial and theoretical importance as they provide empirical evidence for spill-over effects between virtual worlds and real life and help to develop recommendations on optimal store design within virtual social worlds.

This article examines personal Web sites as a conspicuous form of consumer self-presentation. Using theories of self- presentation, possessions, and computer- mediated environments ( CMEs), we investigate the ways in which consumers construct identities by digitally associating themselves with signs, symbols, material objects, and places. Specifically, the issues of interest include why consumers create personal Web sites, what consumers want to communicate, what strategies they devise to achieve their goal of self- presentation, and how those Web space strategies compare to the self- presentation strategies of real life ( RL). The data reveal insights into the strategies behind constructing a digital self, projecting a digital likeness, digitally associating as a new form of possession, and reorganizing linear narrative structures.

Robert V. Kozinets

research technique for providing consumer insight. "Netnography " is ethnography adapted to the study of online communities. As a method, "netnography " is faster, simpler, and less expensive than traditional ethnography, and more naturalistic and unobtrusive than focus groups or interviews. It provides information on the symbolism, meanings, and consumption patterns of online consumer groups. The author provides guidelines that acknowledge the online environment, respect the inherent flexibility and openness of ethnography, and provide rigor and ethics in the conduct of marketing research. As an illustrative example, the author provides a netnography of an online coffee newsgroup and discusses its marketing implications.

Richard L. Daft
Robert H. Lengel

This paper answers the question, "Why do organizations process information?" Uncertainty and equivocality are defined as two forces that influence information processing in organizations. Organization structure and internal systems determine both the amount and richness of information provided to managers. Models are proposed that show how organizations can be designed to meet the information needs of technology, interdepartmental relations, and the environment. One implication for managers is that a major problem is lack of clarity, not lack of data. The models indicate how organizations can be designed to provide information mechanisms to both reduce uncertainty and resolve equivocality.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD

Drawing on an expanding array of intelligent web services and applications, a growing number of people are creating, distributing and exploiting user-created content (UCC) and being part of the wider participative web. This study describes the rapid growth of UCC and its increasing role in worldwide communication, and draws out implications for policy. Questions addressed include: What is user-created content? What are its key drivers, its scope and different forms? What are the new value chains and business models? What are the extent and form of social, cultural and economic opportunities and impacts? What are the associated challenges? Is there a government role, and what form could it take?

Several months ago, the virtual social world "Second Life" (SL) received considerable interest in both the popular and business press. Based on a series of 29 qualitative, in-depth interviews, this article investigates what types of behaviors consumers show within this environment and what business opportunities it offers for companies. The results indicate that users do not consider SL as a mere computer game but as an extension of their real lives. This has implications for how marketing managers can use this online application that go beyond those known from traditional computer or online games.