Understanding Users of Social Networks — HBS Working Knowledge

Bertrand Duperrin's personal annotations on this page

Bertrandduperrin bookmarked on 2009-09-17 socialnetworks usages socialmedia socialstrategy strategy networks offlinenetworks marketing

If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

"Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks," says Piskorski.
Corporate marketers by and large struggle with how to use social networking sites to reach potential customers, says Piskorski, who advises companies on this subject. The problem is that execs think of online social networks as social media and treat it as another channel to get people to click through to a site.
"To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy,"
I see (businesses) saying, 'Let's talk to people on Twitter or let's have a Facebook page or let's advertise.' And these are good first steps but they are nowhere close to a social strategy

This link has been bookmarked by 39 people . It was first bookmarked on 14 Sep 2009, by Eric Fink.

03 Dec 09

Little Wonder
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30 Nov 09

Patti Porto
socialnetworking
Mike Cadogan
socialmedia
Joseph Alvarado
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29 Nov 09

dreaming spires
socialmedia harvard gender stats
Michele Brown
social media
27 Nov 09

johnaltieri
- Online social networks are most useful when they address failures in the real world.
- "Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks," says Piskorski.
- 1 more annotations...
- - Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people's profiles."
26 Nov 09

Phil Taylor
twitter socialmedia facebook trends MySpace social media strategy
Elizabeth Koh
socialnetworks harvard analysis twitter facebook MySpace trends strategy social media usages
Malcolm Law
Many business leaders are mystified about how to reach potential customers on social networks such as Facebook. Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski provides a fresh look into the interpersonal dynamics of these sites and offers guidance for approaching these tantalizing markets.

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25 Nov 09

Frank Bonsal III
If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski.

education sociallearning socialnetworking
- But the remarkable finding was the gender dynamics. According to the research, there are more women on Twitter than men, women tweet about the same rate as men, but men's tweets are followed by both sexes much more than expected by chance.
- But the remarkable finding was the gender dynamics. According to the research, there are more women on Twitter than men, women tweet about the same rate as men, but men's tweets are followed by both sexes much more than expected by chance.
eflclassroom 2.0
19 Oct 09

olivier legris
Many business leaders are mystified about how to reach potential customers on social networks such as Facebook. Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski provides a fresh look into the interpersonal dynamics of these sites and offers guidance for approaching these tantalizing markets.

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15 Oct 09

Bhupesh Arora
Many business leaders are mystified about how to reach potential customers on social networks such as Facebook. Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski provides a fresh look into the interpersonal dynamics of these sites and offers guidance for approaching these tantalizing markets.

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07 Oct 09

Ryan Bretag
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05 Oct 09

John Schiavone
If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski.

twitter facebook trends MySpace social media strategy HBS
30 Sep 09

Ryan Holman
I'm not sure I completely agree with the points presented, but I think some points raised about the sociology of social networking (and how it can be leveraged to a marketer's -- or a publisher's -- advantage) are interesting and worth examining.

socialmedia facebook myspace web 2.0 twitter strategy
- Women and men use these sites differently.
- Piskorski has also found deep gender differences in the use of sites. The biggest usage categories are men looking at women they don't know, followed by men looking at women they do know. Women look at other women they know. Overall, women receive two-thirds of all page views.
- 2 more annotations...
- - "No one uses MySpace"
    
    To continue on the issue of online representation of offline societal trends, Piskorski also looked at usage patterns of MySpace. Today's perception is that Twitter has the buzz and Facebook has the users. MySpace? Dead; no one goes there anymore. Tell a marketer that she ought to have a MySpace strategy and she'll look at you like you have a third eye.
    
    But Piskorski points out that MySpace has 70 million U.S. users who log on every month, only somewhat fewer than Facebook's 90 million and still more than Twitter's 20 million in the U.S. Its user base is not really growing, but 70 million users is nothing to sneeze at.
    
    So why doesn't MySpace get the attention it deserves?
    
    The fascinating answer, acquired by studying a dataset of 100,000 MySpace users, is that they largely populate smaller cities and communities in the south and central parts of the country. Piskorski rattles off some MySpace hotspots: "Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Florida."
    
    They aren't in Dallas but they are in Fort Worth. Not in Miami but in Tampa. They're in California, but in cities like Fresno. In other words, not anywhere near the media hubs (except Atlanta) and far away from those elite opinion-makers in coastal urban areas.
    
    "You need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy."
    
    "MySpace has a PR problem because its users are in places where they don't have much contact with people who create news that gets read by others. Other than that, there is really no difference between users of Facebook and MySpace, except they are poorer on MySpace." Piskorski recently blogged on his findings.
  - To continue the earlier analogy, "You should come to the table and say, 'Here is a product that I have designed for you that is going to make you all better friends.' To execute on this, firms will need to start making changes to the products themselves to make them more social, and leverage group dynamics, using technologies such as Facebook Connect. But I don't see a lot of that yet. I see (businesses) saying, 'Let's talk to people on Twitter or let's have a Facebook page or let's advertise.' And these are good first steps but they are nowhere close to a social strategy."
28 Sep 09

Lawrence Liu
Understanding Users of Social Networks
Joe Tota
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25 Sep 09

Agence Athomedia
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- "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?"
christophe spoerry
Article très intéressant sur les usages des réseaux sociaux

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Deborah Fitchett
"about the needs that [social networks] fulfill, how men and women use these services differently, and how Twitter - the newest kid on the block - is sharply different from forerunners such as Facebook and MySpace."

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22 Sep 09

wolf hesse
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20 Sep 09

Kim M
Many business leaders are mystified about how to reach potential customers on social networks such as Facebook. Professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski provides a fresh look into the interpersonal dynamics of these sites and offers guidance for approaching these tantalizing markets.
19 Sep 09

Jennifer Hern
Online social networks are most useful when they address failures in the real world. Pictures are the killer app of social networks. Women and men use these sites differently. Businesses shouldn't consider SNs as just another channel.

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Joe Loong
I'm pretty much obligated to read this. Or at least plan to.

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18 Sep 09

Tammy Kim
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Demain la veille
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James OReilly
17 Sep 09

Bertrand Duperrin
If the ongoing social networking revolution has you scratching your head and asking, "Why do people spend time on this?" and "How can my company benefit from the social network revolution?" you've got a lot in common with Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski

socialnetworks usages socialmedia socialstrategy strategy networks offlinenetworks marketing
- "Online social networks are most useful when they address real failures in the operation of offline networks," says Piskorski.
- Corporate marketers by and large struggle with how to use social networking sites to reach potential customers, says Piskorski, who advises companies on this subject. The problem is that execs think of online social networks as social media and treat it as another channel to get people to click through to a site.
- 2 more annotations...
- - "To be successful, you need to shift your mindset from social media to social strategy,"
  - I see (businesses) saying, 'Let's talk to people on Twitter or let's have a Facebook page or let's advertise.' And these are good first steps but they are nowhere close to a social strategy
Dave Duarte
* Online social networks are most useful when they address failures in the real world.
* Pictures are the killer app of social networks.
* Women and men use these sites differently.
* Businesses shouldn't consider SNs as just another channel.

nomadicmarketing strategy socialmedia
Jean-Marc FERRON
HBS Working Knowledge, 14 septembre 2009

médias sociaux social media réseaux sociaux
16 Sep 09

Rem Palpitt
The biggest discovery: pictures. "People just love to look at pictures," says Piskorski. "That's the killer app of all online social networks. Seventy percent of all actions are related to viewing pictures or viewing other people's profiles."

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Peter Bromberg
Online social networks also can improve people's ability to use offline social networks as "covers." This is very salient on LinkedIn. There, people display a lot of information about their careers, which makes them available to headhunters and other employers as passive candidates. But they also establish relationships with others to stay in touch with peers and to make new contacts. This network allows them to establish plausible deniability that they are not looking for a job, even if they are.

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Maximillian Kaizen
social networking
15 Sep 09

Mark Crowley
Covers some research into the psychology of social media

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14 Sep 09

Eric Fink
Bookmarks SocialMedia research