Presence is everything

By Guest Contributor: Richa Singh

One of the most well enjoyed human endeavors these days is social networking. It is mainly because we get to communicate with anyone from any part of the worldwide web by texting, chatting and VOIP or voice over internet phone. There are both great opportunities and huge risks in social networking, similarly to what has occurred with other extremely useful capabilities and technologies that have emerged and gained popularity in society. Using social networks have gained the opportunity and ability to influence many more people than before.

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Steiner, 1993), suggests that identities are so hidden online that opportunities would be widely open to all, regardless of background characteristics that may have traditionally disadvantaged some people compared to others. The idea that people would be on an equal footing online assumes that offline characteristics are not mirrored in people’s online pursuits. Social networking websites provide a variety of services, such as users’ own unique “space,” as well as enabling them to share photos and videos, maintain blogs, and encourage group interactions through chat rooms, instant messaging (IM), and e-mail. This seems to say that our society is much more open now, and much more open to posting intimate information online, but it also is rather anonymous in a way, because users never see, meet, or touch the person they communicate with, and so, even though they know intimate details, they do not really know the person at all.

But have we ever given a thought on the fact that we have a lot more friends than we used to. All these not-real friends we have on Facebook, MySpace, Orkut etc — we had them before, we just didn’t count them. So, we can now measure things we couldn’t measure before.

Social networking may sound fluffy, but it can translate into real benefits for business. It’s taking the internet by storm and is revolutionizing the way society connects and interacts with each other. What once was thought to be an internet fad is now commanding the attention of people and businesses around the world. Although social networking began primarily as a medium to allow individuals with similar interests to interact on a social level, it has since evolved to give businesses and professionals a place to connect and grow their network of contacts and even careers.

In a social networking arena, world is governed by what is called as “three degrees of influence” — that is, your friend’s friend’s friend, most likely someone you don’t even know — who indirectly influences your actions and emotions and this is changing the advertising profoundly, not just by cutting into the traditional media budgets but also by revolutionizing the way advertisers reach consumers. Social ads let Facebook users share their interactions with different brands throughout their peer network through news feeds. Facebook lets local and national businesses and organizations, such as restaurants, bars, cafés, sports teams, artists, churches, health and fitness centers, and even politicians, create pages with which users can interact by adding them to their profile. They also can choose to share this information with friends in their network through news feeds.

These are just some of the ways in which Social networking websites engage consumers by letting them create content and become the vanguards of different brands. Even more interesting, advertising on Social networking websites generally is highly targeted and relevant. Because the information comes from a friend they perceive they can trust, users are more likely to pay attention to messages that come through the news feed.

Hence, with the gaining popularity, social networking websites are just programmed to bring you a friend. But is also programmed to make money, and they make money by data mining and by selling virtual ads.

Things do spread to social networks because social networks online are much more clearly defined than the offline connections. And hence despite dire predictions from naysayers who warned that spending too much time online would be damaging to real-life relationships, the opposite appears to be true. The rise of social networking websites indicates a shift in the organization of online communities. While websites dedicated to communities of interest still exist and prosper, social networking websites are primarily organized around people, not interests.

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