Nine characteristics of online community

Mgema Musa z.
BAPRM 42615

Nine Characteristics of Online Communities.

Community management is not a one-size-fits-all discipline. Different strategies will work for different communities. And if anything I say feels like it doesn't fit with your community demographics or organizational goals, then throw it out.
It may seem a little disheartening when you realize there's no silver bullet for community triumph. But fear not although no two successful communities are the same, most successful communities do have a few things in common. At Super Forum, I went over nine of these characteristics. If you didn't make it to the session, here's a brief rundown to get your community on the path to win.
1. Successful communities have a plan.
Do you find yourself working toward boosting discussions and member adoption without a real long-term goal in mind Engagement is an indicator of a community’s health, but it's not a goal in and of itself. Right now, take some time to consider: what is the purpose of your community Are you trying to recruit new members or retain existing ones Are you looking to collect business intelligence or create a member benefit? Choose a concrete goal to work toward, and then decide how you plan to attack that goal. In the case of retention, you could work to improve customer service; or work to improve the perception of the organization in the minds of its members; or promote awareness and usage of non-community member benefits; or provide a great member benefit: the community! Once you drill down on your strategy, you can start to create a plan for how to achieve it. Block out at least a few hours each week to evaluate how you are working toward those goals, and don’t lose sight of your plan.

2. Successful communities are run by humans.
Far too frequently, community managers can become a sterile, emotionless face of the organization they represent. Sometimes it's pressure from others in your organization, and sometimes it's a bad habit that we fall into, especially in uncomfortable interpersonal situations. This "robotic" tendency can manifest in a few different ways: you could only speak in a stilted royal "we," you could twist every conversation into a bland, brand-positive interaction, you could use PR-speak or write in ways no actual person would. All of these make it that much harder to connect with your users. They won’t see you as an ally, and they won't see your community as a place in which they can speak authentically. You don't have to be an overly-friendly folksy CM like yours truly (you can take the girl out of Georgia, but you can't take the Georgia out of the girl), but you do have to speak as you would to someone in any other interpersonal conversation. You are not a PR robot. You are a human being. Act like it
3. Successful communities are designed for the user.
When you are designing the layout of your community site, think about what is the number one action you want your users to take, and design the community to push them toward that action. Because of the flexibility we have in user controls, widgets and the like, community managers are often tempted to add way too many bells and whistles onto the community landing page, which can overwhelm first time visitors. Simplicity is a good thing, and you can attain this blissful simplicity if you keep the user in mind at all times. What is the first thing he or she will see Sometimes it helps to perform a community audit, where you interview people who use the community to discuss everything that is confusing or annoying to them. Chances are, you'll be surprised and learn a lot! User experience: it’s kind of a big deal. Don't let it fall by the wayside.
4. Successful communities have a culture.
Much like communities in the meat space, successful online communities share a purpose and a culture. Burning Man is very different from the Boy Scouts. Reddit is very different from Tumblr. Whenever people come together repeatedly, cultural signifiers start to develop: inside jokes, special terminology, community traditions, and the like. These are signs of a culture, linking people together. These links are the basis of community. This is a tough thing to develop, since culture is a process - it can’t be forced. Nothing is cringier than somebody trying to create an affinity that isn't there. But you can nudge it along through little acts like recognizing individual members and running mini "events" on the community that start to build the groundwork.
5. Successful communities are cared for.
I feel like this metaphor gets trotted out constantly, but that's only because of how apt it is: communities are like gardens. With a community manager, they are fed, watered and pruned. Weeds are removed, fertilizer applied where needed, and slowly the grounds become beautiful and lush. Without a community manager, the garden will struggle. Some parts will become like kudzu, overtaking the entirety, while others will wither away for lack of nutrients, water or sunlight. Community managers don't control the community, but we do serve it, tend it and care for it. We survey the community and consider how best to shape its growth to reinforce the greater plan. Long story short: if your community doesn't have someone explicitly managing it even if that person may have other roles in your organization ,you are going to spend a lot of time in the weeds.
6. Successful communities have awesome content.
Having a community isn't enough. Having an "active" community isn't enough. To be successful, your community has to provide some kind of concrete value, and one of the easiest, most fool-proof ways to provide value is by facilitating great content. This doesn't mean re-posting articles from your blog or magazine to the community; you have to take advantage of the interactive and collaborative nature of community to make it shine. So gather together speakers, bloggers and thought leaders, and ask them to do an Ask-Me-Anything. Throw out discussion topics that invite everyone to disclose and share expertise. Want to drive people to a blog post? Share an excerpt and ask a question about a big picture topic related to the article in question. Check out this blog post to learn more about how you can facilitate great content, collect it and re-use it in order to help your community shine.
7. Successful communities are data-driven.
What is the  of your community Remember, "engagement" doesn't count; you can't pay rent with engagement! Here is where you look back to your plan and consider the purpose of your community. Once you know what you're looking for, go to the numbers. Are community members more likely to renew/engage in other programs/evangelize/etc.? Figure out which metrics reflect your goals and track those obsessively. Is your community intended to be a repository of knowledge for your members? Look at library entry views and downloads. Interested in raising awareness of other organizational programs. Take some time to drill down into your community's popular search terms to figure out what they're looking for and how to address them. This doesn't mean that qualitative data (i.e. great community "stories" isn't valuable. Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. However, a lot of things that count a LOT can be counted. So count them.
8. Successful communities allow for many voices - not just one.
I know I mentioned raising awareness of organizational programs and services as a possible goal, but remember at all times that it's not about you. Your community is a support group, not a lecture hall. Any community that is full of marketing messages, top-down communication, or where the community manager jumps on every question immediately with an answer of his or her own, is doomed as a community. Think of it like a party: do you like to hang out with the guy who is always talking about himself and how awesome he is, and who turns every discussion into a discussion about him? No, we hate that guy, and we don't invite him to our next party. Any community where the loudest voice is the voice of the organization (especially if that voice is the PR robot I covered in #2) runs the risk of driving away your users. Instead, create an environment where your members feel able to ask questions and share struggles freely. Then, when the issue is something your organization can assist with, step in and offer help. This genuine spirit of service reflects positively back on your organization, and other members will notice.
9. Successful communities are fun.
We have a tendency in communities of practice to fear the Facebook effect, for good reason. If a community just becomes a place for ranting, raving, liking and sharing, its value can drop precipitously and be hard to recover. educational doesn't have to equal boring and stuffy. Consider having a place in your community for "fun," whether it's a special community, a running thread or whatever makes sense for your organization. Higher Logic's is devoted to community management and our clients' success, but that doesn't mean we don't love our party . A sense of fun helps to create that affinity, which is so crucial to a sense of true community. Don't fear fun.

Online Community

Mgema musa
BAPRM 42615

Online community
An online community is a virtual community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. For many, online communities may feel like home, consisting of a “family of invisible friends. Those who wish to be a part of an online community usually have to become a member via a specific site and necessarily need an internet connection. An online community can act as an information system where members can post, comment on discussions, give advice or collaborate. Commonly, people communicate through social networking sites , chat rooms, forums , e-mail lists and discussion boards. People may also join online communities through video games ,
blogs and virtual worlds.
Constance Elise Porter of Notre Dame in a paper entitled A Typology of Virtual Communities: A Multi-Disciplinary Foundation for Future Research offers this definition: "a virtual community is defined as an aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact around a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by some protocols or norms."
Categorization
The idea of a community is not a new concept. On the telephone, in ham radio and in the online world, social interactions no longer have to be based on proximity; instead they can literally be with anyone anywhere. [2] The study of communities has had to adapt along with the new technologies. Many researchers have used ethnography to attempt to understand what people do in online spaces, how they express themselves, what motivates them, how they govern themselves, what attracts them, and why some people prefer to observe rather than participate. [2] Online communities can congregate around a shared interest and can be spread across multiple websites. [3]
Some signs of community are:
Content: articles, information, and news about a topic of interest to a group of people.
Forums or newsgroups and email: so that community members can communicate in delayed fashion.
Chat and instant messaging: so that community members can communicate more immediately. [4]
Development
There is a set of values known as netiquette (or Internet etiquette) to consider as an online community develops. Some of these values include: opportunity, education, culture, democracy, human services, equality within the economy, information, sustainability, and communication. [5] An online community's purpose is to serve as a common ground for people who share the same interest(s). [5]
Online communities may be used as calendars to keep up with events such as upcoming gatherings or sporting events. They also form around activities and hobbies. Many online communities relating to health care help inform, advise and support patients and their families. Students can take classes online and they may communicate with their professors and peers online. Businesses have also started using online communities to communicate with their customers about their products and services as well as to share information about the business. Other online communities allow a wide variety of professionals to come together to share thoughts, ideas and theories. [5]
Fandom is an example of what online communities can evolve into. Online communities have grown in influence in "shaping the phenomena around which they organize" according to Nancy K. Baym's work. [3] She says that: "More than any other commercial sector, the popular culture industry relies on online communities to publicize and provide testimonials for their products." The strength of the online community’s power is displayed through the season 3 premiere of BBC’s Sherlock. Online activity by fans seem to have had a noticeable influence on the plot and direction of the season opening episode. Mark Lawson of The Guardian recounts how fans have, to a degree, directed the outcome of the events of the episode. He says that "Sherlock has always been one of the most web-aware shows, among the first to find a satisfying way of representing electronic chatter on-screen." [6]
Discussions where members may post their feedback are essential in the development of an online community.
[7] Online communities may encourage individuals to come together to teach and learn from one another. They may encourage learners to discuss and learn about real-world problems/situations as well as focus on such things as teamwork, collaborative thinking and personal experiences. [8][9]
Classification
Online communities are dynamic by nature and there are researchers and organizations working to classify them. For example, it is important to know the security, access, and technology requirements of a given type of community as it may evolve from an open to a private and regulated forum. [10] A number of authors have studied online communities to better understand how they are structured. It has been argued that the technical aspects of online communities, such as whether pages can be created and edited by many, as is the case with wikis including
Wikipedia , or whether only certain users can post entries and edit them, as is the case with most blogs , can place online communities into stylistic categories. [11] Another approach argues that "online community" is a metaphor and that contributors actively negotiate the meaning of the term, including values and social norms. [12]
Some research has looked at the users of online communities. Amy Jo Kim has classified the rituals and stages of online community interaction and called it the 'Membership life cycle'. [13] Clay Shirky talks about community of practice whose members collaborate and help each other in order to make something better or improve a certain skill. What makes these communities bond is "love" of something as demonstrated by members who go out of their way to help without any financial interest.
[14][15] Others have suggested
character theories to break particular patterns of behavior of particular users into certain categories. [16][17][18]
A 2001 McKinsey & Company study showed that only 2% of transaction site customers returned after their first purchase, while 60% of new online communities users began using and visiting the sites regularly after their first experiences. [ citation needed ] Online communities have changed the game for retail firms, forcing them to change their business strategies. Companies have to network more, adjust computations, and alter their organizational structures. This leads to changes in a company’s communications with their manufacturers including the information shared and made accessible for further productivity and profits. Because consumers and customers in all fields are becoming accustomed to more interaction and engagement online, adjustments must be considered made in order to keep audiences intrigued. [10]
It may be beneficial to introduce a term described by Ray Oldenberg called a third place to help classify online communities. A "third place is a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realm of home and work” (Oldenburg, p. 16). An online community can take on the role of a third place. Third places have characteristics that many online communities exhibit, for example: they provide neutral ground for all parties; they are levelers, easily accessible and highly accommodating; conversation is the main activity; they allow people to keep a low profile, and a few others. While these may be characteristics to help classify online communities, they may not all apply to a specific online community nor does an online community need to embody each of these characteristics.
The four requirements of “virtual settlement” include: interactivity, a variety of communicators, a common public place where members can meet and interact, and sustained membership over time. Based on these considerations, it can be said that microblogs such as Twitter can be classified as online communities. [19]
Building communities
According to Dorine C. Andrews, author of Audience-Specific Online Community Design there are three parts to building an online community: starting the online community, encouraging early online interaction, and moving to a self-sustaining interactive environment. [20] When starting an online community, it may be effective to create webpages that appeal to specific interests. Online communities with clear topics and easy access tend to be most effective. In order to gain early interaction by members, privacy guarantees and content discussions are very important. [20] Successful online communities tend to be able to function self-sufficiently. [20]
Participation
There are two major types of participation in online communities: public participation and non-public participation, also called lurking.
Lurkers are participants who join a virtual community but do not contribute. In contrast, public participants, or posters, are those who join virtual communities and openly express their beliefs and opinions. Both lurkers and posters frequently enter communities to find answers and to gather general information. For example, there are several online communities dedicated to technology. In these communities, posters are generally experts in the field who can offer technological insight and answer questions, while lurkers tend to be technological novices who use the communities to find answers and to learn. [21]
In general, virtual community participation is influenced by how participants view themselves in society as well as norms, both of society and of the online community.
[22] Participants also join online communities for friendship and support. In a sense, virtual communities may fill social voids in participants' offline lives. [23]
Sociologist Barry Wellman presents the idea of "glocalization" - the Internet's ability to extend participants’ social connections to people around the world while also aiding them in further engagement with their local communities. [24]
Online learning
Online learning is a form of online community. The sites are designed to educate. Colleges and universities may offer many of their classes online to their students; this allows each student to take the class at his or her own pace.
According to an article published in Volume 21, Issue 5, of the European Management Journal titled Learning in Online Forums, [citation needed] researchers conducted a series of studies about online learning. They found that while good online learning is difficult to plan, it is quite conducive to educational learning. Online learning can bring together a diverse group of people, and although it is asynchronous learning, if the forum is set up using all the best tools and strategies, it can be very effective.
Another study was published in an article[ citation needed ] in Volume 55, Issue 1, of the Computers and Education Journal called Computer-supported team-based learning and found results supporting the findings of the article mentioned above. The researchers found that motivation, enjoyment, and team contributions on learning outcomes enhanced students learning and that the students felt they learned well with it. A study published in the same journal in Volume 55, Issue 4, called Can learning be virtually boosted? [ citation needed ] An investigation of online social networking impacts, looks at how social networking can foster individual well-being and develop skills which can improve the learning experience.
These articles look at a variety of different types of online learning. They suggest that online learning can be quite productive and educational if created and maintained properly.
One feature of online communities is that they are not constrained by time thereby giving members the ability to move through periods of high to low activity over a period of time. This dynamic nature maintains a freshness and variety that traditional methods of learning might not have been able to provide. [ citation needed ]
It appears that online communities such as Wikipedia have become a source of professional learning. [citation needed] They are an active learning environment in which learners converse and inquire.
In a study exclusive to teachers in online communities, results showed that membership in online communities provided teachers with a rich source of professional learning that satisfied each member of the community. [25]
Saurabh Tyagi [clarification needed] describes benefits of online community learning which include:
No physical boundaries: Online communities do not limit their membership nor exclude based on where one lives.
Supports in-class learning: Due to time constraints, discussion boards are more efficient for question & answer sessions than allowing time after lectures to ask questions.
Build a social and collaborative learning experience: People are best able to learn when they engage, communicate, and collaborate with each other. Online communities create an environment where users can collaborate through social interaction and shared experiences.
Self-governance: Anyone who can access the internet is self-empowered. The immediate access to information allows users to educate themselves.
These terms are taken from Edudemic, a site about teaching and learning. The article [clarification needed ] provides background information about online communities as well as how to incorporate learning within an online community.[26]
Aspects of successful online communities
An article entitled "The real value of on-line communities," written by A Armstrong and J Hagel of the Harvard Business Review, [citation needed] addresses a handful of elements that are key to the growth of an online community and its success in drawing in members. In this example, the article which was available on mendeley.com focuses specifically on online communities related to business, but its points can be transferred and can apply to any online community. The article addresses four main categories of business-based online communities, but states that a truly successful one will combine qualities of each of them: communities of transaction, communities of interest, communities of fantasy, and communities of relationship. Anubhav Choudhury, from incrediblogger.net, provides basic descriptions of each of these four types of online communities. [citation needed]
1. Communities of transaction emphasize the importance of buying and selling products in a social online manner where people must interact in order to complete the transaction.
2. Communities of interest involve the online interaction of people with specific knowledge on a certain topic.
3. Communities of fantasy encourage people to participate in online alternative forms of reality, such as games where they are represented by avatars.
4. Communities of relationship often reveal or at least partially protect someone's identity while allowing them to communicate with others, such as in online dating services.
Membership lifecycle
Amy Jo Kim's membership lifecycle states that members of online communities begin their life in a community as visitors, or lurkers. After breaking through a barrier, people become novices and participate in community life. After contributing for a sustained period of time they become regulars. If they break through another barrier they become leaders, and once they have contributed to the community for some time they become elders. This life cycle can be applied to many virtual communities, most obviously to bulletin board systems , but also to blogs , mailing lists (listserve) and wiki -based communities like Wikipedia.
A similar model can be found in the works of Lave and Wenger, who illustrate a cycle of how users become incorporated into virtual communities using the principles of legitimate peripheral participation. They suggest five types of trajectories amongst a learning community:[27]
1. Peripheral (i.e. Lurker) – An outside, unstructured participation
2. Inbound (i.e. Novice) – Newcomer is invested in the community and heading towards full participation
3. Insider (i.e. Regular) – Full committed community participant
4. Boundary (i.e. Leader) – A leader, sustains membership participation and brokers interactions
5. Outbound (i.e. Elder) – Process of leaving the community due to new relationships, new positions, new outlooks
The following shows the correlation between the learning trajectories and Web 2.0 community participation.
Learning trajectory in participation
Example – YouTube
Peripheral (Lurker) – Observing the community and viewing content. Does not add to the community content or discussion. The user occasionally goes onto YouTube.com to check out a video that someone has directed them to.
Inbound (Novice) – Just beginning to engage the community. Starts to provide content. Tentatively interacts in a few discussions. The user comments on other user’s videos. Potentially posts a video of his or her own.
Insider (Regular) – Consistently adds to the community discussion and content. Interacts with other users. Regularly posts videos. Either videos they have found or made themselves. Makes a concerted effort to comment and rate other users' videos.
Boundary (Leader) – Recognized as a veteran participant. Connects with regulars to make higher concepts ideas. Community grants their opinion greater consideration. The user has become recognized as a contributor to watch. Possibly their videos are podcasts commenting on the state of YouTube and its community. The user would not consider watching another user’s videos without commenting on them. Will often correct a user in behavior the community considers inappropriate. Will reference other user’s videos in their comments as a way to cross link content.
Outbound (Elders) – Leave the community. Their interests may have changed, the community may have moved in a direction that they don’t agree with or they may no longer have time to maintain a constant presence in the community.
Roles in an online community
Although online societies differ in content from real society, the roles people assume in their online communities are quite similar. Elliot Volkman [28] points out several categories of people that play a role in the cycle of social networking, these include:
Community architect – Creates the online community, sets goals and decides the purpose of the site.
Community manager - Oversees the progress of the society. Enforces rules, encourages social norms, assists new members, and spreads awareness about the community.
Professional member - This is a member who is paid to contribute to the site. The purpose of this role is to keep the community active.
Free members - These members visit sites most often and represent the majority of the contributors. Their contributions are crucial to the sites' progress.
Passive lurker - These people do not contribute to the site but rather absorb the content, discussion, and advice.
Active lurker - Consumes the content and shares that content with personal networks and other communities.
Power users - These people push for new discussion, provide positive feedback to community managers, and sometimes even act as community managers themselves. They have a major influence on the site and make up only a small percentage of the users.
These terms are taken from Social Media Today [clarification needed] . The article describes different aspects of online communities and specifically describes the different roles within a community.
Motivations and barriers to participation
Main article: Motivations for online participation
Successful online communities motivate online participation . Methods of motivating participation in these communities have been investigated in several studies.
There are many persuasive factors that draw users into online communities. Peer-to-peer systems and social networking sites rely heavily on member contribution. Users’ underlying motivations to involve themselves in these communities have been linked to some persuasion theories of sociology.
According to the reciprocation theory, a successful online community must provide its users with benefits that compensate for the costs of time, effort and materials members provide. People often join these communities expecting some sort of reward.
The consistency theory says that once people make a public commitment to a virtual society, they will often feel obligated to stay consistent with their commitment by continuing contributions.
The social validation theory explains how people are more likely to join and participate in an online community if it is socially acceptable and popular.
One of the greatest attractions towards online communities is the sense of connection users build among members. Participation and contribution are influenced when members of an online community are aware of their global audience. [29]
The majority of people learn by example and often follow others, especially when it comes to participation. [30] Individuals are reserved about contributing to an online community for many reasons including but not limited to a fear of criticism or inaccuracy. Users may withhold information that they don’t believe is particularly interesting, relevant, or truthful. In order to challenge these contribution barriers, producers of these sites are responsible for developing knowledge-based and foundation-based trust among the community. [31]
There are two types of virtual online communities (VOC): dependent and self-sustained VOCs. The dependent VOCs are those who use the virtual community as extensions of themselves, [clarification needed] they interact with people they know. Self-sustained VOCs are communities where relationships between participating members is formed and maintained through encounters in the online community.[32] For all VOCs, there is the issue of creating identity and reputation in the community. People can create whatever identity they would like to through their interactions with other members. The username is what members identify each other by but it says very little about the person behind it. The main features in online communities that attract people are a shared communication environment, relationships formed and nurtured, a sense of belonging to a group, the internal structure of the group, common space shared by people with similar ideas and interests. The three most critical issues are belonging, identity, and interest. For an online community to flourish there needs to be consistent participation, interest, and motivation. [33]
Research conducted by Helen Wang applied the Technology Acceptance Model to online community participation. [34] Internet self-efficacy positively predicted perceived ease of use. Research found that participants’ beliefs in their abilities to use the internet and web based tools determined how much effort was expected. Community environment positively predicted perceived ease of use and usefulness. Intrinsic motivation positively predicted perceived ease of use, usefulness, and actual use. The technology acceptance model positively predicts how likely it is that an individual will participate in an online community.
Consumer-vendor interaction
Establishing a relationship between the consumer and a seller has become a new science with the emergence of online communities. It is a new market to be tapped by companies and to do so, requires an understanding of the relationships built on online communities. Online communities gather people around common interests and these common interests can include brands, products, and services. [35] Companies not only have a chance to reach a new group of consumers in online communities, but to also tap into information about the consumers. Companies have a chance to learn about the consumers in an environment that they feel a certain amount of anonymity and are thus, more open to allowing a company to see what they really want or are looking for.
In order to establish a relationship with the consumer a company must seek a way to identify with how individuals interact with the community. This is done by understanding the relationships an individual has with an online community. There are six identifiable relationship statuses: considered status, committed status, inactive status, faded status, recognized status, and unrecognized status. [36] Unrecognized status means the consumer is unaware of the online community or has not decided the community to be useful. The recognized status is where a person is aware of the community, but is not entirely involved. A considered status is when a person begins their involvement with the site. The usage at this stage is still very sporadic. The committed status is when a relationship between a person and an online community is established and the person gets fully involved with the community. The inactive status is when an online community has not relevance to a person. The faded status is when a person has begun to fade away from a site. [37] It is important to be able to recognize which group or status the consumer holds, because it might help determine which approach to use.
Companies not only need to understand how a consumer functions within an online community, but also a company “should understand the communality of an online community” [38] This means a company must understand the dynamic and structure of the online community to be able to establish a relationship with the consumer. Online communities have cultures of their own, and to be able to establish a commercial relationship or even engage at all, one must understand the community values and proprieties. It has even been proved beneficial to treat online commercial relationships more as friendships rather than business transactions.
Through online engagement, because of the smoke screen of anonymity, it allows a person to be able to socially interact with strangers in a much more personal way [39] This personal connection the consumer feels translates to how they want to establish relationships online. They separate what is commercial or spam and what is relational. Relational becomes what they associate with human interaction while commercial is what they associate with digital or non-human interaction. Thus the online community should not be viewed as “merely a sales channel”.
[40] Instead it should be viewed as a network for establishing interpersonal communications with the consumer.
Growth cycle
See also: Metcalfe's law and Bass diffusion model
Most online communities grow slowly at first, due in part to the fact that the strength of motivation for contributing is usually proportional to the size of the community. As the size of the potential audience increases, so does the attraction of writing and contributing. This, coupled with the fact that organizational culture does not change overnight, means creators can expect slow progress at first with a new virtual community. As more people begin to participate, however, the aforementioned motivations will increase, creating a virtuous cycle in which more participation begets more participation.
Community adoption can be forecast with the Bass diffusion model , originally conceived by Frank Bass to describe the process by which new products get adopted as an interaction between innovative early adopters and those who follow them.
Problems
Online communities are relatively new and unexplored areas. They promote a whole new community that prior to the Internet was not available. Although they can promote a vast array of positive qualities, such as relationships without regard to race, religion, gender, or geography, [41] they can also lead to multiple problems.
The theory of risk perception, an uncertainty in participating in an online community, is quite common, particularly when in the following online circumstances:
1. performances,
2. financial,
3. opportunity/time,
4. safety,
5. social,
6. psychological loss. [42]

Eleven characteristics of online store

Mgema Musa z.
BAPRM 42615

11 characteristics of a trustful online store

It is not enough to open an online store and wait for revenue to come. The customer has to go through an easy and enjoyable shopping experience, and above all we must inspire confidence, which is not always easy in an electronic environment. These eleven factors can help to sell more and better.
1. The online store must be easy to use. If customers have to waste time trying to figure out how to register or how make a payment, we will lose them.
2. It must be convenient. One of the reasons why consumers buy online is the possibility to receive products at home, so the online store must count with a fast and effective shipping company. The delivery must also be quick: some companies are already experimenting with same day delivery . If we have a physical store, it is a good idea to offer the possibility to collect or return the product at the point of sale.
3. In fact, we should aim for a multichannel offer, so that the client has
the advantages of both online and offline channels .
4. The store should be flexible, offering as many modes of payment as possible. At least credit cards and Paypal.
5. It should inspire confidence. In a traditional store this is easy because customers know where we are and we speak to them face to face. In an online store this confidence be generated confirming that:
- Payments are safe.
- Customers can exchange or return products without problems.
- They can easily contact us through a contact form, an email or a phone number to be found easily. And even, why not, they could be able to chat with a salesperson .
6. One way to differentiate ourselves and become even more trustful is providing content . For example, through a blog where we can discuss products and market trends, or posting demonstration videos of each item in the product sheets.
7. It is also essential to open the page to customer feedback on products, transparently and without fear. On the Internet, consumers trust other users' reviews .
8. We can offer a customized experience. If our software takes into account what do clients consult and purchase in addition to saved products as well as items purchased by similar clients, we can offer recommendations according to their preferences.
9. Premium offers can help to our clients. For example, a flat rate for shipping charges or discounts and special offers for newsletter subscribers and social networks followers.
10. The store should count with a good search engine, including categories, products and the most appropriate keywords for each item, so that the client can easily find what he is looking for.
11. The online store has to be adapted to smart phones and tablets . The experience in these two devices is different from a computer: the screens are smaller, typing is more difficult and the star products must be accessible easily and directly.

Laizer Edwin n Baprm 42691

Ensuring centralised information can be accessed, searched and employed

For a digital ECM strategy to succeed, employees must be able to access centralised information quickly and accurately. Doing so requires various software processes, such as capturing (registration), indexing (tagging), searching and retrieving, editing and controlling versions.

Because local councils are complex, multi-departmental organisations, their ECM software should include a faceted classification system that allows users to find the same document from different business policy areas. For example, imagine you have a purchase order (PO) document for a council vehicle, and several different departments require access. It needs to be referenced in two places the asset management system and financial management system. Some councils may choose to duplicate the PO document, potentially leading to version control problems, and auditing and compliance issues. Now imagine you have a single instance of the PO document, which can be ‘tagged’ with the asset number and the organisation unit so it appears in both the asset management system and financial management system. Your version control problems are immediately eliminated. Some councils are also starting to push internal systems and public services to the cloud. Usually the logical place to start is moving to new age email and authoring tools like Microsoft Office 365 or Google Docs. However, this then raises important considerations for a council’s ECM strategy. Will my ECM be able to accept emails and documents from these new systems? What about those relying on plugins and connectors to their ECM? Will they work with the new system or will there be a flood of support calls from workers who are unable to store and access information? A futureproofed ECM system that can cater for information from these and other sources is crucial for councils. One that aids their move to the cloud, rather than acting as a hinderance and forcing constant work arounds. It is also important to consider additional costs such as training and change management. For instance, local councils should consider choosing an ECM system that can be used by existing employees without the need for significant investment in training.

 The value of centralised and widely accessible Information

A good example of where a centralised approach to information management can deliver business benefits is with field workers. From building inspections to road repairs, a large proportion of council work is carried out by field workers. If the council made changes to residential building policy, how difficult would it be to disseminate the new information to ensure every building inspector in the field has access to it? Most councils would email the new document to each field worker, which is slow and inefficient. It requires double handling and wastes time due to email follow ups and confirmations. Additionally, there is no guarantee that the worker will use the latest version. But what if the council’s centralised document repository automatically updated the document, and field workers could access it from any phone, tablet or laptop? The latest version would be instantly accessible as the single source of truth and no email correspondence would be required. Workers could even compare previous versions of the document to see what exactly had changed. Furthermore, building inspectors could submit their inspection report from the field along with supporting notes and images. It could be saved centrally, and automatic tagging would allocate the document to the correct business domain. Where required, the council could also automate the workflow to push the tagged inspection report to the next stage in the reporting process. An ECM tool that centralises information makes all of this possible. Employees can access the same pool of information from any device anywhere, and at any time. Security is an added benefit. Consider what would happen if a field worker lost their device or had it stolen. What would happen to the inspection report? Would it be lost forever? Centralised information storage removes this issue.

By Charles kulwa n reg no 42688

Temptation to remain focused on McLuhan

He was right. Perhaps the biggest temptation to dwell on McLuhan is that McLuhan was correct about things that others at the time were not able to perceive or understand. More clearly than most other social observers, McLuhan was able to see past the surface content of television and radio programs, films and books in order to analyze the nature underlying medium, what was special about it, and how it was different from other media.

While others focused of imitation and on counting acts of violence, sexuality or sexism, McLuhan ( 1964/1994) in his most famous pun, attacked this focus on message by declaring, ‘’the medium is the message, emphasis use reshapes people and culture, I’ve called this approach ‘ medium theory- following McLuhan in the singular ‘’ medium as the key message- rather than media ecology or media theory in general, because medium theory focuses on the unusual characteristics that distinguish one medium, or one type of media, from other media( Meyrowitz, 1985)

Even more impressive, McLuhan was able to see past the specific of radio and television to some underlying characteristics that set electronic media (what he called electric media) apart from print media. While others saw general continuity (or simply cultural decline) he saw fundamental difference and transformation.

As Paul Levinson ( 1999) has documented in impressive detail in his book digital McLuhan, McLuhan’s theory are even a better match for the current digital age they were for the communication technologies that existed when McLuhan was writing .indeed, McLuhan spoke about the global village’’ long before there was even a CNN, let alone a world wide web. When McLuhan wrote about electric, media making all of us present to each other across the globe, he did a rather good job of describing a world of email and instant messaging that was beyond the imagination of his contemporaries

As even critics of McLuhan would now have to acknowledge his understanding media gave us the current conceptions about and awareness of media and the information age, it’s difficult to believe today, yet when McLuhan wrote his earliest draft of understanding media in 1959 as high school media curriculum for the  us. National association of educational broadcaster, generally enthusiastic reviewer cautioned that the term media was not in the average teachers vocabulary and would need to be explained clearly ( Gordon, 1997) simply, some early critics’ of McLuhan put the word media in quotes to distance themselves from what they saw as McLuhan odds usage( Burke, 1968 Mroszak)

McLuhan was wrong in some of his predictions, His claims that the end was in sight for baseball, cities, and the automobile seem pretty far off mark. But he was usually right. In understanding media (1964/1994) McLuhan correctly saw that advances in technologies would lead executives to do work once done by servants and secretaries, that it was becoming impossible to isolate minorities and youth from the larger culture.

Characteristics of PR

Kimishua Angela
BAPRM 42583

1. Meaning:
Public relations activities are typically designed to build and maintain a favourable image for an organisation and a favourable relationship with the organization’s various “publics.” These publics may be customers, stockholders, employees, unions, environmentalist, the government, people in local community or some other groups in society
2. Important Managerial Function:
It is an integral part of managerial functions. Many companies operate a special department for the purpose known as public relations department to create and maintain constructive relations with different interested publics. A manager must take concrete steps to manage successful relations with the key publics.
3. Publicity and Public Relations:
It is an extension of publicity. Publicity concerns with getting favourable response from mass media about a company, its products, and its activities while public relations concerns with creating and maintaining constructive relations with various publics over a time.
4. Wide Range of Activity:
Public relations includes a lot of activities to build and maintain long-term and positive relations with a large set of interested publics. It involves a number of interactions, such as contacting, inviting, informing, clarifying, responding, interpreting, dealing, transacting, and so forth.
5. Various Parties:
Public relations covers a number of publics – formal and informal groups. These publics may be customers, stockholders, employees, unions, environmentalists, the government, people in local community, or some other groups in society. The purpose of public relations is to make these parties build positive attitudes about a company.
6. Continuous Process:
Public relations is a continuous process. It starts with inception of business unit and lasts as long as it exists. The firm has to perform public relations activities on a continuous basis. Once the company has established a good image and reputation, such image and positive attitudes may extinguish if they are not monitored or maintained. Similarly, along with expansion of business, it has to build new relations with varied parties at different places.
7. Management Philosophy:
It is fundamentally the management attitudes and managerial philosophy to build and maintain good relations with publics. A company formulates policy to establish public relations. This philosophy is based on building healthy relations with various groups for company’s interest. Management must know the attitudes of publics toward the company’s policy and practice. It considers general interest while taking decisions.
8. All Level Activity:
All the officials from the top level to the supervisory level perform public relations activities. It obvious that officials working at various levels of management can contribute in developing positive relations with different publics like shareholders, customers, traders, service providers, government, and so on. It is the joint duty of all the employees from top to bottom.
9. Routine Activity:
Note that public relations is a part of routine activities. It is not incidental or occasional. Further, it is not taken as distinct activity, but a part of day-to-day activities. It is treated as part of daily activities like purchase, administration, production, marketing, finance, and likewise.
10. Essence of Public Relations:
It is an essential function of marketing department. A company can build, improve, and maintain its image through public relations. Due to the healthy public relations with several publics, the company can smoothly carry out its operations. It is treated as important as production and marketing.
11. Public Relations as a Profession:
In relation to modern management practices, the public relations has become profession. It enjoys professional status. All the characteristics of profession such as specialized knowledge, need of formal education, ethical codes, service motive, continuous development, etc., are also prevalent in public relations.
The professional is called PRO (Public Relations Officer. There are special courses intended to prepare and train successful professional public relations officers. There are professional public relations consultancies to guide businessmen how to build, improve and/or maintain public relations.
12. Public Relations as an Art:
It is, no doubt, an art. To make publics think positively about the company, one must know how to deal with them. The officer  designated as public relations officer (PRO) – must have skills, special qualities, and knowledge to interact successfully with different groups of society to build the long-term constructive relations. He needs special qualities to be the successful PRO.

IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH

CHAMSHAMA DEBORA S. BAPRM 42540
Research refer to the systematic ,investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by discovering new facts .Research is divided into general  categories these are basic research which normally inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge and applied research its effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or discovering new processes, products or techniques. The following below are importance of research in the practice of international public relations
Research enables management to formulate policies that are acceptable and familiar with a certain environment or depending on the nation culture, research produces suggestions that can lead to the  better products, services and relationship also can define and make the management aware of existing and potential problems also can helpful in determining objectives and strategies of a public relations program.
Research provides emphasis on the listening of the two way street concept and thus satisfies the desires of the people to express their views over the management. As public relations public relations function itself, research provides a means of evaluating the effectives of outbound communication by determining its impact on the public opinion and finally by providing such tangible evidence research can do much to earn support from both management and the public for the counseling services itself.
Research has been a good link of determining the public’s basic attitudes especially in the practice of international public relations research influences groups’ opinions and an organization must understand the background and make up of its audience or public to feel respected for example the management of the large department store about to enter a rural community must rise to first asses how residents feel about large stores in general, after knowing their feelings it can attempt to win public support.
Research helps in determining the opposition strength and weaknesses in every area there must be competition for the better success so in order to win your competitors you must have a knowledge and understand over them and the better way of knowing them is through research for example before a political candidate spends time or money on squelching the oppositions view, research should be applied to determine just how potential the issues is in the minds of the electorates.
Research also helps in positioning public relations efforts within frame work. By tying such research to business goals communications, programs can be more specifically structures to complement a firm’s line objectives for example any business organization or nonprofit organization must have a certain goals and in order to accomplish them as a public relation manager, you must have the knowledge about your public’s culture their way of life especially when your practicing internationally you have to conduct a research so that you can be familiar with different countries’ cultures that can lead to accomplish your organization goals without any biasness.
Research helps in clarifying issues, attitudes are often fuzzy people may say they like something without being specific about the particular characteristics they admire. Research probes deeper to determine what specifically about an issue or product appeals to someone also research helps or assuring you what to do without guessing that these society may be preferring this but research gives you the realities about what to do over a certain society for example an introduction of a company which is dealing with producing  Islamic dressings in Iran or Iraq means you are sure with the market and no one will be biased compare with opening  a shop which dealing with selling bibles in the same countries I mentioned above.
Research is the key to the design and execution of a successfully public relations program in the final instance, information and data must be gathered and fact compiled. It also necessary to have knowledge of target audience, a public practitioner who understand his or her audiences their attitudes, hopes and fear will be better able to formulate messages that appeal specifically to them
Research helps to understand the level of economy of countries means that understanding the economic situation over countries will help you to set a better price which is propositional with their income level for example many companies from chine work or produce products and set price according to the country’s abilities economically the phone which they have been exported to Tanzania are different with those are going to England and this is because the level of income of Tanzanian compare to English people.
Finally research is a vital role in the practice of international public relations because it helps more many organization and companies to achieve their goals after conducting research and discovering the need and the culture of every society or every nation without research many companies and organization would fail but because of research has reached their target so research is important in the practice of International public relations.

IMPORTANCE OF INTRANET AND EXTRANET

MMARY PENDO E. BAPRM 42620
cording to M. Agarwal (2010), an intranet is a website designed for private use by an organization. It is a private internal business network. Documents like staff manuals, office notices and other can be replaced on this private website. It enables your employees to share information, collaborate and improve their communication. Today companies have corporate intranets and even small companies use it for the purpose of increasing their productivity.
Intranet has multiple advantages in corporate communication; these can be as follows;
It provides greater access to company information, since the intranet is designed for serving a certain organization hence different materials concerning that particular organization will be easily accessed in that website. Anyone related to that particular organization can get an easy access to the information of the organization without having to go through a difficult procedure.
It can improve performance and facilitate better communication because data, applications and information are delivered in an open environment. The employees get engaged through communication and also are provided with different organizational contents. Through this the employees will be able to see how they are performing and hence to decide where to put more efforts so as to improve their performance.
It enhances innovation within the organization; intranet is a collaboration tool for different employees from different parts of the organization to become aware of innovation projects and participating in innovating into the future. It allows the participants to attach all the related documents to the project as well as their profiles so as they could be identified in the future.
It provides a better internal communication; intranet can serve as a center of communication for staffs. Corporate information such as memos, staff news and announcements can be stored centrally and be accessed any time. This process also makes it easier for the company to communicate among its members.
It saves time; intranet saves the organization’s time when information is needed to be sent to the employees. Instead of sending memos to individuals the memo can be uploaded to the organization intranet and hence can be accessed by all the members of the organization. All other information that is intended to the employees can be uploaded in the intranet and hence saves time of dealing with one individual in time.
Intranet also helps the mangers in making decisions; the executive through the intranets gets the information they need to make decisions required to manage a company. All this is possible because the information acquired will be up to date and there for an executive won’t have to go through a long and tough process to get any information.
It helps in sharing of resources and best practice; a virtual work space and community can be created to facilitate information sharing and collaborative working. It can also act as a training platform when providing online training content to staff. Through sharing and exchanging of ideas the employees get different knowledge from their fellows and therefore improve their working skills.
An extranet can be defined as a private network that uses internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business information or operation with trade partners, suppliers or other businesses. It is partially accessible to authorized person outside the organization. (D. Harris, 2009)
The advantages of extranet in corporate communication can be as follows;
More integrated supply chains through the use of online ordering, tracking and inventory management. Extranet enables the organizations to conduct business online because it saves the time. One organization can order goods to another organization in which they share the extranet instead of having to go personally to that particular organization.
It also reduces costs by making manuals and technical documentation available online to trading partners and customers. The trade partners are able to view different information about their partners and enable them to make decisions on what to purchase. Customers also through this system are able to get online information about the products they want to purchase.
It helps in improving the relationship between the organization and their customers. Through availability of information and information sharing to the customers by the organization good relationship is built because the organization has the opportunity to know what their customers are thinking and hence to work on their opinions. By satisfying your customers you build a good and strong relationship between them and the organization.
It enhances flexible working condition for your own staff as an extranet allows remote and mobile staff to access core business information anytime of a day irrespective of the location. Since the employees do not work in one pace all the time the extranet enables them to simplify their work all the places the go by having the access to the information about the company and their partners.
It improves the security of communications between you and your business partners since exchange can take place under a controlled and secure environment. Partners can access each other’s information and therefore no third part can access that information something which increase security of their partnership. People from outside cannot get a particular organization’s information and work can be done in a secure environment.
Enhances effective collaboration; trade partners through extranet develop trust among each other and strong relationship among the member parts. Communication becomes simplified through this system because trade partners do not have to meet face to face to discuss about their issues. All updates can be accessed through the extranet and hence partners develop trust and strong relationship.
Generally these technologies have one big disadvantage which is the threat to viruses. Viruses when entering to system can destroy all the information that has been uploaded. Due to this threat the company may get a loss if there is no other source of the materials that was present. Also low education may hinder the employees to access the information.

ATTITUDE.

Jackson Aneth BAPRM 42565.

Your attitude is a powerful sentiment. It affects every part of your life self image, relationships, business, and even your health.

 Definition of Attitude A simple definition of attitude is a person’s feeling or emotion toward a fact or situation. It’s a person’s mental outlook on circumstances; one’s temperament, mood, or viewpoint. People tend to think that there are only two kinds of attitudes positive and negative; but really there are many. Here are just a few, friendly or reserved, confident or insecure, cheerful or depressing, compassionate or callous, determined or indecisive, peaceful or destructive, appreciative or ungrateful. It’s easy to see that all can be classified as either positive or negative and that they will truly identify who you are. Attitude is a key component in defining one’s personality.

Your attitudes affect how people see you whether they like or dislike you, whether they want to be around you or avoid you. It affects their viewpoint about you how they respond to you whether you gain or lose influence with them.

Your attitude is reflected through the tone of your voice, the expression on your face, your body language and the courtesy or lack thereof extended to others. Good and Bad Attitudes Think of someone you know who always seems to have a good attitude. Who immediately comes to mind? How do you feel about this person? Is this someone you enjoy being around? Is this someone you would hire if you were an employer? Is this someone you would buy something from if he or she were selling something you needed? Now think about someone who always seems to have a bad attitude. Who do you immediately think about?

How do you feel about this person? Is this someone you enjoy being around? Does this person give you energy or draw energy from you? If you were having a party, would you invite this person? How likely would you be to embrace any idea that comes out of his or her mouth? Your

Attitude is a Choice Your attitude is a choice and that choice is 100% within your control. Just know that the choice you make will influence every aspect of your life. Let me encourage you to begin looking at what’s good in your life and not what’s bad. If you are going through a difficult period, remember your attitude can make your life even worse or it can be the catalyst to turning your life around.

Learn From Your Failures If you have experienced some recent failures, learn what you can and then force yourself to stop thinking about them. Continuing to think about mistakes you’ve made will affect your self-esteem, self confidence, and ultimately your attitude. We all make mistakes. I have made hundreds of them. Everyone slips and stumbles somewhere along the way.

But your success does not depend on how often you fall. It depends on how often you get up and try again and on how much you learn from each experience. Stop Complaining Perhaps most importantly, stop complaining. What do you gain by complaining? You certainly do not attract others. Most people don’t want to be around those who complain. You can’t change the situation by whining.

You don’t make any progress or improve your circumstances by moaning and groaning. I can’t think of one positive result that comes from complaining. Begin to Enjoy Doing What You Don’t Enjoy If you find yourself struggling to keep a positive attitude at your job, begin to enjoy doing what you don’t currently enjoy. Make it fun. Look for the positives.

Look at how you can grow yourself through what would normally be unpleasant experiences. People’s respect grows for a person who has a positive attitude when it would be easy to have the opposite. Self Evaluation So, let me ask you to be honest with yourself and evaluate your attitude. If your family, friends and co workers were to describe your attitude.

HOW TO DEVELOP A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

Mgema Musa z.
BAPRM 42615

HOW TO DEVELOP A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY FOR YOUR ORGANISATION

Building a social media strategy is like building your destiny

Start with a strong purpose
Know your purpose
Like any good strategy, a strong purpose and a good set of objectives is important. This set of purpose and objectives has to be relevant and aligned to your overall aims and objectives.
Know your limitations
It is important to know that not all objectives or purpose can be served by social media and it would be foolish to assume so, just because everybody is in social media. Social media is effective not only in PR, marketing and brand building but it is also effective when used for innovation, crowd-sourcing, building organisational culture and engagement.

Honesty is the key
Social contact centre, Connect Assist, states that organisations must honestly review the skill sets of their staff members and make a decision regarding whether social media should be managed in house by an outsourced agency. If your choice is in house, then you may need to consider recruiting a specialist or training to up-skill your existing employees.
If you do choose to outsource, it is imperative that you choose a company that understands your organisation’s mission and ethos.

Know your social media landscape
2ook around you
Know the landscape before you start constructing. The social media landscape generally consists of the following attributes that should always be in the mind of the social media strategist or the planning team:
Community driven where people not only read, watch or listen but they also participate.

It's viral where people spread, share and transmit content readily. That's what makes social media contagious.
Personal spaces are even more pronounced, if you haven’t got permission don't enter. Nobody wants to be spammed or get bombed with donation requests.
Authenticity is what makes social media real and human. Don't bother with high cost production houses; real is soul here.

Establish your goals
Charities must establish their goals for social media. Is it to reduce marketing costs, or to create a better user experience. You need to decide whether all of the charity’s social media activity will be done in one place or over several platforms and accounts.

If you’re likely to get a high volume of Tweets or Facebook comments consider dedicated channels and accounts so your feeds don’t get clogged up with posts that aren’t relevant to the majority of your followers.

Build relationships
At the end of the day, these attributes are what builds relationships among friends. Get acquainted with people who were previously a stranger to you. These attributes build a strong fan base for your brand and organisation. Small organisations can become famous overnight because of them too.

Build your road
After you have understood what social media landscape attributes are, you will need to build a road before you can travel to your destination. The road here is acquainted to the 4 primary social media strategies that your organisation can deploy in your social media initiatives.

Education - enriching your target community's knowledge with information and resources for them to better understand you.
Entertainment - creating fun, sticky and memorable content that allows them to associate the image or message to your brand or organisation.

Engagement - engaging the community by recognizing their presence, contributions and inputs.
Empowerment - give your target community the power to play an active role in what you are doing.

Be consistent
Decisions need to be made as to what extent the entire organisation will be involved with social media management. If social media is going to be manned across various departments then consistency is key, and it is important to plan how communication is achieved between teams.

Tailor to your size
If your organisation is large enough, you can opt to deploy  the same time but if you are a small non profit choosing the most relevant and effective route will be your best investment and will keep your resources.

Build slowly
You need a set of wheels to move forward. Once the road is ready, in order for you to move forward you will need a set of wheels. Depending on the size of your organisation, it would mean a bicycle, tricycle, motorcycle, car, sports car etc. The set of wheels we refer to are the social media tools and widgets that you will need to choose from and to decide how they can work together and when to use them.

In general, social media tools can be divided into 4 major categories:

Networking tools blogs, micro blogs, social networks, etc.
Collaboration tools social news, social bookmarking, etc.
Multimedia tools  videos, images, interactive contents, etc.

Select according to need
Selecting the right combination of tools is important and helps you build expertise over time, because frankly you don’t want to be managing 20 social networking sites at one go.
It is also important for organisations to communicate with their users in the way that they are most comfortable. Integrated  technology ensures that all communications with users are saved in the same place, and therefore organisations can keep track of the best methods to contact them.

Set up road signs
Whenever anyone goes on a long journey or to unfamiliar places, one of the most important things to be able to do is to refer to the road signs on the side of the road. They tell you your destination, the dangers, and other necessary information to make sure you don't get lost or end up in a road that has no petrol station. The same logic applies to social media. It is important that your social media initiative has a good set of metric or measurements that will tell how you are doing at any one time.

Public relations media measurement viewing social media as media for their ability to reach an audience.
Word of mouth measurement - viewing social media as online interactions among people.
Web analytics - interested in people's usage patterns, as both audience and customers.
Opinion research - mining online opinions as the world's largest focus group

Translate into equity
All of the above is important to consider but even more important to actually measure is to be able to translate the measurement information above into what we called the "Social Media Equity", a set of fundamentals that are important for organisations to make decisions about their social media

Be aware that measurement via loyalty is only one aspect
Loyalty without social media equity nailed down? It is hard to say whether your investment in social media has actually worked or not. This is because having 100,000 readers in your blog only says so much as 100,000 eyeballs of awareness but is this sufficient as a measure for performance?

Get going
So you understood the terrain, you got yourself a road, bought your wheels, set up the road signs, so let's move it. Hold on! Have you fuelled? Fuelling your social media initiative is no small task because when your organisation wants to take social media seriously, you've got to really invest in:
Time - to learn how to use the widgets, set up your blog, create and filter content, participate in conversations, spread your message.
Fresh content - needs to be cooked up periodically whether it is from your organisation or from other sources. Social media is not a website where you can stick up one article and let it stay there for time immemorial.
Dedicated team - social media is no part time job for your communication or PR or marketing team. If the social media person’s business card reads “Communications, Marketing and Social Media Manager” your fuel is going to run low really soon.
Creative Juices  to create value relevant content and conversations. Creative here does not necessary equate to fantastic designs but to content and conversations delivered in relevant ways. If you can put aesthetic make up to that, this is even better.
Good design - because nobody wants to stick around a 1.0 design site and initiative.
Widget familiar - this is a given. Anybody that wants to be in social media has to get themselves familiar with at least 10 to 30 different widgets and how they work and inter-work with each other.

Get involved, be active in getting it moving
If your plan is to ask your  department to hook it up for you via a memo or official request and then put that task to a queue of other stuff that the IT department has to attend to, that is really not going to work.

By charles kulwa n reg no 42688

Network society and communication technology

A network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics based information and communication technologies. By social structures you know the organization arrangements of human in relations of production, consumption, reproduction experience, and power expressed in a meaningful communication coded by culture. Network is a set of interconnected nodes. 

A node is the point where the curve intersects itself. A network has no centre, just nodes. Nodes may be of varying relevance for the network. Nodes increase their importance for the networks by absorbing more relevant information, and processing it more effectively. The relative importance of a node does not stem from its specific features but from its ability to contribute to the networks goals. However, all nodes of a network are necessary for the networks performance. 

When nodes become redundant or useless, networks tend to recon figurate themselves, deleting some nodes, and adding new ones. Communication networks are the patterns of contact that created by flows of message among communications through time and space ( Monge and contactors 2003) so, network process flows. Flows are streams of information between nodes circulating through the channels of connection between nodes. A network is defined by the program that assigns the network its goals and its rule of performance. 

This program is made of codes that include valuation of performance and criteria for success or failure. to alter the outcomes of the network a new program (a set of compatible codes) will have to be installed in the network from outside the network. Network cooperates or compete with each other. Cooperation is based on the ability to communicate between networks. 

This ability depends on the existence of codes of translation and inter operability between the networks (protocol of communication), and on access to connection points (switches). Competition depends on the ability to outperform other networks by superior efficiency in performance or in cooperation capacity. Competition may also take a destructive form by disrupting the switchers of competing networks and or interfering with their communication protocols. 

Networks work on a binary logic: inclusive /exclusive within the networks, distance between nodes tends to zero, as networks follow the logic of small worlds, properties, they are able to connect to the entire network and communicated  networks from any node in the networks, on the condition of sharing protocols of communication. Between nodes in the network and outside the network, distance is infinite, since there is no access unless the program of the network is changed. Thus, networks are self reconfigurable, complex structures of communication that ensure the unity of the purpose and the flexibility of its execution, by the capacity to adapt to the operating environment.

Networks however are not specific to 21^st century societies or for that matter, to human organization. Networks constitute the fundamental pattern of life, of all kinds of life. As fritjof capra writs ‘’ the networks is pattern that is common to all life., wherever we see life, we see networks ( 2002)

LAIZER EDWIN N BAPRM 42691

Implications for corporate communication

Accelerated pluralism both civic and commercial is an incubator of corporate and government communication. What do these trends tell us about the modern context in which corporate communication flourish.

Pluralism is a competitive condition concerning groups of individuals in society. It is a condition in which the one has to compete for survival amongst the many. Corporate communication are the symbolic and expressive component of this competition and should be seen as competitive activity by transmitters and receivers. The aim of the competition is the search for organizational advantage. It is usually the case that only marginal advantage is available.

Second, corporate communication come from many different types of organization and group. Modern British pluralism is a highly variegated and pervasive phenomenon across its civil society and political economy. It would be inadequately descriptive to narrow the term corporate just to business. Friends of the Earth, the Trades Union Congress, and Help the Aged are as structured, hierarchical and stable as McDonalds, the Institute of Directors and EMI. Churches, synagogues and temples are more communicative than many boardrooms. Think of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Catholic Media Office.

Third, accelerated pluralism is not the same as neo-liberalism, the ruling conservative ideology of much of the Anglo-American world since the 1980s. Apart from any coincidental identity, they are separate: the pluralism described here is a social phenomenon and process; neo-liberalism is a philosophy. A neo- liberal government may welcome pluralism as an agent for the expression of individualism and free association, but it would also note that pluralism is a process of interest intermediation and that many of these interests are inimical to a neo-liberal government.  For example, environmentalism and consumerism have flourished during the period of accelerated pluralism, but they are viewed with suspicion by the neo-liberal as imposed, external costs on markets, and as the cause of increased government regulation.

The fourth contextual point is that corporate communication is, mostly, public activity, even though its subject matter is sometimes about private behaviour. Corporate communicators are known and accountable officials for their organizations and their work is track able mostly. Corporate communication is the public relations of communication: public communicative relations of display for attention and advantage aimed at a distinct public other. Corporate communication sometimes deal with private matters but mostly in a public way. For example, the pay rise of an individual business executive causes controversy but it is defended in terms of policy, if not principle.

The firth is that it is important to identify the social locations where communication between interests and government is exchanged. There are three exchange locations for corporate communication. The first is the media, both old and new, where communication between interests and government is in the mass media and this location is a major focus for this chapter. The second location is civil society which includes the churches, universities, the professions, trade unions, cause groups and sporting organizations.

It’s important to understanding that it is important to realize that much corporate communication takes place in locations where government is not involved (civil society) or is only involved in a supervisory way (markets) and that this is usually competitive communication done in public mostly, between allies and critics

PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE DIGITAL AGE.

Lema baraka

BAPRM  42592.

Public Relations in the digital age 

Know your audience. It’s the golden rule for public relations success and as the media landscape continues to evolve, it’s become more important than ever.

Insights from Deloitte’s Media Consumer Survey for 2014 show that digital is now the preferred method of news consumption for many Australians, with 35 per cent choosing to seek out a printed newspaper on weekends only and 54 per cent checking or updating their social network daily. So what does that mean for public relations.

Consumers now have a wide range of options when it comes to finding information online and in a shift from traditional media, they are not all necessarily news outlets.

The digital world opens the door to communicate with your target publics in a range of new areas, from bloggers and influencers to social media and content marketing.

A well rounded PR strategy will identify the best non news resources for target audiences and find the most effective way to tap into them. The key is to be adaptable and perform regular evaluations to ensure you are looking for and securing coverage in the appropriate outlets for your market.

1.Get Social

While traditional PR relies solely on mass media to convey messages, the explosion of social media has completely redefined the way organisations converse with their target publics. For the first time you are able to do so directly, without the help of a media platform, which enables two-way communication in real time that is not only cost effective but a great way to increase brand awareness and create meaningful customer engagement too.

2.Utilise Your Online Community

The usual media suspects are no longer the only resource to communicate with your target publics with bloggers, social media personalities and even user generated content offering more influence than that of traditional media outlets in some cases. Aligning your brand with the right influencers adds personality and can aid in making your organisiation more relatable to your target publics.

3.Content is Key

Online, organisations have the power to create their own media channels, which allows PR collateral such as the humble press release to be repurposed into a number of valuable tools to tell your story. Blog posts on your website or as a featured guest post on a relevant site. direct marketing emails, social media posts and infographics are all great ways to create branded, interesting and sharable content for your audience.

While traditional PR tends to be stand alone and focused purely on media relations, digital PR is a much more collaborative affair and will have maximum impact when created alongside, and integrated with, sound digital marketing and social media strategies.

Essentially the end game of both traditional and digital PR is the same, but the key is knowing their strengths and how you can best ultilise each to cast a wide net and not only gain media coverage for your brand but to tell its story in a meaningful and approachable way.