This is a presentation I did to attempt to demystify social media and social networking to a group of professional communicators, Society of Business Communicators Queensland, on 27/07/2009. The thrust of it was - it is not an entirely new game, there are just some new moves now.

1. Social Media and Social Networking Demystified
Presented to: Society of Business Communicators Queensland
Peter Laurie
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2. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media
● Case Studies

3. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media
● Case Studies

4. Communication Model
● Sender
● Medium/Channel
● Receiver
● Message
● Production
● Transmission
● Consumption
● Storage
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5. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media
● Case Studies

6. Richness vs Reach
● Richness
● What is the quality of
communication?
● Reach
Richness
● How many people can
you communicate
with?
● Cost Constraint
● Money, Time, etc.
Reach 6
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7. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media
● Case Studies

8. Digital Media is Different
● Production
● scale, democratisation, mass-customisation,
marginal cost
● Transmission
● cost, speed, distance, location
● Consumption
● choice
● Message
● size, storage, indexed, interactive, incremental
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9. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph (Reach)
● Social Media
● Case Studies

10. Reach or Social Network/Graph
It's about who you know,
and who they know,
and who they know,
…
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11. Direct Connections
● How many people
can you contact
directly?
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12. Mediated Connections
● Indirect contact
● These contacts don't
know you.
● Word of mouth
● Improved reach but...
Chinese Whispers
● Control of message
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13. Reach
● Combining direct and
mediated
● 15 new connections
per contact
● 1 → 15
● 2 → 225
● 3 → 3,375
● 4 → 50,625
● Six Degrees of
Separation 13
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14. So, given that you can “reach” these people, what
is the value of having this large a network.
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(this is a new slide)
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15. Network Value – Sarnoff's Law
● “Broadcast”
● Based on one-way
communication
● Prop. to N
● Linear growth
● 10 → 10
● 100 → 100
● 1000 → 1000
● 10000 → 10000
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16. Network Value – Metcalfe's Law
● “Communication”
● Based on Links
● Prop. to N(N-1)/2
● Non-linear Growth
● 10 → 45
● 100 → 4950
● 1000 → 49950
● 10000 → 5 million
● Externalities 16
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17. Network Value – Reed's Law
● “Collaboration”
● Based on Groups
●
Prop. to 2N-N-1
● Exponential Growth
● 10 → 1013
● 100 → ~1030
●
1000 → ~10301
● Maximum effective
group size?
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18. Network Value – Dunbar's Number
● The number of relationships a person can
naturally manage.
● ≈ 148
● So doesn't that cap the other values?
● CRMs etc.
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19. Network Value – The Long Tail
● At 200 people, 1% of
the network is 2 - you
and your mate.
● At 20,000 people, 1%
of the network is 200
– you can build a
business around that.
● At 2,000,000: 20000
people.
● ...
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20. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media (Richness)
● Case Studies

21. Social Media
It's about messages and content
that suit the social graph.
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22. Message Robustness
● Chinese Whispers
● Splitting Message and
Content
● URL
● tinyurl.com, bit.ly,
● Still need to be
related?
● Campaigns and
Tracking
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23. Message Enhancement
● Authentic Messages
● Much more valuable
when they come from
someone you know.
● Trusted referral vs
spam.
● Cluetrain Manifesto
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24. Connecting with Someone
● Mediated contact
conversion to direct
contact
● Network becomes
more dense
● They get closer
● Their contacts get
closer too
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25. Summary
● It's mostly the same game
● The rules rhyme at least
● Digital media is different
● Social Graph
● Formalised 'word of mouth'
● Social Media
● Digital messages and content
● Tuned for the Social Graph
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26. Outline
● Communication Model
● Richness vs Reach
● Digital Media is Different
● Social Network/Graph
● Social Media
● Case Studies

27. Case Study: Facebook
● Social Graph
● Reconnect to with people and to keep up to date
with them.
● Social Media
● Status Updates/Microblogging: “Peter is...”
● Photo Sharing
● Events
● Business Model: Advertising, Market Research
● Other
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28. Case Study: Twitter
● Social Graph
● Make new connections based on Tweets.
● Following/Followers/Updates
● Social Media
● Microblogging.
● Sharing media via URL Shortening.
● Business Model: ?????
● http://business.twitter.com/twitter101
● The Twitter Book 28
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29. Junta
● Junta, n; a small group of people who seek to
gain power through revolution.
● Effective, then Efficient, then Elegant
● Prototypes and Proofs of Concepts
● Bespoke Software
● Engagement Models
● How you can help me do what I love doing
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30. Questions?
email: peter@junta.com.au
skype: pjlaurie
twitter: @pjlaurie
facebook: pjlaurie
mobile: +61 410 617 936
linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pjlaurie
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31. This slide intentionally left blank.
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32. Links
Wikipedia is a good place to start in general.
Richness vs Reach - http://www.blowntobits.com/b2b/
Sarnoff's Law - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarnoff%27s_law
Metcalfe's Law - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
Reed's Law - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%27s_law
and http://www.reed.com/gfn/docs/reedslaw.html
Dunbar's Number - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
Long Tail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail
and http://thelongtail.com/
Cluetrain Manifesto - http://www.cluetrain.com/
and http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html
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