Page 38 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

1.4 Social Computing and Commerce 15

The Difference Between Social Media The following are examples of representative social
and Web 2.0 network services:

Note that the concept of Web 2.0 is related to the concept of • Facebook.com: The most visited social network website.
social media; many people equate the two terms and use • YouTube.com and metacafe.com: Users can upload and
them interchangeably. However, some people point to the view video clips.
differences. While social media uses Web 2.0 and its tools • Flickr.com: Users share and comment on photos.
and technologies, the social media concept includes the phi- • LinkedIn.com: The major enterprise-oriented social
losophy of connected people, the interactions among them, network.
the social support provided, the digital content that is created • Habbo.com: Entertaining country-specific sites for kids
by users, and so forth. and adults.
• Pinterest.com: Provides a platform for organizing and
Example: How Oprah Is Using Social Media to Build sharing images.
Her Business • Google+ (plus.google.com): A business-oriented social
According to Bertelsen (2014), Oprah Winfrey is integrating network.
social media activities with everything she does, to encour- • MySpace.com: Facilitates socialization and entertain-
age interactions of people with different platforms (e.g., ment for people of all ages.
Facebook, Twitter). Oprah is rewarding people based on • Instagram.com: Provides a platform for sharing photos
their online engagement (e.g., posting comments). She is and videos.
using Facebook polls, and getting bloggers involved. Oprah
is also actively using Twitter to interact with her followers. Social Networking

We define social networking as the execution of any Web
Social Networks and Social Network Services 2.0 activity, such as blogging or having a presence in a social
network. It also includes all activities conducted in social
The most interesting e-commerce application in recent years networks.
has been the emergence of social and enterprise social net-
works. Originating from online communities, these networks
are growing rapidly and providing many new EC initiatives, Enterprise Social Networks
revenue models, and business models (see sustainable-
brands.com/news_and_views/blog/13-hot-business-model- Business-oriented social networks can be public, such as
innovations-follow-2013). LinkedIn.com. As such, they are owned and managed by an
A social network is a social entity composed of nodes independent company. Another type of business-oriented
(which are generally individuals, groups, or organizations) social network is private, owned by corporations and oper-
that are connected by links such as hobbies, friendship or ated inside them. These are known as enterprise social net-
profession. The structures are often very complex. works (e.g., My Starbucks Idea). These can be directed
In its simplest form, a social network can be described by toward customers or company employees.
an image of the nodes and links. The network can also be
used to describe Facebook’s social graph (see description on Example: A Customer-Oriented Enterprise
Facebook.com). Social Network
Carnival Cruise Lines sponsors a social networking site
Social Networking Services ( carnival.com/funville) to attract cruise fans. Visitors use
the site to exchange opinions, organize groups for trips, and
Social networking services (SNSs), such as LinkedIn and much more. It cost the company $300,000 to set up the site,
Facebook, provide and host a Web space for people to build but the initial cost was covered by increased business within
their homepages for free. SNSs also provide basic support tools a year.
for conducting different activities and allow many vendors to
provide apps. Social networks are people oriented, but increas-
ingly are used for commercial purposes also. For example, Social Commerce
many performers, notably Justin Bieber, were discovered on
YouTube. Initially, social networks were used solely for social Social commerce (SC), also known as social business, refers
activities. Today, corporations have a great interest in the busi- to e-commerce transactions delivered via social media. Social
ness aspects of social networks (e.g., see linkedin.com, a net- commerce is considered a subset of e-commerce by some.
work used for recruiting, and Facebook for advertising). More specifically, it is a combination of e-commerce, e-mar-