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Chapter 8 Social Media Information Systems
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Clearly, there are only so many favors you can ask of someone in power. And there are only
so many times a company can ask you to review a product, post pictures, or provide connections
to your friends. At some point, the relationship deteriorates due to overuse. So, yes, social capital
can be spent.
However, frequent interactions strengthen relationships and hence increase social capital. The
more you interact with a company, the stronger your commitment and allegiance. But continued
frequent interactions occur only when both parties see value in continuing the relationship. Thus,
at some point, the organization must provide you an incentive to continue to do it a favor.
So, social capital can be spent, but it can also be earned by adding something of value to the
interaction. If an organization can induce those in its relationships to provide more influence, infor-
mation, social credentials, or personal reinforcement, it has strengthened those relationships. And,
continuing a successful relationship over time substantially increases relationship strength.
Using Social Networks to Connect to Those with More
Resources

Buying automated bot followers is The third measure of the value of social capital is the value of the resources controlled by those
a questionable practice. Read more in the relationships. An organization’s social capital is thus partly a function of the social
about it in the Ethics Guide on pages capital of those to whom it relates. The most visible measure is the number of relationships.
344–345.
Someone with 1,000 loyal Twitter followers is usually more valuable than someone with 10.
But the calculation is more subtle than that; for example, if those 1,000 followers are college
students and if the organization’s product is adult diapers, then the value of the relationship to
the followers is low. A relationship with 10 Twitter followers who are in retirement homes
would be more valuable.
To illustrate this point, Figure 8-7 shows the top five most popular YouTube channels in
16
the beauty and style category and the food and cooking category. In general, the more views a
channel gets, the more the content creator gets paid. However, notice that the food and cooking
channels have higher earnings than the beauty and style channels. The number of views is not
the only factor influencing earnings. The resources (i.e., money) controlled by the viewers of the
food and cooking channels may be higher than the viewers of the beauty and style channels.

Top 5 Beauty and Monthy Views Est. Monthly
Style Channels (millions) Earnings

Yuya 35.8 $41,476
grav3yardgirl 27.7 $32,292
Zoella 23.5 $27,375
Cute Girls Hairstyles 18.4 $21,078

Rclbeauty101 17.8 $20,960

Top 5 Food and Monthy Views Est. Monthly
Cooking Channels (millions) Earnings
CharlisCraftyKitchen 29.1 $127,777

Mosogourmet 22.9 $100,031
Figure 8-7
Top YouTube Channels CookiesCupcakesandCardio 17.1 $79,309
Source: Data from Nat Ives, “What How To Cook That 16.4 $77,773
a YouTube Celeb Pulls In,” Adage
.com, April 15, 2015, accessed May
5, 2015, http://adage.com/article/ MyCupcakeAddiction 13.5 $64,268
news/a-youtube-celeb-pulls/298015.