Why do we ' like ' pages on Facebook ?

Have you ever noticed why we feel that some online forums are so happening while others are dry and inactive? In some forums, as soon as we post something, we get responses. Have you ever considered why some communities have large memberships, while for others, the memberships are dismally low with the administrator as the only member present? Why do we ' like ' some Facebook pages, while ignore others ? Why do we follow some brands on Twitter while we run away from them scared of their promotions ? When I considered this, I wanted to find out why we join an online community in the first place? After observing the activities inside few of the most happening communities in Orkut and the most discussed posts inside Facebook and Linkedin, I could list out the major reasons why an individual would consider joining an online community.

Cult value: If the community represents a cult brand, an individual would consider joining that community. This cult value serves as the eye catcher and the individual in his desire to be part of something bigger and more happening, joins the community. You might have observed why brands have huge community fan base in those geographic areas where the brand is not even available. A classic example would be a global brand like Ferrari Facebook community that has a membership of 3,306,631 as of January 06, 2010. Remember, India has no authorized dealer for Ferrari cars as per company’s official site.

Functional value: Online communities are also searched to be joined because of their functional value. By functional value, I mean, the direct benefits a member can draw by being a member or fan of a community. With the increase in the number of hours spent by an average online user in social media, brands are considering to come on board to directly interact with the audience. Examples include the activities of the leading mobile operator in India, Airtel on twitter. Airtel uses twitter to directly communicate with its subscribers and to identify various problems faced by them. While Pizza Hut page on Facebook is used again to interact with its pizza lovers and to take pizza orders from them. There are few other service providers who use Facebook page to give out tips to blogging like problogger.net. Individuals may subscribe and be part of these communities just for their functional values like learning new tips, news, information, get discounts, gifts and to take part in contests etc.


Social identity: With the increase in the number of hours spent by an average online user on the social media and on the internet, every individual has a social identity that is derived from his or her actions in the cyber world. To promote online social identity, every individual tries to showcase himself in different online forums or platforms, allows to be influenced by friends by acting the way friends or peers recommend and act, searches out and shares things that are cool, and buzzing just to get noticed. There is also a snob value involved in the actions online to promote ones own social identify. This social identity is particularly evident in the social media behavior of teens, tweens. Without the social value, why would suddenly save tiger campaign promoted by Aircel known as “Stripey the cub” on Facebook, get close to 400 thousand likers. While Wildlife Trust of India, that has been leading the efforts to protect the endangered species in India from the front has a fan base as little as 500. To contradict, several reasons may be pointed out related to the promotion and visibility of the campaign in the media, yet, it is undeniable that the social value derived by being a fan of the ‘Stripey, the cub’ is much more than by being a fan of Wild life trust of India on Facebook.


Force: Yet another reason, why people join a community or a group of people who act the same way, is force. This is especially true in the case of Facebook applications. There are several pointless applications on Facebook such as IQ tests and random “Which character from Star Trek are you?” These are quizzes that force the users to like and allow access to their personal data. Spammers can easily create applications to steal your personal data and all you need to do is to accept an invite. The catch is that you need to make the decision to allow access without knowing what the application will do with it and whether the application needs that information in order to function correctly. "Facebook applications are very popular and once all your friends have downloaded the latest must-have, it's very tempting to follow suit," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. But he cautions, it is not always safe to have all the “must haves” for online social coolness. This ‘Forced liking’ is also used effectively to promote contests as well on Facebook.


Desire to connect with the likeminded: Yet another reason why one seeks out cool communities is the desire to connect with the likeminded people. This is particularly evident with Linkedin groups where users can join groups with their professional and career interests. Facebook has good hobby based groups and pages. These pages are usually initiated and managed by brands that have business interest in the specific hobby area. An example would be the activities of the brand Wild craft on Facebook. The company uses the page that has close to 500 thousand fans, to promote its own adventure and camping gear by allowing adventure and outdoor activity lovers to interact among themselves and by engaging with the brand. I am a member of this Wild craft adventure community because I love outdoor camping, trekking and adventure sports. I stumbled on this group not knowing the brand as such, but by searching for pages that match my interest. I came to know about this ‘then-a-startup’ company from Bangalore that has very little offline activities and does most of the promotional activities on Facebook and online.


Novelty factors: People also join a community for novelty reasons. This may be due to a funny or weird name or theme of the page. A classic example of this is “Kids Who Hid In Dep't Store Clothing Racks While their Mom Was Shopping” page on Facebook. It has 192790 fans as on Jan 06, 2011. The popularity of the page went up so high that the administrator of the page, Tory, had to disable the wall itself because of the spam cross promotions. Yet another interesting example would be ‘When I was your age, Pluto was a planet’. Tragedies and fake scary stories can also create the needed novelty factor to attract people to join or like a page. “This Girl Killed Herself After Her Dad Posted This on Her Wall” page would be an example.

Above mentioned factors can work alone or in tandem to make a community popular online. The awe or associative or even novelty factors may attract a user into a community. But, in the long run, only the benefits that each member derives by being a member of a community are what would make them stay within the group.

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Engage, recognize and reward to build a great online community

"To build communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community"

We all know how important it is to have communities as part of any online initiative. During the early days of internet, the centre was traffic into the site. It is still an important consideration. Yet more important than traffic is how the traffic flock together. Communities gained importance because they allow users to discuss, review and suggest and even to influence the buying decisions. Inside a community, each user feels that he is part of a larger whole and hence more powerful than an individual. Peer to peer recommendations are gaining more ground than direct advertisements. 


In December 2009, an average user spent more than 51/2 hours on social networking sites, up 82% compared to the same period in a year ago. With that kind of numbers, we better believe that we are more influenced by our friends' opinions on social media than the popups or the banner that intrudes our browsing experience while making a purchase decision. Therefore we all are very sure why communities and conversations have more business value than the paid adverts. With the emergence of social media, brands are seriously considering ways to influence the influencers of the community. Marketing gurus are experimenting new ways to influence conversations that is happening around a brand or product and convert them into sales leads. When our buying decisions are getting influenced inside a community, the only way for brands is to build communities that influence each consumer inside the community to believe what the brand wants him to believe and do what the brand wants him or her to do.

It brings us to the question - How to build communities ?

" To build a communities, brand managers should plan activities that engage each consumer personally, recognize his/her contributions to the community, and allow to take all the privileges being part of that community ". The most important tool would be informal yet well directed discussions and conversations that the brand can initiate which would allow interested users and potential buyers to discuss among themselves. To make things clear, brand would initiate a discussion, and user A would discuss with user B and so on. The brand pitches in only to summarize and to direct the conversation and to answer the question directly posted towards it or to correct a wrong notion.

Activities like these would give each user a feeling that he or she is connected to another, lets say 1000 users, under the umbrella of the same brand, yet he or she gets directly connected to the brand.

A brand should engage each customer in isolation while acknowledging publicly that he or she is previleged as part of brand community.

This article is the result of the linkedin discussion available at http://linkd.in/gVjFaO. Comments posted by social media experts, evangelists and practitioners.

What are your ways to build a great community. I would would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

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News portals can make money with social media

There is no need of print support for an online news website to be successful. No need to pump in big money. Content needs eyeballs to monetize it, and everyone knows that. But i do not agree with you that eyeballs come through only money and offline support. Skills come only by paying good salaries. That is universal. So if a news portal has great news content, there are number of ways to bring eyeballs. Search engine optimisation & social media strategies can really bring in lot of unique users. Regular updation and news according to the taste of the target audience would be another great way to increase traffic into the site. Once the traffic trickles down to a site, the readers would popularise the site and the content through their own web activities. Thats what we have been observing in the last 2 years especially. You might have observed how a news reaches us these days through our friends more than these accepted media sources and we ask where did you find this news, and he says some xyz site. So the popularisation of a news piece happens through people. So if the objective is to create a hype only, yes, i agree with you that you need to pump in lot of money to promote the site. If the objective is to have a steady organic growth through creating a loyal reader base over time, there is no need of big money - search engines, blogs, online discussion forums and even communications between the people would do the trick.

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Newsportals can be made economically viable

I still stand my ground. If you really know the target audience and their news consumption patterns, a portal exclusively for news is economically viable. An example would be that of integrating geotargetted advertisements of local service providers like wedding and funeral planners, flower stalls etc as part of NRI community news. NRIs always need indian traditional services when it comes to weddings and funerals and related religious rituals. Nature of NRI and community news is such that it is always better to allow the community itself generating the news and posting it under their names with limited moderation. Because they generate the news, they also tend to share more within their community and naturally it is better shared in the social media and hence more traffic is attracted. This is the case of only one type of news say NRI news. If we know the nature of different types of news, we should be able to device different strategies in identifying potential advertisers and making them convinced of putting up an ad. The above example is related only to the advertisement supported revenue model. There are other many other ways to monetize news, but still, you got to know what you are dealing with to identify the media platfoms and delivery formats.

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Hail, news portals. News portals are here to stay

I disagree with all those who say that news portals cannot survive. If we create news as a product for multiplatform delivery, concentrating on news itself is a revenue feasible proposition. With one process of news creation, and delivery through websites, mobiles, other hand held devices, news scrollers in public places, radio, applications, it is very easy to meet the cost of producing the content. Also we need to understand the nature of content we are dealing. News always will have whopping spike in traffic at one moment and low access rates in the other moments. So every newsportals should be well equipped and prepared to make the use of this spike when it happens. Just like TVs charge differential rates based on prime time, night etc, the news portals should also follow the pattern. Also news is habitual, so it can assure better eyeballs. Also lately hunger for hyperlocal news and community news have shot up. So this has really generated considerable interest amoung advertisers whose products and services target local areas and communities. Also there is always room for specialized news for which the consumer is willing to even make a monthly payment.

My take: If you know about your content, and if you have fairly good idea who your target audience is, News portals will generate good returns and will not die off.

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"Social media campaigns should influence buying decisions"

I would say campaigns that encourages buying decisions initiated on facebook or any other social media platform like register and be a fan of a product and get discount on the price have a direct impact on sales and results of such campaigns are measurable also. If we can track the number of actual buyers using this discount, we can have clearer idea of the impact of social media on actual buying. All other digital analytics ultimately assumes that "buying would be influed by the social media campaign"

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"Social media is lot more than Facebook"

Ideally a brand should target the strategy considering all the various platforms as each platform has unique features that can be effectively used to reach out different target market segments. I would suggest that due to the reach of FB and its ability to target user groups more precisely based on disclosed locations, age, background and other interesting demographics, FB stands as level one. If your objective is to address an immediatel concern that a brand faces, i would say, watch and attend to twitter conversations and blog and forum postings. So to push something through ad, FB is the best. To address any on the existing market of a product, choose more real time platforms like twitter etc.


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To build a community, plan activities that engage each customer personally and shower on him or her all the privileges as part of a community " This is my way. What is yours?

The most important tool would be informal yet well directed discussions and conversations that the brand can initiate which would allow interested users and potential buyers to discuss among themselves. To make things clear, brand would initiate a discussion, and user A would discuss with user B and so on. The brand pitches in only to summarize and to direct the conversation and to answer the question directly posted towards it or to correct a wrong notion. This would give each user a feeling that he or she is connected to another 1000 users under the umbrella of the same brand, yet he or she gets directly connected to the brand. A brand should engage each customer in isolation while acknowledging publicly that he or she is safe as part of brand community. To build a community plan activities that would engage each customer personally and shower on him or her all the privileges as part of a community. For more discussions, add me or write to me at sivaprasad2020 at gmail dot com

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Riding the internet wave, it thrills me if not kills me

I have been a part of the new media when there was no such thing as new media. It was early 2000. It was called the information super highway. Very few newspapers or corporations had their own websites or internet presence. I have been finding friends over the internet before Mark Zuckerberg founded facebook through, now primitive, chat. It was the time of ICQ and Yahoo public rooms. I have seen the internet grow from a rather oneway communication platform to an almost 360 degree platform, from HTML sites to rich media sites. Accessed internet on immovable heavy computers as well as suave Iphones and Ipads and androids. The progress has indeed been remarkable. It almost scares and thrills me at the same time to know how fast internet has taken over our daily lives. From almost non existent online lifestyle back in 90s, now I spend 90 % of the waking hours on the internet connected. I get twitter beeps in my mobile phone while skying (attempting to ski) in Manali valley while my wife sat on a rock updating her office mails on her enterprise mobile. 


In my present capacity as Associate Web Producer at Manoramaonline.com which is the online portal of one of oldest and largest media houses in India - Malayala Manorama, i specialize in Digital content development, Translating business requirements into online product features and functionalities, Information architecture and interaction design deliverables, like content plans, wire frames, Web project management that meets the business requirements and preferences of the target audience, Translation of web analytics into workable online stratgies with specific web functionalities, features and content, content and business aspects of cross - Media convergence through internet, mobile, TV, radio, handheld devices and mobile VAS including content planning, repurposing and delivery over sms, Interactive voice responses and mobile internet 


Academically also i am not a dwarf, if not a giant. I have masters in Economics and an advance diploma in Business Management. After floating over the new media for the past 9 years, the internet thrills me if not kills me. It has been one my greatest achievement that i could chose a career that would eventually make me a new media specialist. I sincerely believe that the more experienced and learned i become, the more i will have opinions and viewpoints to share with you all wonderful people who would kill and die for the internet.




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Why Image aspect ratios need to be defined at the information architecture level itself ?

Information architecture document specifies various sizes of images that need to be used in various pages. The dimensions are fixed to complement the look and feel of the site, based on the the importance of image in that page and on the relative importance of the article the image supports. However, In a standard, 3 level page structures with Home, Section and Article levels, progressively larger dimensions are used. Example, Thumbs are used in the home page, while slightly larger image size is used in the section level and the largest is used in the article level page.

Now when each section of the site addresses different target audience and their tastes and purposes of visit, it is very reasonable that the importance of image, in relation with the write up along with it, will vary. This is where the project team faces the greatest challenge. If the project team does not define the image sizes at the level of IA itself, they are heading for big trouble at the technical development stage. This is especially true when certain sections are cross promoted and showcased. But defining the size of the image is not enough.

Project team should try and keep an aspect ratio for the images. When i started off my career, it was difficult for me to understand the term aspect ratio and its relative importance. So i guess it would be great to refresh our understanding of the term again. Aspect ratio of an image is the ratio of the width of the image to its height, expressed as two numbers separated by a colon.

While fixing an aspect ratio, it should be ensured that images with smaller diamensions are displayed by trimming down the largest image along with the description or details used. If the largest image diamension is taken as the base size, there will be very little deformity to the image even if it is resized downwards.

Below are few reasons why aspect ratio is important at the early stages of planning a website:

Images can appear in multiple slots: In modern websites, an image can never be considered independently. It always has a relative existence. This is especially true when websites attempt cross selling. Example, Lets consider the website of a company concentrating on auspicious event management like wedding, funerals etc. Assume that there is a description of wedding service, it is natural that the marketing would want the floral arrangement services of the same company cross promoted in the same page. The company may also decide to cross sell all the relevant services in the same page. So the image that appears as part of the description will have to fit into a smaller showcase allotted for related services. If an aspect ratio is kept, the images will appear perfectly in any small slots.

Device usability: When the same content is delivered through different devices like PCs, laptops, mobile phones, TVs, e-readers, other handheld devices, and even on billboards, it is always safe to maintain an aspect ratio. Human interaction with these different devices are so different that it is always necessary to keep an aspect ratio where largest possible image can be downsized real time using a small program or script once the device is identified when the content rendering happens so that a user will not have go in search of the navigational links when the user reaches at the bottom of any article.

Bandwidth: When the bandwidth is low, it is always better to serve images with smaller size and dimension. This would give optimum user experience. Have you ever tried to access a mobile unoptimised website on your handheld device with a creeping GPRS connection? If you are in India, you may have faced the issue many times. The site will load partly and the user waits for ages to see even the header, let alone the body of the site.

Screen size: With different devices and platforms delivering content over different screen resolutions, keeping an aspect ratio allows users to access easily the content of their choice. Content that is rendered properly on a computer may not appear as decent on a mobile handset browser because of the smaller screen size.

Difference in the monitor resolutions: Even the difference in monitor resolution has significance. Other day i was trying to point out to one of websites readers the link to subscribe our print magazine. The link to subscription site is available on the right panel of the site. But the customer is unable to spot it. After verifying multiple possibilities with the customer, i realized that his monitor resolution was 800 x 600 and the banner appears only if the monitor resolution is 1024 x 768

If the aspect ratio is not insisted from the beginning, it is likely that some images may appear deformed due to shrinking or breaking while same image would appear perfect else where on the same site.