On Social Media Adoption & Uses

Social Network Sites: Definition, History, 
and Scholarship

This is a great piece. I really like the remark by Wellman (1988) summing up the rise and proliferation of social networking sites: "The world is composed of networks, not groups" in reference to the way SNS's are networked publics that support sociability. Danah Boyd and Nicole Ellisong put together a great primer on social networking sites; a very succinct historical timeline of their evolution. I've only heard snippets about some of these SNS's as many of them got their 15 minutes of fame over the last number of years so I appreciate a narrative on how they all evolved, how some died, and why.

Lampe, Ellison, and Steinfield in their 2007 study explored the relationship between profile elements and the number of Facebook friends, finding that profile fields that reduce transaction costs and are harder to falsify are most likely to be associated with larger number of friendship links. Can anybody explain to me what they mean by a transaction cost in this context?

The authors confirm a point I've noticed and thought about with my daughter on Facebook and why I don't really worry too much about her activity there. They reference this same study that suggests that most SNS's primarily support pre-existing social relations and maintain existing offline relationships (like classmates at school) as opposed to browsing for complete strangers. I think this is very true.

My daughter is so selective about her friends in the physical world, I'm hard pressed to imagine her getting close to someone she'll likely never meet. Connections with any faraway "friends" are all based on a commonality of interest such as Manga graphic novels and certain rock bands. Outside of their common interest, their relationships go no further. 

As the authors state, while most SNS's support the maintenance of pre-existing social networks, others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political views, or activities. My big sister was recently diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma cancer in her throat and will soon start radiation and chemo therapy. She doesn't know anyone who's gone through this before. Because of this class, I thought of looking into blogs for her. What a blog site I found at Blogforacure.com. Here is a community of folks with many different cancer types. A quick search and I found 11 people going through treatment for this very type of cancer, each with their own blog. My sister was happy I found this site. I hope it helps her through what's sure to be a trying, worrisome, often lonely experience to come. We'll see.

Using LinkedIn to Get Work

This was a great article by Rich Maggiani and Ed Marshall. It inspired and motivated me to get my LinkedIn profile in order. Before I read this article earlier in the semester, I had 3 contacts and didn't really care much about my profile. I now have about 30 with 3 recommendations and links to professional organizations (including the SE Wisconsin STC) and am getting regular correspondence from all of them. My network is growing. People are connecting with me that I haven't had contact with in years. I know there's folks out there with contacts in the hundreds, but I'm mighty impressed with the ones I have. I'm even linked with Drs. Pignetti and Watts now! That's big.

I was in a waiting room a few weeks ago and found a great article from the April 12 edition of Fortune magazine that takes the points from our article to another level, making an even more compelling case for the importance of being on LinkedIn. In How LinkedIn Will Fire up Your Career, author Jessi Hempel points out that,"If you're serious about managing your career, the only social site that really matters is LinkedIn." She provides pointers on practically every LinkedIn site feature with great tips on how to maximize their benefit. Being a novice to the site, these are great points. Consider reviewing this.

In a similar vein, Jack Molisani in his essay Is Social Media for You? brings up some great points about developing our online brand (p. 12). He remarks, "I'm a firm believer that if you are a professional in your field, you should have an 'internet footprint' that gives evidence of what you have done." He did a search for a colleague and couldn't find anything about her, pretty much implying her loss of stature in his eyes. Being proactive towards ourselves as brands is key. He remarks, "Just as you should build your professional networks before you need them, you should take time to build your internet footprint before you need it." Once I really liked how my LinkedIn profile looked, I had a real good feeling about how I would look to others coming to it. I feel a sense of confidence now - always a good thing with the job market.


I'm certainly not implying that LinkedIn alone will guarantee me ever getting a better job that I have now. But before I receive an inquiry from a potential employer, I'm pretty sure they'll come looking at my profile before they consider contacting me and I want it to look good and current. How can it hurt? I produced a program at MATC last year called Opening Doors with China, connecting our school with a college in Shanghai for a live cultural exchange. This was the first ever simulcast with another college from a different country in either school's history. A major technical accomplishment and very educational for all the students and faculty. I have the same link above on LinkedIn. How else could I get this out for potential employers to see?