Social media

Purpose and structure of social networks

As a semblance of a social network, you can consider any online community whose members participate, for example, in discussions on the forum. The social network is also formed by readers of a thematic community created on any blog service. Many professional communities have evolved into a tool for finding people, recommending employees and finding jobs. The main feature of social networks is precisely the tools for finding the necessary contacts and establishing connections between people. Using the tools of the social network, each user can create their own virtual portrait - to form a profile in which to indicate in detail the data about themselves (date of birth, school, university, favorite classes and more), their work experience, hobbies, interests and goals. According to this information, other participants will be able to find the user's account. The presence of a profile already allows you to use the mechanisms for finding like-minded people, fellow believers, colleagues, people with whom communication is necessary for work and study. The social network offers the following set of standard services: storing a personal card with contact information, an online address book, an online organizer that is available from any computer, a user's multimedia data store, the ability to limit communication with unwanted persons, etc. That is, a person gets, as it were, his own "place of residence" on the Internet, and not even close to the personal sites that spread so much at the dawn of the Internet. Communication is carried out through the internal mail service or instant messaging.

There are also social networks for finding not only people by interests, but also the objects of these interests themselves: veb‐saytov, listened to music, etc. In addition, organization specialists found the tool of social networks very convenient for participants in various conferences. Previously, before the conference, a site is created with elements of a social network, where each employee who registers for the event automatically "starts" a profile on the network and can establish contacts with the most interesting people before the event, communicate with them online, make an appointment during the conference or outside it. The system itself builds a connection between participants, given the proximity of professional interests indicated in the profile.

Social network components.

Social Media Features

• Create individual profiles that contain specific user information.
• User interaction (by viewing each other's profiles, internal mail, comments, etc.)
• The ability to achieve a joint goal through cooperation (for example, the goal of a social network can be to find new friends, maintain a group blog, etc.).
• Exchange of resources (for example, links to sites).
• The ability to meet needs by accumulating resources (for example, by participating in a social network, you can acquire new acquaintances and thereby satisfy the need for communication).

Distinctive features of social networks

• Self-presentation (profile, blog).
• Communication (internal mail, comments, subscriptions).
• Cooperation (group blog, wiki).
• Socialization (system of "friends" and "groups").

Social media history

The first interactive ways to communicate between Internet users can be considered guest books. The evolution of guest books led to the advent of electronic bulletin boards. These places for online communication were very effective, they allowed users to contact the central system, where they could download files or games and send messages to other users. The proliferation of electronic bulletin boards led to the emergence of forums. Which later turned into blogs and Internet diaries. The evolution of forums, blogs and Internet diaries has led to social media. The social network is a special case of a dating site. The social network can be called an improved forum with enhanced capabilities.

Classification of social networks

1) Social media is freely available.

• Not specialized networks (professional communities are not paramount for them)
• Purely professional communities of practitioners.

2) Social networks in corporate format

• Networks in the public domain
• Non-Specialized (General Network)

Non-specialized social networks mean communities on the Internet that have no restrictions on any parameters and do not have any thematic specialization.

Specialized social media is usually a platform for specialist communities. They are called Community of Practice (CoP) communities and pursue purely practical goals and unite people who are interested in acquiring and developing knowledge in a certain area, their use in practice. Communities of practice can consist of scientists, engineers, marketing and sales specialists and other specialists. Moreover, these communities do not have to be limited to the framework of one company, but can unite people with similar interests in different organizations around the world. CoP differ from communities of interest - its participants are united not only by the desire for a certain area of ​ ​ knowledge, but also by the desire to cooperate in the process of applying this knowledge in practice. Community members understand each other well as they work on similar issues. They are able to assess the level of qualifications, the problems of colleagues, get from each other the knowledge they lack.

Social networks in corporate format are primarily a tool for internal communications.

Social Media Market

Social media is a fast-growing segment of the online advertising market.

Russian social networks

Шаблон:Main 'Social networks (Russian market)

• Vkontakte
• My World
• Schoolmates

Foreign social networks

Main article: Social media (global market)

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Linkedin.com
• Last.fm
• MySpace

Social Media Security and Challenges

• Social Media Security and Challenges
• Data leaks in social networks