Page 340 - Social Media Marketing

c h a p t e r 1 2 : ╇ S ocial A pplications╇ ■What Is a Social Application?

Social applications, simply, are software components that facilitate interaction between
members of a social network. Social applications are built around social objects—
lifestyles, passions, and causes, along with myriad talkworthy smaller objects such as
short posts (tweets, for example), photos, videos, and more. Social applications are
driven by the connections embodied in the individual social graphs of participants, and
as such act as efficient conduits for the spread of information within the network.

While the distinction between “social network” and “social application” may be
debated elsewhere, as used here the terms are defined specifically. ReadWriteWeb offers
a particularly succinct definition of social application in the context of the business use
of social technology:

“Social Application: Software that coordinates group interaction that is
important to running your business or organization.”

318 Here’s an example: Facebook, in general conversation, would most typi-
cally be referred to as a social network. Friends are connected to each other within
Facebook’s social network through the individual social graphs of respective members.
SocialVibe’s charitable giving application, shown in Figure€12.1, is one of the thou-
sands of applications available within Facebook. SocialVibe is a social application: It
allows Facebook members to turn views of their own profile pages into cash donations
that benefit a charitable cause that they themselves have selected. Note too that while
SocialVibe was cited in the example of a social application, social applications aren’t
limited to these kinds of discrete applications. Facebook —when talking about its soft-
ware and the native functions it provides to its members—is itself a social application.
As established in prior chapters, the definitions actually matter less than being
consistent about what is meant by terms like social networks, social graphs, and social
applications. Throughout this chapter, the term social application refers to social
software and embedded or installed applications within a social context that facilitate
social interactions between participants with that network.
The central idea that a social application combines group interaction and capa-
bilities “important to running your business or organization” is related to the focus
of this book: the business use of social technology. Suffice it to say that if a particular
social activity is not relevant to your business, it’s probably not a good candidate for
your social media and social business programs.
A second point to consider with regard to social applications is that they typi-
cally play a role in elevation of or otherwise depend on the presence of an identity,
typically expressed through the profiles that define the “nodes” within a social graph.
Recall the discussion around identity and the work of J. D. Lasica in Chapter 4,