This section is an initial review of the current books, journals, white papers, news articles etc covering social networks (SN/s). A very indepth and comprehensive literature review will be undertaken as a key section of the dissertation.
I have endeavoured to evaluate the literature written by authors who are arguably considered to be leading SN exponents. However, in order to ensure the findings of the study are balanced, I have also investigated a cross section of literature including articles from specialist trade magazines, research reports, white papers from consulting firms, government papers, articles from the business press and reports published on social network blogs.
This review has searched out data that will help to form answers to the questions raised as part of this study mentioned in the introduction section. The initial question to answer is, what are SN’s?
What are Social Networks?
Mintel defines social networks as online communities in which people can share interests and activities. The sites generally provide a collection of various ways for users to interact through messaging, email, video, voice chat, file-sharing, blogging and discussion groups (Mintel, 2008).
SN’s are enabled by Web 2.0 technologies. The term Web 2.0 is synonymous with SN’s. One definition of Web 2.0 is that it can be described simply as a version of the Web that is open to ordinary users and where they can add their content (Brown, 2009).
Wertime regards SN’s as services that are built around the needs and interests of like-minded individuals and are built by those individuals (Wertime et al. 2008). Weber uses the term ‘social web’ and defines it as a place where people with a common interest can gather to share thoughts, comments and opinions (Weber, 2009).
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, takes a holistic perspective of SN’s and states that social networks potentially create a world in which every person on the planet is given free access to sum of all human knowledge (Miller et al. 2008).
Some SN sites don’t view themselves as social networks at all. Facebook for example, describes itself as a ‘social utility’ with a mission ‘to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected’ (Facebook, 2009). Whereas, LinkedIn defines itself as a ‘knowledge network’, with a mission ‘to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful’ (LinkedIn, 2009).
The literature offers a variety of definitions for SN’s, but there is no one broad definition that is applicable to all instances of SN services. This might be symptomatic of the SN market evolving rapidly but getting to the stage where the market is starting to fragment as all markets tend to do as they mature. Moreover, the definitions of SN’s and Social Media overlap. The researcher takes the view that social media is primarily about the methods of broadcasting content from many to many using Web 2.0, sometimes referred to as socialcasting. Kaplan defines social media as ‘a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content’ (Kaplan et al. 2009).
It is clear from these definitions that SN’s and Social Media potentially give charities a powerful marketing channel to segment, target, reach, communicate with and influence millions of donators as never before.
How Have Social Networks Evolved?
Another key consideration for this study is to gain a greater understanding of SN’s by knowing how they have evolved. It seems that the evolution of SN’s can be taken as far back as you wish. Aristotle wrote in 328B.C. that ‘man by nature is a social animal’ (Hart et al. 2007). MacLaughlin refers to the founding principals of online SN’s originating from how communities interacted and socialised thousands of years ago in order to benefit from functioning as groups (MacLaughlin, 2007). SN’s are popular because they work to these fundamental human traits but have now enabled the human desire to socialise to be conducted on an utterly different pervasive and invasive scale.
The Web exploded into a decisive phase in 2004 with the advent of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 meant that the Web was open to anyone and was not the domain of programmers. In 2004 there were no new major advances in technology. What changed was the way that people started to view the internet. It was an organic change made mainly by ordinary users (Brown, 2009) a significant characteristic of SN’s.
If anything calls for the use of the word ‘phenomenon’ it is the growth of online social networking seen in the last eighteen months. LinkedIn, founded in 2003, now has over 53 million members, growing at one million per month in over 200 countries (www.linkedin.com, 2009). Facebook, started in 2004 as a social experiment, has 300 million active users (www.facebook.com 2009). MySpace, one of the earliest (2003) has a similar number subscribers as Facebook, but interestingly had a declining user base of 5% during 2009. Twitter, started its micro blogging site in 2006 and during 2009 registered 7 million new users a month (Ostrow, 2009) and had 34 millions visitors in April 2009 (Sconfeld, 2009). YouTube viewers watch over 100 million clips and upload 65,000 videos every 24 hours.
Pioneering investment capitalists played a large part in bringing about this SN explosion. The real face behind Facebook is the Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist philosopher Peter Thiel (Hodgkinson, 2008). SN’s appeal to neoconservatives such as Thiel, because it promises more freedom in human relations and in business, freedom from national laws and boundaries. The internet serves to open up a world of free trade and laissez-faire expansion (Hodgkinson, 2008).
René Girard of Stanford University, proponent of a theory of human behaviour called mimetic desire, takes the view that people are essentially sheep-like and will copy one another without much reflection which supports Thiel's view that human beings will tend to move in flocks, hence the enormous popularity of Facebook.
Having read from a wide range of sources the various accounts of how, why and to what extent SN’s have evolved, it is clear that the SN market is a highly dynamic complex maze that charities need to navigate carefully. The literature indicates that the evolution of SN’s has not been driven to date by commerce and profit, but mainly by human social behaviour. If charities were to somehow violate the natural non commercial ecosystem of many SN’s by seeking donations they might get a backlash. Scott writes plainly that ‘online communities hate overt commercial messaging’ (Scott, 2007).
How are Charities Using Social Networks and What are the Challenges?
Having defined what SN’s are and determined how they have evolved, this literature review has attempted to understand how charities are using SN’s and the challenges they are experiencing.
According to Hart, the power of SN’s lies in their ability to do more than simply function as a novel way of raising money (Hart et al. 2007). Hart believes that the SN’s makes ePhilanthropy a ‘transformative force’ propelling charities towards a new way of doing business. Marketers, in the not for profit sector, are increasingly using viral marketing as part of their branding activities and social media has become the ultimate form of viral or consumer to consumer marketing (Kirby et al. 2007).
A significant finding of this literature review is a development in consumer behaviour. Surveys found that consumers value personal advice of friends, family and acquaintances 1.5 more times today than in the 1970s and twice as much as traditional media. 61% of people report giving to a charity because a personal connection has asked them to make a contribution (MacManus, 2006). This analysis is supported by Hart, who states that people are much more willing to give donations to people they know (Hart et al. 2007). Given these findings and that the essence of SN’s is about people interacting with like minded people, it is reasonable to take the view that SN’s should be an eminently suitable vehicle for creating networks of fundraisers.
However, there are many examples of companies blatantly trying to use SN’s as a sales tool and in doing so potentially damaging their reputation. Even SN service providers have been tempted. In January 2008 Facebook got into hot water. The Facebook system was set up to notify users if one of their friends made a purchase at particular shops. Approximately 50,000 users signed a petition saying that this was an invasion of their privacy.
The literature points towards SN user trust and privacy being increasingly important challenges for charities to manage (ICO, 2009). The study will investigate these issues and other potential obstacles such as donour fatigue created by users being deluged with information (Flesher, 2009) and how charities are dealing with the issue of policing content, controlling brand reputation and the emerging threat of donators using SN’s to make donations directly to the benefactor and cutting out the charity (Hart et al. 2007).
Literature dated 2007 or before takes the view that SN’s are and will be the domain of the young who are more inclined to take to new communication mediums. However, three years on, this predication has proven to be incorrect. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook in 2009 was woman over 55 years old, 44% of Facebook users are between 35 and 54 years old and 54% of users have an income between $50,000 and $99,999. 45 to 54 year olds were 36% more likely than average to use Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group. These SN demographics, in theory, should be an ideal target for charities.
However, a benchmark study of 120 UK charities by Giving Matters, found that only a third have made initial steps such as having a blogs, forums and message boards (Hart et al. 2007). These findings indicate that the charity market is still getting to grips with SN’s and that there are polarised views as to the fundraising role SN’s can take.
Despite the conflicting views found in the literature about how effective SN’s are as a medium for fund raising and whether using SN’s are ethically acceptable marketing tool, there is some evidence to suggest SN’s are proving to work well when used in the manner for which they were intended. Wikimedia Foundation is rated as the fastest growing US charity in 2009. Wikimedia is purely based on a social network platform with just 20 full time employees generating $6.7 million revenue and growing by 154% over the last three years (Charity Navigator, 2009).
This study will go onto investigate examples of where and how charities have used SN’s to positive effect and to gain a deeper and objective understanding of what the issues are believed to be.
