2.2: Where do we go from here?

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): A tangible graphic representation of a network. (Unsplash free-to-use license; Alina Grubnyak)

(The following chapter is remixed from Competent Communication, Lisa Coleman, Thomas King, & William Turner, Southwest Tennessee Community College, Chapter 9.3: Social Media and Web 2.0)

Social media provide a public platform for users to create a personal profile that has the potential to reach mass audiences. As Internet technology evolves rapidly, most users have few qualms about moving to whichever app offers the better experience.

Most users have profiles and accounts on many services at once, but as relational networks become more and more established and user attention becomes concentrated on a few social media sites, it becomes increasingly difficult for newcomers and lagging challengers to offer the same rich networking experience. The character of a social networking site is highly dependent on the type of relationships built there.

Social networking sites rely on network effects to be successful. In simple terms, the concept of network effects refers to the idea that “nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.” People will tend to use a platform more if others are already there, particularly others whom they either know personally or are interested in because of their fame, expertise, and/or capabilities.

LinkedIn caters to business professionals looking for networking opportunities. LinkedIn is free to join and allows users to post resumes and job qualifications to make "connections" of various degrees. Its tagline, “Relationships matter,” emphasizes the role of an increasingly networked world in business. A LinkedIn user can use the site to promote professional services.

Twitter (which we might use interchangeably with its new name, X) offers a different approach to social networking, allowing users to “tweet” 280+-character messages to their “followers,” making it something of a hybrid of instant messaging and blogging. In fact, in the academic literature, X is often referred to as a “microblogging” site. Twitter is openly searchable, meaning that anyone can visit the site and quickly find out what other X users are saying about any subject.

Prior to the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, X proved useful for journalists reporting on breaking news who were interested in what people near the breaking news event were experiencing. It was also used as a resource to highlight the “best of” the Internet; however, loosened content moderation guidelines on the private platform have made X a challenging space for journalists to use, and many have left the site or have decided to rely on it less in recent months as of this writing, January of 2025.¹³

For the better part of a decade, X was also useful for communicators looking for a free public forum to disseminate campaign messages. As mentioned previously, however, this site has diminished in relevancy and quality in 2024 and should be used with caution. New microblogging sites have cropped up to capitalize on X’s decline. Many former X users have moved to Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon, to name a few.

Another category of social media, blogs, began as an online, public version of a diary or journal. Short for “web logs,” these personal sites give anyone a platform to write about anything they want to. Some services, like LiveJournal, highlighted their ability to provide up-to-date reports on personal feelings, even going so far as to add a “mood” shorthand at the end of every post. The Blogger service allows users with Google accounts to create their own blogs and to follow friends’ blogs and post comments.

WordPress.com, the company that created the open-source blogging platform WordPress.org, and LiveJournal both started with freemium models allowing users to create sites with basic settings for free with the option to pay for things like custom styles, photo hosting, and more advanced features.¹⁴

What most blogging platforms have in common is their bundling of social networking functions (such as the ability to easily link to and comment on friends’ blogs) with an expanded platform for self-expression. At this point, the use of blogs, X, and other social media platforms varies widely in different media organizations. News outlets may use some or all of these tools as a way to allow their reporters to update audiences instantly and often. They also use social media to draw users into their own proprietary spaces online; however, news organizations are growing wary of the ways misinformation and disinformation spread on social media, and their employees may not have time to maintain blogs while keeping up with day-to-day reporting tasks. Making the most of social media is a necessary part of managing a mass media business, but preferred practices change with the evolution (and devolution) of platforms.

Reminder: There are many additional types of social media available, many of which can be called to mind with a single name: YouTube (video sharing), Wikipedia (open-source encyclopedia composed of “wikis” editable by any user), Reddit and Discord (community billboards) Flickr (photo sharing), Instagram (photoblogging), SnapChat and TikTok (video communication) are all popular social media platforms, and there are hundreds more that cater to niche audiences. Traditional media outlets have referred to social media services as “Web 2.0.” for decades. Web 2.0 is not a new version of the web; rather, the term is a reference to the increased focus on user-generated content and social interaction on the web, as well as the evolution of online tools to facilitate that focus.

 

Going Viral

Media content on networked platforms that spreads from person to person particularly broadly and rapidly is said to have gone viral. Marketing and advertising agencies have deemed advertising that makes use of this phenomenon as “viral marketing;” however, many YouTube/Snapchat/TikTok sensations have not come from large marketing firms.

For a classic example, consider how the four-piece pop-punk band OK Go (whose frontman has a background in advertising) went viral back in 2006. The group filmed a music video on a tiny budget for their song “Here It Goes Again” and released it exclusively on YouTube. Featuring a choreographed dance done on eight separate treadmills, the video quickly became a viral sensation. The video helped OK Go attract millions of new fans and earned them a Grammy in 2007, making it one of the most notable early successes of viral Internet marketing. As of November 2024, the remastered official video released in 2009 has more than 65,980,058 views and counting.

Viral marketing is, however, notoriously unpredictable and is liable to spawn remixes, spin-offs, and spoofs that can dilute or damage the messages that communicators intend to spread.

That being said, when successful, a viral campaign can reach millions of people for very little money and can even make it into mainstream news.

Not all viral media is part of a deliberate campaign, however. Again, looking at a classic example, in 2007, someone posted a link to a new trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV on the video games message board of the web forum 4chan.org. When users followed the link, they were greeted not with a video game trailer but with Rick Astley singing his 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.” This technique—redirecting someone to Rick Astley—became known as Rickrolling and quickly became one of the most well-known Internet memes of all time.

An Internet meme is a concept that quickly replicates itself throughout the Internet, and it is often nonsensical and absurd. One of the earliest memes, “Lolcats,” consists of misspelled captions—“I can has cheezburger?” is a classic example—over pictures of cats. Often, these memes take on a metatextual quality, such as the meme “Milhouse is not a meme,” in which the character Milhouse (from the television show The Simpsons) is told that he is not a meme.

Chronicling memes is notoriously difficult because they typically spring into existence seemingly overnight, propagate rapidly, and disappear before ever making it onto the radar of mainstream media—or even the mainstream Internet user.

Memes have evolved over the past two decades. Historically, memes started as still images, often single frames with bold text on top and bottom, but now video memes have become more common, thanks to platforms including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.

Still images are still widely used, especially for quick, easily shareable humor. Video memes, though, add more creative options, like music, voiceovers, and visual effects.

Video memes, including memetic sounds on TikTok, often feel more dynamic, so they tend to go viral quickly on short-form video platforms, though image-based memes still appear on more established social media platforms.

Which format you see more depends on the platform: Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit still favor image memes, while TikTok and YouTube Shorts focus on videos.

2.2 Discussion

1. How do the networking functions of LinkedIn differ from the way X is used for news, journalism, and PR/marketing? What advantages and challenges do PR professionals face when using these platforms for campaigns?

2. As users switch between multiple platforms (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, Twitter), how do social circles and the nature of relationships impact the effectiveness of PR campaigns on each platform?

3. Viral social media campaigns often rely on user-generated content. What are some of the benefits and risks of a PR strategy that involves viral social media? Can PR professionals control how messages spread?

4. In what ways has the rise of micro-blogging transformed the role of traditional media in public relations? How do brands leverage blogs and social media content to promote transparency and to interact directly with their publics? What are the strategic management implications of conducting more and more public relations work on social media platforms?

13. Gina Kaufmann. "News Organizations Are Leaving Twitter. What About You?" Nieman Reports, January 31, 2024. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://niemanreports.org/articles/news-organizations-are-leaving-twitter-what-about-you/
14. Rob Watts, "How Much Does WordPress Cost? 2024 Pricing Guide," Forbes, accessed November 1, 2024, https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/wordpress-pricing/