Online social networks

An estimated 90% of U.S. companies including Tesla, 3M, McDonald’s, and UnitedHealth Group use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to connect with consumers and form community around their brands; yet little is known about the effects of different social media structures on consumer-brand relationships. The purpose of this research is to understand the unique nature of firm-hosted online brand communities on social networking sites and how they can be used to retain customers.
We review the literature on online brand communities as a tool for building relationships and apply network theory to understanding firm-hosted online brand communities on social networking sites. Relationship marketing provides a framework for how consumer-brand relationships are developed, built, and maintained. Network theory explains how different network structures interact with network processes to produce specific outcomes for individuals and groups.

This research examines how incorporating interactivity into online video
advertisements effects the following key marketing dependent variables: a) Involvement
with the Advertisement, b) Ad Recall, c) Attitude towards the website, d) Attitude
towards the Advertisement, e) Attitude towards the Brand, and f) Purchase Intention.
Deriving from past Interactivity research, three important facets of interactivity are
identified; User Control, Two-way Communication and Synchronicity. In order to test an
Internet based 2 (User Control: high or low) X 2 (two-way communication: high or low)
X 2 (synchronicity: high or low) between subjects experimental design, 8 different online
video platforms were created. The online video experiment was administered to
approximately 400 students in a large South-Eastern school.
Overall the findings regarding interactivity in online video advertising found no
significant effect of synchronicity on the dependent variables. There was however a significant interaction effect of user control and two-way communication on the
dependent variables. These interaction effects were examined further with a cell means
multiple comparison analysis. User control and two-way communication were found to
have a significant interaction effect on ad recall, purchase intention and attitude towards
the brand. User control had a significant effect on involvement and two-way
communication had a significant effect on attitude towards the website. There was no
effect of UC or TWC on attitude towards the ad.

A social network is a structure of individuals and organizations, which are connected by one or more types of interdependency, such as friendship, affinity, common interests or knowledge. Social networks use Web 2.0 technology, which is mostly based on a service-oriented architecture. We are studying patterns for social networks in this environment. A pattern is an encapsulated solution to a software problem in a given context, secure threats are possible in this context. We present a collection of patterns associated with the most important aspects of social networks, with emphasis on controlling the actions of the users of these networks.

In this study, relationships between social networks and personality in a small liberal arts college were examined. Participants were asked to list members of their social networks, the activities in which they participated, and to complete the Sentence Completion Test (SCT), and the California Psychological Inventory (CPI). On the CPI, individuals with high scores on measures related to extraversion (particularaly the CPI Sociability scale) will have a greater network size and report a larger number of activities. In additon, the extent to which participants formed relationships with individuals with similar levels of ego development, and similar personality profiles, that is, the degree of homophily in relationships were evaluated. Finally, it was examined whether this homophily increased over time, that is, whether students increasingly gravitated towards others with similar personalities during the college years.