Chapter 4: Digital Communities

Main Ideas
After reading this chapter I have found that the main ideas consist of the impression different ideas leave on a social media community. It describes how the evolution of online communities continues to change with the use of different influences. In other words, this chapter covers the extension of relationships and interactions online amongst different online communities.

Strengths and Weaknesses
In all, I enjoyed reading this chapter however there were a few strengths and weaknesses. From this chapter I learned a lot about online networks and how the underlying structure of communities is present throughout social media. This chapter is very detailed when it comes to understanding interactions and behavior. However, the use of examples were lacking I became confused while reading when the chapter discussed how ideas travel in a community. It did not explain how ideas continue to travel it only when into depth about how they begin.

Terminologies
While reading this chapter there were a few terminologies that I had never heard before such as social graphs, object socialite, media multiplexity, media democratization, and flaming. The term I found most interesting was "flaming". Flaming is when a post contains all capital letters, many of times I have seen people do this on Facebook or other sites where you can post things but never I did think there was a term for it.

Facebook Friends
After reviewing a list of friends I have on Facebook I have found that many of my friends are strong ties. There are very few people on my list of friends that I would consider weak ties. My Facebook is predominately full of family members and close friends I would only consider a handful to have a superficial experience with making them my Facebook friend.

Facebook and Friendly Relationships
I believe that Facebook is a good tool to know how to use. It can strengthen your relationship with friends, family, and coworkers by staying connected and using it to pay regards to other people and the relationship/friendship you share with them.

Twitter Search
 I searched twitter for a handful of hashtags that I like such as #sephora, #betsyjohnson, and #levis. After searching these hashtags I found that a lot of the impressions were related to different products and experiences. The most influential tweets I found were from celebrities or the owners of the company themselves.

Chapter Synopsis
This chapter gave me a better understanding of social media and its relation to merchandising by understanding social capital, influence, and social communities. These relate to each other by the use of influence throughout online communities and the impression people leave socially.