Connection is a man's best friend - Shae Goudie

Image: Social Connections

When speaking of communication, humans immediately turn to the thought of communicating through words, or face-face communication. However, some of those do not understand communication through the scope of online networking with the connection through maps. Mapping in social networks is seen as the link between people who use a particular social network, to their similarities, to create a "familiar" group of people. The Lab Bench, shows a demonstration of the ways in which they linking social networks with mapping, and use the example of linking Twitter users with each other in terms of their mutual "likes".  (Jarreau, P. 2016)

This begins to bring my thoughts to mapping in DeviantArt, and how we can link users to each other to create a smaller space of users to their exact passions of art. However, this has seemed to already begun with the tool of being able to "follow" other users. To want to "follow" someone on a social network site, it is socially known that people are more likely to follow friends, families, or groups of personal interest. With this already being done, it creates an easier formation to have the ability to create a mapping link from one to another.

 "Instead of broadcasting information to an audience, social media enables us to connect and converse. This is a medium in which traditional approaches to "telling" people won't work or be accepted. That's the "social" in social media. However, social media cannot stand apart from your marketing and communications strategies, but should be incorporated as part of a holistic communications approach." (UCSandiego, 2016). UCSandiego opens up a whole new pesepective on communications and connections, acknowledging the importance of being able to connect with people, both close and far from us. Being connect is ctritical to effective communications, such as being able to branch out art works, such in DeviantArt. Deviant Art is used plainly for the purpose of being able to create more connections in the world, to gain power to allow your artwork to grow further.

In my personal opinion, DeviantArt is a virtual site that relies greatly on the power of connection. The mapping concept is used to be able to connect one to another in terms of being able to gain inspiration to improve their own art works. DeviantArt provides a large range of examples of art works to other users, that can help broaden their perspective on the art that they believe is the most inspirational, and to create better artworks themselves.

References

Jarreau, P. (2016). Mapping a Social Network. FromTheLabBench. Retrieved 25 August 2017, from http://www.fromthelabbench.com/from-the-lab-bench-science-blog/mapping-a-social-network

 Social Media 101 | University Communications and Public Affairs, UC San Diego. (2016). Ucpa.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 25 August 2017, from http://ucpa.ucsd.edu/resources/social/social-101/

Image: DigiDay. (2017). Social Connections. Retrieved from https://digiday.com/marketing/why-volvos-cmo-is-serious-about-social/attachment/social-connections/