Case study

Introduction
Based on the case study, this essay will analyze the case study carefully by using system
thinking methods in class such as iceberg model, behavior over time graph, connection
circles, stock flow map. Meanwhile, the essay also presents the solution to maintain or
increase the number of follower for the social influencer.

System thinking
System thinking is a process to deal with problems which are impacted by various elements
in a ecosystem, an organization influence one another (Zexian, Y. and Xuhui, Y., 2010). This
system is called “Iceberg model” tends to find root causes (figure 1) another (Zexian, Y. and
Xuhui, Y., 2010). Based on the case study, a minor football sport star in an American
basketball team got cyber harm from a stranger on his tweeter. This stranger re-tweeted the
old post from 8 years ago which showed outdated racial language so he was very
disappointed. This reflected a negative impact on the social influencer that 100,000 followers
left and many negative posts from them. This resulted in low down his number of followers
into 1.5 million. On the other hand, his teammates are mostly African American and other
racial heritages who had very good relationships with him. Hence, the social influencer felt
he has been misunderstood and his language was taken out of the context. So he has to find
solutions to get back his followers to keep contract with Patagonia as his followers now are
unconsciously aware of the truth behind.

Figure 1. Iceberg model

According to (Benevenuto, F., Magno, G., Rodrigues, T. and Almeida, V., 2010), tweeter is
one of the most global popular social networking platforms with more than 100 million users
every day. Hence, twitterstorms occur and is debated public strongly as it has a significant
impact on public emotion. Even though twitterstorm often lack of nuance and polarize
positions while also involving in ad hominem attacks users, the number of tweeter users has
still increased rapidly.

BOTG
The behavior over time graph (BOTG) is a system thinking tool which shows patterns and
trends of the number of social influencer’s follower has decreased overtime due to the
negative impacts from the post from 8 years ago. This also showed that the elements will
influence on the social influencer’s future career.

High

Medium

Low
Beginning Middle time End

Figure 2. The behavior-over-time graph (BOTG)

Causal loop diagram

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Figure 3. causal loop diagram (CLD)

From the figure 3, this indicated the re-tweeted social influencer’s posts from 8 years ago has
a strong negative impact on the football sport star’s reputation. His reputation was damaged
 badly due to the post which contained outdated racial language. This resulted in many
negative feedbacks from his followers and over 100,000 followers left. Meanwhile, this also
reduced 1.5 followers from his tweeter. This consequence could lead to loosing contract with
Patagonia so he would need to find ways to maintain his followers. From the casual loop
diagram, all desired causals have connections and these elements could cause bad influence
on his career in the future.

A stock-flow map

Losing Maintain the

contract with number of
Patagonia followers Teammates Followers

Delay

Outdated
Reducing the racial post
number of from Money Reputation
followers follower's
feedback

Negative Trust
feedbacks
from the post

Figure 4. A stock-flow map

The most important element from the connectivity circle is outdated racial post from the
follower’s feedback. This has caused all the consequence of the problem. The overall
objective is to maintain the number of follower from the sport star’s tweeter so he would not
lose the contract with Patagonia which has a strong impact on his future career. Hence, part
of his objective is to increase or at least maintain his number of followers. The figure 4
showed that money, reputation, teammates, followers and trust can be “stocks” which may
delay the overall objective of the social influencer.

Leverage Points

Meadows, D.H., (1999) stated that a leverage point is considered as a place of a system’s
structure in which a solution element could be conducted. There are two types of leverage
points which are low and high. In term of low leverage points, this will cause a small amount
of change while high leverage points tend to occurs a big amount of change. Based on the
case study, a small element can be changed from using the right tools at the right place which
in turn can create a large impact on social influencer in a system.

Case study: maintain the number of follower

High level leverage point Low level leverage
A talk show (this can fix the crisis) Without a talk show
 Respond from negative feedbacks
on the post
 Losing from reputation
 Reducing the number of follower
 Losing money
  Damaged reputation

Solution
In order to deal with problem occurred with the social influencer, he must participate in a talk
show on the television to explain about the cyber harm post that one of his follower used to
give negative feedbacks about him, which resulted reducing a large number of followers and
many feedbacks from his followers. The reason why “talk show” is conducted as this is very
easy and simple to make things work. Rather than respond from each follower on his social
media platform, which tend to take a long period of time and the result is not really effective.
In addition, as the number of his follower decrease, the more negative feedback from his post,
the more damaged his reputation. At the end, he may lose the contract with Patagonia as he
needs at least one million followers on his social media page. There is no way to ask his
teammates to help change the problem happened on the social media as the people are often
stereotyping when they see things virtual. They tend to believe and follow what they have
seen without thinking rationally. Hence, participating a talk show on the TV can actually help
the social influencer to explain the misunderstanding from his old post from 8 years ago. Face
to face interview in the talk show can help him explain the true and correct concepts in the
post without any hesitation or cyber harm from the followers. Therefore, this is the most
effective solution for the social influencer to maintain or increase the number of follower.

Conclusion
From the analysis above, the solution pointed out was from the writer’s perception and
knowledge about social influencer. This solution might be biased or ineffective as it is
personal opinion. On the other hand, this could be the best solution in this case to solve the
problem of the sport star.

Reference

Zexian, Y. and Xuhui, Y., 2010. A revolution in the field of systems thinking—a review of
Checkland's system thinking. Systems Research and Behavioral Science: The Official Journal
of the International Federation for Systems Research, 27(2), pp.140-155.

Benevenuto, F., Magno, G., Rodrigues, T. and Almeida, V., 2010, July. Detecting spammers
on twitter. In Collaboration, electronic messaging, anti-abuse and spam conference
(CEAS) (Vol. 6, No. 2010, p. 12).

Meadows, D.H., 1999. Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system.