Behaviour and social media

Social media: an overview People choose to use social media They form networks They share messages

People choose social media

Why do people choose media? An audience ‘actively’ chooses media There are various social factors that may create a need for media use: Easing tension and conflict Providing information to solve a problem Substituting poverty in real life Affirming values Providing familiarity (Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch, 1974)

Individual needs These social factors lead to specific individual needs. These can be summarised as: Provision of a diversion Provision of a personal relationship An alignment with personal identity Enabling surveillance of the world (McQuail, Blumler and Brown [in Katz, Blumler and Gurevitch], 1974)

Why the majority choose social media? Social interaction – 88 per cent Family and friends Make new contacts Information seeking – 80 per cent Sales, deals, products Information on people (birthdays, parties etc) Pass the time – 76 per cent (Whiting and Williams, 2013)

Why a minority choose social media? Information sharing – 40 per cent Post updates/photos Marketing information Surveillance/knowledge about others – 32 per cent ‘Watching’ others (Whiting and Williams, 2013)

Why do people use Twitter? Surveyed more than 300 Twitter users Twitter users are gratifying a sense of ‘camaraderie’ – referred to as ‘connection’ Gratification is increased with length of time and volume of use Tweeting or replying is especially gratifying Controlling for demographic variables does not effect this relationship (Chen, 2010)

People form networks

Word of mouth In the 1950s, Katz and Lazarsfeld developed a two-step flow model Their research showed that information is filtered through ‘opinion leaders’ (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955)

Word of mouth advertising Adopters seek ‘consensual validation’ Opinion leaders are only relevant for specific fields Important members of the network need to be ‘notified’ of the message (Brooks, 1957)

People share messages

Word of mouth online Word of mouth referrals have longer effects than traditional marketing Word of mouth has higher ‘response elasticity’ 20 times higher than ‘marketing events’ 30 times higher than ‘media appearances’ (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels, 2009)

Which messages spread? Berger and Milkman (2012) examined sharing of 7,000 New York Times articles Valence: Positive content is more viral than negative

Which messages spread? Physiological arousal boosts this. Positive (e.g. awe) Negative (e.g. anger) Even when you control for presentation, level of surprise or usefulness Marketers should appeal to emotion

Social media: an overview People choose to use social media They form networks They share messages