1. Behaviour and social media

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

3. People choose social media

4. 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)

5. 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)

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. 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)

9. People form networks

10. 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)

11. 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)

12. People share messages

13. 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)

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

15. 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

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