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| Sorin Adam Matai, "What Can Uses and Gratification Theory Tell Us about Social Media. Retrieved from: http://matei.org/ithink/2010/07/29/what-can-uses-and-gratifications-theory-tell-us-about-social-media/. |
After making your way through the readings you might find, as Kaylee commented, that Facebook is adequate for a certain kind of communication while Twitter is aimed at another. Of course, both these platforms were created with different purposes in mind; Facebook for social connection and Twitter as a broadcasting site. As time passes and tools develop and users refine them, platforms can become more intricate and specific. Following up these ideas and focusing on the current mobile-heavy climate, Han, Min and Lee examine Twitter.
You can access this article with your UAlberta credentials via the UAlberta library. Here is the abstract:
Sehee Han, Jinyoung Min, Heeseok Lee, Antecedents of social presence and gratification of social connection needs in SNS: A study of Twitter users and their mobile and non-mobile usage, International Journal of Information Management,
Volume 35, Issue 4, August 2015, Pages 459-471, ISSN 0268-4012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2015.04.004. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401215000407)
Abstract: Abstract
As the use of social network sites (SNS) proliferates, more people than ever are becoming connected to one another. Nonetheless, we have little knowledge about how certain characteristics of SNS fulfill their users’ need for social connection and enhance this connectivity. Building on uses and gratification theory, this study of Twitter users posits that users are drawn to SNS to fulfill their social connection needs and that the sense of social presence SNS engender plays a significant role in fulfilling these needs. We argue that this sense of social presence is formed by immediacy-related characteristics (represented as immediate feedback) and intimacy-related characteristics (represented as feelings of privacy and responsiveness) of SNS in Twitter. We further investigate how those characteristics operate differently on mobile and non-mobile users. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 798 Twitter users and analyzed their responses using a structural equation model. The results support our research model. Furthermore, analysis of the responses of 367 primarily mobile users and 161 primarily desktop users indicates that the linkage between immediacy-related characteristics and social presence is stronger and the linkage between intimacy-related characteristics and social presence is weaker among mobile users than desktop users of Twitter.
Keywords: Mobile SNS; Intimacy; Immediacy; Social presence; Gratification of social connection need
In Han, Min and Lee's study, Antecedents of social presence and gratification of social connection needs in SNS: A study of Twitter users and their mobile and non-mobile usage was very enlightening. In the past the companies I've worked for have been very episodic in their social media planning; "Oh, we're having an event - find someone to tweet a photo", kind of 'plan'.
ReplyDeleteFor the marketer, the most relevant findings of their study begins with their discussion of the central assumptions of Uses and Gratification theory. Which states, "that [media] users make active choices, that their media use is goal directed and that the freely interact with the media and interpret the messages they receive." And those choices are going to be based, at least in part, on content that is relevant to the user, the immediacy of the feedback (the synchronicity of a medium), intimacy (understanding, validating and caring) essentially evoking feelings of both privacy and of responsiveness.
This fall I'm putting together a social media communication plan and this study will help with my proposed calendar, media choices (facebook for meaningful/emotional content and Twitter to send folks to the facebook page for new information). Working in the oil and gas industry, emotional content may be the hardest to formulate (perhaps personal triumph stories of overcoming the odds). We're very much a b-2-b, so it may well be a challenge, but I'm now armed with some excellent information as to means of communication, timing and content.
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ReplyDeleteI can errase the copy but not the 'entry' so ... I guess I like blogging twice as much as I thought I would !
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