Consumer Insights in the Use of Social Media by Belgianyoung Adults

Consumer Insights in the use of social media by belgianyoung adults

C. Maréchal, B. Neetens, L. Engels

Abstract

The goal of the research project “Consumer Insights in the Use of Social Media by Belgian Young Adults”, funded by University College Ghent, is to gain a better understanding about what drives Belgian youngsters to share and create commercial content using social media. Based on a literature review, a framework was created. This framework was tested in online interviews. Thanks to this qualitative research we were able to fine-tune the theoretical framework provided by literature and to fill in the blanks. The next stage of the research was a comprehensive survey. Finally, two experiments were conducted. The aim of these two experiments was to understand the relationship between brand awareness, brand attitude and intention to share. For these two experiments, a viral was modified.

Key-words: social media, word-of-mouth, motives, virals, consumer insights

For all correspondence, please contact Claire Maréchal

HoGent FBO, Valentin Vaerwyckweg 1, BE-9000 Ghent, Belgium, phone: +32485034771, e-mail:

Introduction

Advertising agencies often use the internet as a way to connect with consumers. It is an inexpensive way to interact with consumers and it is easier to avoid irritation, which is often the result of TV-commercials. A well known marketing technique is viral marketing. Viral marketing was first defined by a Netscape Newsletter as ‘network-enhanced word of mouth’. (Jurvetson, 2000) When successful, the diffusion of a viral is quite similar to the spread of an infectious disease. (Watts & Peretti, 2010).

However, little is known about what makes a message viral in the online context and what truly motivates people to share those messages. The aim of our research is to understand all possible drivers for youngsters to create and share commercial messages and to understand what kind of messages are more likely to be shared. Further, by identifying these motivations and the significant characteristics of the messages, it will be possible to achieve a profound understanding of the sharing (and creating) of online commercial content.

The goal of the research is to find an answer to three questions:

RQ1. Which social media do Belgian youngsters use? For example: is there a difference in use between social network sites?

RQ2. What motivates Belgian youngsters to create and share commercial content?

RQ3. Is there a link (and if yes, what sort of link?) between the sharing and the characteristics of the messages?

To find an answer to these questions, the research project followed a study design consisting of 4 stages.

• A literature review to summarisethe known motivations for social media users to share and create commercial content online.
• The known motivations tested in the qualitative research phase : there are different undertones in certain motivations and some of them are relatively new to the online context.
• Quantitative research: a survey to collect quantitative data. During the survey, virals were used. To select those commercials, we did a content analysis.
• The finalstage was to conduct two experiments. The experiments were based upon the suggestions from thebusiness communityand our research results.

1. Literature review

The goal of the literature review was tosummarise all motivations found in the literature for creating and sharing commercial content. We approached this research subject by combining two topics: known motivations for users to create online content(UGC) were combined with insights on word-of-mouth (WOM) communications.

First of all, we have a list of possible motivations on why people create online content:

• to document life (for oneself or for others) (Nardi, Schiano, Grumbrecht & Swartz, 2004)
• for leisure and to pass time (Papacharissi, Rubin, 2000; Phelps, Lewis, Perry & Raman, 2004; Trammell, Tarkowski & Sapp, 2006)
• to experiment (Efimova, 2010)
• to learn (Nardi et al., 2004; Efimova, 2010)
• for self-expression, to formulate opinions and catharsis (Nardi et al., 2004; Trammell et al., 2006; Huang, Shen, Lin & Chang, 2007; Efimova, 2010)
• for empowerment (Rein)

Because the subject is ‘commercial content’, known motivations for people to talk, offline and online, about products and brands were summarized ((Dichter, 1966; Engel, Kollat & Blackwell, 1973; Sundaram, Mitra & Webster, 1998; Hennig-Thurau & Walsh, 2003-2004; Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004; Kambe, Washida, Kinoshita & Tominaga, 2007; DellarocasNaravan). Very well known and already verified theories were found and those motivations were taken into account. The motivations for ‘classic, offline’ word-of-mouth were expected to be quite similar to the motivations for online word of mouth, referred to as electronic word of mouth (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004):

• concern for others: altruism
• concern for others: helping companies
• product involvement
• revenge or ventilating negative feelings
• message–involvement

Within ‘concern for others’ we have two categories. The first category, ‘concern for others: altruism’, includes motivations for people to warn others if they are dissatisfied with a product or to recommend a product when they are satisfied. ‘Concern for others: helping companies’ means that people feel sympathy towards a company and are willing to contribute to the fame of that company. ‘Product involvement’ refers to the enthusiasm people feel when they purchase or use a product they are really satisfied with. This enthusiasm results in people wanting to talk about the product and how that product is better than others. ‘Revenge or ventilating negative feelings’ speaks for itself: these motivations are mostly present when people are dissatisfied with a product. ‘Message – involvement’ stands for entertainment as a result of a conversation about a message. If people talk about a funny or well-made commercial, that’s message-involvement.

Finally, there is a list of motivations users have to create content and to participate in WOM:

• utilitaristic motivations and (economic) incentives (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Daugherty, Matthew & Bright, 2008)
• social interaction and ‘social benefits’ (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004)
• knowledge and information (Trammell et al., 2006; Daugherty et al., 2008; Huang et al., 2007)
• self-enhancement, expertise and career (Dichter, 1966; Engel et al., 1973; Sundaram et al., 1998; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Trammell et al., 2006; Daugherty, 2008)

By combining the different motivations for users to create content, the motivations for users to participate in WOM and the motivations that can be found in the two topics, it is possible to have a indication on what motivations will be present if people share and create commercial messages online.

The list of known motivations was put to the test in the qualitative research phase.

1. Qualitative research phase

The goal of the qualitative research phase was to gain a better understanding of the motivations found in the literature review and to be certain that all the possible motivations were included. Therefore, 25 respondents were interviewed.

There were two requirements for the respondents:

• They had to be between the ages of 16 and 34.
• They shared at least 5 commercial messages in the past six months. The respondents had to be regular social media users who frequently shared such messages because it would be easier for them to reflect on their behavior.

In the recruitment message, we defined ‘commercial message’ as a message, either positive or negative, posted on social media concerning a product or brand.

People who responded were asked for their username on twitter or the name of their blog. We then examined these to see if they met our behavioral requirements. If blog or twitter were used, the five most recent commercial tweets and the five most recent commercial blog posts were collected. Given the subject, the priority was given to respondents who are not professionally[1] active on Twitter.

Every interview was conducted online and was based upon a topic guide. The respondents were asked to talk about every possible motivation they had to share commercial content. At the end of the interview, the respondents were asked about their tweets and their blog posts. We noticed that the ‘negative motivations’, such as revenge, were present but not spontaneously declared.

The respondents were not confronted with every possible motivation described in literature because that would have led to an inaccurate view on the research subject. Rather, we chose to research our respondents’ motivations based on what they spontaneously declared. After all the interviews were completed, every indication of a motivation concerning the sharing of online commercial messages was labeled. If possible, the labels were arranged in accordance with the list of motivations that the literature provided.

A list of all the motivations is given in table 1. Some motivations were obviously present. The three most commonly mentioned motivations are:

• concern for others: altruism
• need to express oneself, to formulate opinions and catharsis
• product/brand involvement

We noticed that the ‘top 3’ of the most present motivations are a combination of the motivations for users to talk about products (WOM) and motivations for users to create content (UGC).

The motivation ‘product involvement’ as described in literature, was modified to ‘product and brand involvement’. Not only did the respondents report that they feel enthusiasm when they purchase or use a product they are really satisfied with but also when they talk about a brand. Two respondents indicated that they share every message a specific brand posts online.

Table 1: Results qualitative research phase about motivations

We were not able to trace back all motivations the respondents had to motivations described in literature. We concluded that those motivations[2] are rather different from the ones described in literature.

• The need to characterize oneself: for example people who share commercial messages because they associate themselves with the values of a brand and want to be perceived as such.
• Google traffic: here the motivations are partially because of incentives, for example people who get paid for advertisements on their blog, but also because they want to be read and they want to know people are following them.
• Reciprocity and contribution to the community differs from helping each other. For example people who contribute to a forum because they believe in the idea of shared knowledge and they also want to contribute to it.
• The urge to create content drives people to share content on a frequent basis, some daily. They have no idea what, for example, to write about until the commercial came along. If there was something more interesting to write about, they would not have shared that commercial.
• To point out problems can be seen particularly on Twitter. Many people want to use social media to their advantage. By complaining about a product or addressing the company directly on Twitter, they hope to get tips from other users to solve a problem but they also want to be helped by the company.
• Provocation: we noticed that people shared commercial messages because they wanted to provoke others. For example, they share a negative article about an Appleproduct because they know a lot of people will react.

1. Quantitative research phase : survey

An inquiry consisting out of four parts was developed.

Thefirst part lists how often respondents use different social media.

The second part maps the use of social media for sharing commercial content. Here we registered the social media respondents use, which kind of commercial content they share and how frequently. An importantelement here was to question the respondents regarding their motivations for sharing commercial content online.

For the third part 19 commercials were integrated. Each respondent was asked to look at three commercials and to answer a few questions regarding the commercial, their intention for sharing the commercial and their attitude towards the brand.

We selected 19 commercials to cover the different elements of the commercials.An overview is given in the following image.

Figure 1: Elements of the commercial

Finally, we ended the survey with some socio-demographic questions.

Based on the previous research phases and our three main research questions, we formulated 11 specific research questions[3]. In this paper, we’ll focus on three of them.

RQ1. What are the motivations for social media users to share commercial content online?

RQ2. What kind of message characteristics influences the likelihood that users will share a commercial message?

RQ3. To which degree does the attitude towards a brand influence the viewersintention to share a commercial message?

The last two questions try to explore the relationship between the different components of the commercial and the degree of appraisal and the intention to share the commercial.

The inquiry was created online using the program Qualtrics. Our respondents were between the ages of 16 and 34 and shared at least one commercial message during the past six months. Due to the differentlanguages spoken in Belgium, we wanted to make sure there was a correct distribution regarding the mother tongue of our respondents.

Each commercial had to be judged by at least 60 respondents. Each inquiry contained three commercials so we needed a total of 380 respondents.[4] By September 2011, 392 respondents completed the inquiry so the inquiry was taken offline.

• RQ1. What are the motivations for social media users to share commercial content online?

A scale was developed to measure the different motivations. For each topic, a few quotes were collected. We combined existing quotes found in literature with new quotes based on the interviews conducted during the qualitative research phase .

A total of 86 quotes were gathered to represent the 21 different motivations. Two researchers were briefed about the meaning of the different motivations. They were asked to connect each quote with the motivation they believed it belonged to. Quotes that were misplaced by one of the researchers were reformulated or removed. The final scale enclosed 50 quotes.

419 respondents filled in this question in the survey. It was mandatory to respond to each quote individually. A five point scale was used and the mean for each quote was calculated. By using the t-test (and Mann – Whitney U test) it was determined which meansignificantly differs from the neutral response 3.

Three quoteswere significantly present. Every quote begins with “I will share commercial content because:”

• “it is a way to communicate my opinion about a product or brand”[5]
• “I am very enthusiastic about my purchase and use of a certain product”[6]
• “I am trying to help other by sharing my positive experiences about a product or brand and hope they will get the opportunity to have the same positive experience as I had.”[7]

The first quote refers to the motivation ‘self-expression, to formulate opinions and catharsis’, the second to product involvement and at last, the third motivation refers to ‘concern for others: altruism’.Remarkable here is that the three motivations each refer to positive motivations.The same motivations were found during the interviews. The negative motivations, for example revenge or to ventilate negative feelings, were not confirmed.

The quotes that are significantly present alternate with the gender of the respondents. The third one - “I am trying to help others by sharing my positive experiences about a product or brand and hope they will get the opportunity to have the same positive experience as I had.” – was not significantly present for the male respondents. However, it was present for the female respondents. A fourth quote was significantly[8] present for the female respondents: “I share commercial content because I hope I will get tips from other users.”

• RQ2. What kind of message characteristics influences the likelihood that users will share a commercial message?

Here, the different commercials selected in the content analysis were used. There are 19 commercials that were randomly presented to the respondents.

First, we learned that 24,6% of the commercials would be likely or very likely to be shared by the respondents. There is a very strong correlation[9] between the appreciation from the respondents concerning a commercial and their intention for sharing that commercial.

If the respondents were positive about a commercial, they were asked because of which component they were positive. The options that were given are:

• The different emotions present in the commercial
• The effect the commercial has on the viewer
• The information that is given
• The visible components used in the commercial
• Association with a brand
• Association with a product

An overview of the different components is given in the next illustration:

Figure 2: Difference between the appreciation and intention to share (n = 1116)

First of all, we noticed that ‘effect’ is the most important element for appreciation as for intention to share. Furthermore, ‘visible elements’ is the second most important element. However, there is a discrepancy between appreciation and intention to share. Emotions on the contrary are more important as a determinant for intention to share. Although ‘visible elements’ is important within both categories, it is less important for ‘intention to share’. Finally, it’s striking that the relationship with a brand or product and to a lesser extent information seems to be unimportant for most respondents.