Literature Review Social Media

Print   

02 Nov 2017

Disclaimer:
This essay has been written and submitted by students and is not an example of our work. Please click this link to view samples of our professional work witten by our professional essay writers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of EssayCompany.

CHAPTER 2

As a result of the technology and the internet, in particular the web 2.0, the environment of social media has changed entirely (Pooja et al., 2012). Online social media comprises of a set of internet-based applications that are built to work on the technological bases of the web 2.0 (Berthon et al., 2012; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

In simpler words, social media are tools (Diffley et al., 2011) that use the web 2.0 as a "place" to run an application or a site and through this platform, communication, interaction and sharing of information among users is allowed and favored (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

As social media are a concept of growing interest, a lot of researchers have studied them and gave a variety of definitions. According to (Universal Maccann International, 2008 p.10) social media can be defined as "online applications, platforms and media which aim to facilitate interactions collaborations and the sharing of content". Another definition is that social media "comprises an array of channels through which interaction between individuals and entities, such as organizations, is facilitated and disseminated" (Berthon et al., 2012 p. 263). The main concept under which these channels regulate, is that they use internet and generally web-based technology so as to transform media monologue (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many) (Berthon et al., 2012). Based on the fact that social media use internet, there is another definition that describes social media "as a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and the exchange of user-generated content" (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 p. 61).

Online social media can be classified into the following categories (Constantinides and Fountain, 2008):

Blogs: They are websites created by individuals that are responsible for retaining texts including comments, videos and other links to web sites (Berthon et al., 2012).

Social Networks: Online pages comprising of software that allows them to create personal spaces on the web which can be accessed by other users in order to interact and share personal content.

Content Communities: Online pages handling and sharing certain kinds of content.

Forums/ Bulletin boards: Web pages used to share thoughts and information mainly about specific interests.

Content aggregators: Web pages with software that gives users the option to entirely modify the online content they want to access.

In each category of social media there are plenty examples , to name a few, My Space, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Digg, eBay and others (Mangold and Faulds, 2009).

At this point it is important to mention the three main characteristics that online media have, which resulted in their approval by so many people and they are going to be examined from the perspective of the users’ benefit (Hill and Moran, 2011). The first characteristic is interactivity which is defined as "the extent to which users participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time" (Steuer, 1992, p.10). This means that the user is able to share with individuals with similar interests, content, such as videos, photos, text or past experiences (Patino et al., 2012) and through the sharing of content, creativity of the user can be developed (Hill and Moran, 2011). The second one is customisation, according to which each customer is being treated differently. The user is able to find relative information much quicker and with not so much effort (Patino et al., 2012), increase his organizational skills and finally get help as far as the buying process is concerned or other processes (Hill and Moran, 2011). The last characteristic is social interaction which indicates that the user has the ability to continually communicate with friends and family (Hill and Moran, 2011). Apart from that, the user can exploit the social media and have free access to information of a variety of trustworthy sources (Patino et al., 2012).

Having mentioned the main characteristics of social media, it can be assumed that the sharing of information or the diffusion of information in other words, is one of the most important elements of social media and that is the reason why it has been analyzed by many researchers (Kazama et al., 2012). Though, the type of information differs among the users’ needs (Kazama et al., 2012) or the social media. From one side there is the information about entertainment and on the other side of the circulation of information, social media are capable of informing individuals about important things, things that people should be aware of because they maybe be in danger (Westerman et al., 2012). For instance, social media shared information about cholera in Haiti (Shutter, 2010), raised money about the victims of earthquake in Haiti (Cashmore, 2010) and informed about fires in Santa Barbara (available at: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/santa-barbara-fire-grows-more-homes-lost.html).

Because of the explosion and the power that social media have, marketing and companies could not fail to notice that and why not take advantage of them. According to Mangold and Faulds (2009), social media comprise a hybrid data of the original promotion mix of companies. In order to explain this statement, social media have characteristics of traditional marketing ways, in a sense that companies can communicate with customers but they also have word of mouth as a way of marketing through which customers can communicate with other customers and in this case, companies have no control on the content of the information (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Moreover, social media use mixed technology and allow real-time conversations or use of multi-media and platforms to spread information without geographical boarders (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Companies should pay attention to the fact that social media do not act on their own and treat them as a whole (Hanna et al., 2011). They should incorporate them in their marketing strategy, bearing in mind though that they cannot substitute the traditional media (Hanna et al., 2011). In fact, what social media do is that they allow both reach and consumer engagement through the platforms, compared to the traditional ones that allowed only one at a time (Hanna et al., 2011).

Taking everything into consideration, it can be concluded that social media have converted the internet from a platform of information into a platform for influence (Hanna et al., 2011) because according to Hanna et al., (2011) through social media, "We are all connected".

Social networks

In this study, we are going to examine one category of social media, social networks, as they constitute not only a part of the specific research but also through one of them, the survey was conducted. Social networks as far as their origin is concerned, stem from sociology. In business context though, this means that there are two or more related business associations and there is trade between the existing business partners (Pitt et al., 2006). In addition, the network concept has to do with the establishment between persons, such as groups of individuals, corporations, business departments and others that result to the creation of social networks (Wasserman and Faust, 1994 cited in Michaelidou et al., 2011). In social networks, the interesting part is the social relationships among the individuals that alter according to different roles, feelings or comportments (Joo et al., 2011).

During the years, the advancement of technology and the innovations that take place have resulted in a shift in the social networks (Michaelidou et al., 2011). The previous years, the traditional social networks had to do with the involvement of personal interplays among individuals where nowadays, interactions among individuals are done through computers, through the internet which is considered to be one more faceless form of contact (Kimball and Rheingold, 2000). These online social networks are far more difficult than the traditional ones, though the benefits that came along with them are much bigger (Michaelidou et al., 2011). For example, the problem of time and geographical location no longer exist (Lea et al., 2006). The web 2.0 has created a whole new world of contact and communication and as shopping is considered to be a social experience, social networks gave individuals the opportunity while shopping, to interact, to communicate with other humans where many of them, can be totally strangers (Pookulangara and Koesler, 2011). The growth of social networks is rather significant over the last years (Garrigos-Simon et al., 2012) and their effect of social networks is rather intrusive as it is spread to plenty of activities, among which are, the economic, marketing, social and finally educational (Teo et al., 2003; Chiu et al., 2006).

Social network sites (SNS) are services from the social media (Sin et al., 2012) and they are defined as "a cyber environment that allows the individual to construct his/her profile, sharing text, images and photos and to link other members of the site by applications and groups provided on the internet" (Pfeil et al., 2009, p.643). Generally, social network sites are online communities that allow users to share user-generated contents (UGCs) (Click and Petit, 2010). These online communities could be a network of friends that used to be offline and now they are online, acquaintances from previous years of users’ life or a group of individuals who share a common interest or experience (Kim et al., 2010). UGCs could be photos, videos, users’ profiles, text and others (Kim et al., 2010). UGC is "published content that is created outside of professional routines and practices" (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 p. 61). The sharing of UGCs includes posting, viewing, commenting on others users’ contents or even voting for them (Kim et al., 2010). The comments can be done individually or by groups of people (Smith et al., 2012).

At the beginning of Social Network Sites, there was a distinction between, Social Network Sites and Social Media Sites but through the years this difference has been vanished as each of the categories is taking fundamental features from the other category (Kim et al., 2010). For example, Social Networks Sites allow the sharing of UGCs and Social Media Sites give now the users the opportunity to have a personal profile or create an online community (Kim et al., 2010). For the aim of the study, all of them will be considered Social Network Sites as many researchers have used the same terminology in their study (Clemons et al., 2007; Harris and Rae, 2009; Click and Petit, 2010; Wang et al., 2012; Boyd and Ellison, 2008; Garrigos-Simon et al., 2012).

There are plenty of Social Network Sites, some of them can be oriented towards work-connected issues (for example, LinkedIn), some may be oriented towards intimate relationships (such as Friendster), some share a variety of interests (for instance My Space), etc (Ellison et al., 2007). For the aim of this study, we are going to examine Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and My Space, as these are the sites that the individuals that participated in the survey, were asked about. In fact, there are so many SNS, that one search engine exists just for them (available at: http://www.findasocialnetwork.com/search.php). Apart from that, there are some web sites such as Ning and KickApps which help potential users to create Social Network Sites (Kim et al., 2010). Moving a step further, in order to understand better how Social Network Sites work, the main features of them are going to be examined.

Personal profiles

In every Social Networks Site, the user is allowed to create a personal profile and make a specific privacy setting so as only friends would have access to it. The information that each profile gives for the user varies according to not only the user but also the site (Kim et al., 2010). For instance, a user’s profile on YouTube includes basic information such as name, photo, and birthday and apart from those, favorite movies, videos and others. On the other hand, a personal profile on Facebook includes basic information, communication information, educational and finally work information (Kim et al., 2010).

Establishing online connections

The sites provide the user with the opportunity to make a connection with another user, a "friend". Plenty of the sites have a system, a search system that finds a user using his/her e-mail address (Kim et al., 2010).

Participating in online groups

They provide the users with the opportunity to be a part of a group or more than one or even create a new group. The existing members of a group can invite other users to join and only members can post UGCs whereas everyone can see those (Kim et al., 2010).

Communicating with online communities

Social Network Sites provide the suitable equipment for users to communicate with anyone they want through e-mails, messaging, bulletin boards and internet phone services (Kim et al., 2010). For example, Facebook, as a small bulletin board uses the "wall" where posts are seen from all friends. LinkedIn has an "answer" activity through which members can answer to other members (Kim et al., 2010).

Sharing UGC

Any user can post photos, blogs, bookmarks, text, and images on Social Networks Sites (Kim et al., 2010). For example, Twitter allows only the sharing of short text messages (Kim et al., 2010).

Expressing opinions

Not only anyone can post UGCs but also anyone can comment these posts. Apart from commenting, there is the possibility to grade or even vote for something (Kim et al., 2010).

Finding information

Social Network Sites have search engines so as to find people according to their names, as well as they have browsers for particular groups and UGCs in a selected category (Kim et al., 2010). For instance, Twitter supports only search through somebody’s name, whereas LinkedIn supports keyword-based search for different categories of people, enterprises, groups etc (Kim et al., 2010).

Holding the users

Social Networks Sites have some features designed in a certain way so as to make users stay a little longer in the site. For instance, in YouTube, when someone searches to hear a song, another ten related videos appear on YouTube (Kim et al., 2010).

Individuals use Social Network Sites, especially the larger ones, because they are interested in retaining the existing relationships they had with friends from school, university, and neighborhood and generally their past experience (Hart et al., 2008) or they just want to cure "friendsickness". This term refers to the sadness that it is due to the lack of communication with old friends because of a young person relocates for college (Paul and Brier, 2001). Apart from that, a lot of people use SNS because they just want to meet new people, meaning they want to create relationships with other people, in many case strangers (Kim et al., 2011). Especially, for people with low esteem and weak relationships with others, internet through SNS can be very helpful (Bargh and Mckenna, 2004). Among the motives for using SNS, one is the uses-and-gratifications perspective, which implies that people use SNS because they want to fulfill their psychological necessities and they look for satisfaction (Lin, 1999). The expansion of SNS has shown that all humans have in common the willing to communicate and come close with other humans skipping the obstacles of culture or location (Park and Jun, 2003).

Having mentioned, plenty of information about social network sites, made understood the reason why these sites account for one in every eleven minutes spent online (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009). Companies could not fail to notice their rapid development (Lin and Lu, 2011) and use them as a marketing tool, especially these days where the cost of communication is relatively high (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009). SNS offer direct marketing, offer immediate communication with thousands or millions of consumers that before SNS were difficult or in some cases impossible to reach (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009; Enders et al., 2008).



rev

Our Service Portfolio

jb

Want To Place An Order Quickly?

Then shoot us a message on Whatsapp, WeChat or Gmail. We are available 24/7 to assist you.

whatsapp

Do not panic, you are at the right place

jb

Visit Our essay writting help page to get all the details and guidence on availing our assiatance service.

Get 20% Discount, Now
£19 £14/ Per Page
14 days delivery time

Our writting assistance service is undoubtedly one of the most affordable writting assistance services and we have highly qualified professionls to help you with your work. So what are you waiting for, click below to order now.

Get An Instant Quote

ORDER TODAY!

Our experts are ready to assist you, call us to get a free quote or order now to get succeed in your academics writing.

Get a Free Quote Order Now