A STUDY ON

SOCIAL MEDIA HABITS OF INTERNET USERS

HÜSEYİN KIRAN

Boğaziçi University

Project Advisor: Prof. Dr. Gülden Asugman

JUNE ’10

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………. 3

2) OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY…………………………………... 5

3) BACKGROUND…………………………………………………… 6

4) METHODOLOGY………………………………………………… 8

5) FINDINGS…………………………………………………………. 10

6) MODELS…………………………………………………………… 14

7) CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….. 15

8) REFERENCES…………………………………………………….. 16

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1) INTRODUCTION

Word-of-mouth (WOM) communication is defined as

“people-to-people oral, written, or electronic communications that relate to the

merits or experiences of purchasing or using products or services”.

(Kotler and Keller, 512)

In another definition by Nyilasy (2006), WOM is defined to be

“oral, person-to-person communication between a receiver and a communicator

whom the receiver perceives as non-commercial, concerning a brand, a product or a

service.”

In his definition, Nyilasy tells about non-commercial perception of the receiver which

differentiates WOM from traditional marketing techniques.

Rosen reports that some marketers studied WOM marketing based on two particular forms

namely, buzz and viral marketing. Buzz marketing creating publicity and generating

excitement, passes along new brand-related information via unexpected means (qtd. in

Kotler and Keller, 586). On the other hand, viral marketing motivates consumers to convey

company-developed information to others online according to Silverman and Rosen.

(qtd.in Kotler and Keller, 586) Thus, buzz marketing is different from viral marketing in

the source of information that is communicated.

WOM communications can be decomposed into three important parts. Firstly, WOM is an

interpersonal communication where the message is conveyed from a communicator to a

receiver. Second, WOM utilizes commercial information to be communicated. The

message is about commercial products or services. Third, the motivation of receiver is not

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commercial, thus message is not perceived as a commercial one by the receiver. (Nyilasy,

2006)

With the improvements in the internet technology, new online services were launched and

consumers got the opportunity to participate actively on these media rather than being

passive readers on the internet. Sawhney and Kotler, in 2001, argued that the Internet

enabled consumers to come together in online communities making them share opinions

which lead to an “information democracy” in which the information is not manipulated by

the marketers. (qtd. in, Sussan, Gould, and Spolter, 2006)

Since then, consumers are able to express their own feelings and opinions about products

and services online. This new consumer group which is publishing and messaging about

commercial goods brings a different version of WOM which is called electronic word-of-

mouth (eWOM).

Moreover, user demand for entertainment - focused content via cell phones is increasing

with the continuing development and adoption of mobile connectivity technologies. This

makes handsets a possible connected marketing channel. (Kirby, 2006)

User-generated contents (UGC) like blog posts, status updates, comments, tweets, shared

videos and user-generated texts on the internet are the major tools for consumers to express

their feeling and share their opinions online. Video sharing sites, online social networks,

blogs, and microblogs can be counted among the most commonly-used media for

publishing UGC.

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2) OBJECTIVE THE STUDY

Online social media can be considered as an important channel for marketing

communications since it enables consumers to convey their opinions about products and

services. This study explores characteristics of communications affecting consumers’

usage pattern (impulsively or pre-planned) of and intention to purchase from online social

media. Trying to reply this question, we especially focused on their preferences with

respect to product/service, source characteristics and previous product experience, in order

to investigate whether those aspects have an impact on consumers’ choice to follow a

certain media.

What are meant by product/service characteristics are types of those products/services that

are being the subjects of contents on any online social media. Products and services are

studied separately to determine the effect of characteristics on each one.

Source characteristics relate to the publisher of any content on the online social media.

Especially, effects of contents due to their source types such that anonymous posts, posts

from friends or brands, and etc. are discussed deeply in this study.

Consumer’s characteristics are demographic influencers like age, education, marital status,

sex, and etc. on customers’ choice to follow a certain online social media. Content

characteristics relate to how those contents reached to the consumers like direct messages,

indirect group messages, public broadcast and etc.

Customers’ intention to buy is another aspect that was studied in this research with respect

to source and product/service characteristics.

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The findings of this study will guide to firms and future academic studies as it discusses

the implications for content makers and points out the most convenient categories of

products/services and source for which online social media should be employed.

Especially, firms can benefit from these findings, integrating the results of this study to

their online social media strategies. For marketers, understanding how influence of

contents of online social media on consumers’ intention of purchase and to follow a certain

media varies with product/service category and source type is particularly important for

planning marketing communications.

3) BACKGROUND

Since the internet has gone through an important transition in terms of how users produce

and share content interactively, communication channels evolve from traditional

networking platforms into completely new types of networking media. For example, text-

based communication has been replaced by more enhanced media like 3D worlds.

(Tikkanen, Hietanen, Henttonen and Rokka, 2008).

As the internet technologies improved, interactive web sites and online services were

launched. Blogs, microblogs, online social networks, and video sharing sites are examples

of online social media that enable users to contribute in content creation and web

publishing.

Blog (short for weblog) is a personal or collaborative web site - which is frequently

updated -in the form of a diarized journal composed of opinions, information and weblinks

that indicates personality and interests of the author. (Corcoran, Marsden, Zorbach,

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Röthlingshöfer, 2006) Blogs are influential media that are usually considered as the official

web site of an opinion leader for a specific topic. Blog marketing has already proved itself

to be skilled tool, even though it is considered to be a relatively new concept to the

marketing literature. (Corcoran, Marsden, Zorbach, Röthlingshöfer, 2006)

Micro-blogging is defined as

“a new form of communication through which users can describe things of interest

and express attitudes that they are willing to share in short posts.”

(Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, and Chowdury, 2009)

Online social network is web site that hosts an online community.(e.g. Facebook,

LinkedIn, MySpace) In 1983, Rheingold stated that online community is defined to be

”formed when enough number of people carry on computer-mediated nonprivate

discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to develop what are

considered “social relationships” with other online participants.”

(Brown, Broderick, and Lee, 2007)

Video sharing sites are collaborative online services through which users can upload their

own videos and watch the ones posted by other users. (e.g. Youtube, Dailymotion)

Since new online services started to include people in their content generation processes,

consumers got the chance to express their opinions and ideas about anything, easier and

faster than it was before with traditional media. Those comments, posts, videos, tweets and

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other user generated contents about products and services initiated electronic WOM

(eWOM) between consumers.

Nyilasy states that brand image has a moderating effect on the influence of word-of-mouth.

It is more difficult to influence people who have a prior impression about a brand. (2006)

Nevertheless, eWOM is found to be a joint function of receivers’ involvement in the

communication and the communicator’s credibility regarding the influence of word-of-

mouth information on decision making and attitude formation. (Brown, Broderick, and

Lee, 2007)

Bone argued that WOM affects product judgments, attitude formation, and decisions

making more than formal marketing communications do. (qtd. in Brown, Broderick, and

Lee, 2007)

In 1966, Dichter stated four motivational categories of positive WOM which are product

involvement, self involvement, other involvement and message involvement and defined

product involvement as the situation when a customer has very strong feelings about a

product that builds up a pressure on him to do something about it. Thus, he recommends

the product to others to reduce the tension caused by the consumption experience. (qtd. in

Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh, and Gremler, 2004) Product involvement can be considered as a

factor that motivates consumers to respond differently to the same message, give more

counter-arguments and use different message cues for evaluation. (Zaichowsky, 1986).

Thus, affecting consumers’ response, product involvement has an influence on eWOM in

terms of acceptance of the message.

Demographic variables are also important while studying the effects of online content on

customers’ intention to buy a specific product which is the subject of this content.

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In 1999, Donthu and Garcia stated that more educated customers are innovators or early

adopters in the usage of the Internet.(qtd in Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2003) Consequently, one

would expect that education to have a significant effect on customers adoption online

social media.

In 1997, Kotler told that gender is one of the most commonly-used demographic variables

by marketers for segmentation. Afterwards, Gefen and Straub in 1997, and in 2000

Venkatesh and Morris argues that the Internet, e-mail etc. would be perceived as more

useful by men. (qtd in Bhatnagar and Ghose, 2003) Thus, we can expect that the gender

would have an influence on consumers’ behavior on online social media.

4) METHODOLOGY

In order to evaluate consumers’ intention to purchase from and usage pattern of online

social media, a questionnaire was conducted. Descriptive research was chosen so that

characteristics of a certain segment of population can described rather than trying to state a

causal relationship.

Questions were designed to inspect whether consumers’ purchase intention and usage

pattern (pre-planned or impulsively) varied according to product/service, source,

situational characteristics and previous experience with the product.

An online questionnaire was conducted among a convenience sample of 100 consumers

who may be either men or women. Within the questionnaire, participants were asked to

indicate their basic demographic information as well as questions related to behavioral

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pattern on online social media. Only responses of those participants who are between 18-

35 years old were evaluated.

Respondents were initially asked to indicate the online social media they are visiting and

answer the remaining questions based on those online social media. To measure the effect

of product and service characteristics on consumers’ intention of purchase and usage

pattern, participants were asked to point out product and service categories that have

influence on usage in a pre-planned manner as well as purchase intention.

Besides, we focused on 26 different product categories and 24 different service categories.

To discuss source characteristics, five different types of contents with different sources are

determined such as anonymous contents, contents posted by friends, contents posted by

other people, contents posted by companies and contents in online advertisements.

According to survey results, consumers’ demographics and preference of products and

services that make them intend to purchase and follow the media are discussed.

5) FINDINGS

Regarding the demographics of 100 participants, it is observed that 63% was female. 33%

of the respondents was between 18-25 years old, whereas 67% was between 26 -35. 71%

had undergrad degree while 29% had graduate and upper degrees.

Participants also indicated the industry that they are working in. 35% of the group works in

telecommunications sector while 34% works in finance. About 8 % of the population is

from technology –related areas whereas another 8 % -portion works in health sector and

4% of the respondents are students.

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84% of the participants do not have any children. When we look at the monthly income of

the respondents, it is seen that 18% earned between 600 – 1.499 TL, 23% between 1.500 -

2.499 TL, 44% between 2.500 – 3.499 TL, 15% between 4.000 – 6.499 TL and finally 1%

earns between 6.500 – 9.999 TL.

As mentioned previously, survey participants indicated the online social media that they

visit. Facebook is the leading online social media with 93% of usage whereas 67% of the

respondents stated that they follow Ekşisözlük – which is an online user generated wiki

that facilitates social interactions among users. Other social media indicated were Youtube

with 65%, Wikipedia with 60%, blogs with 30% and Twitter with 29%.

According to survey results, people visit those online social media between 20:01 and

00:00 most frequently. This is followed by 18:01-20:00 and 14:01-18:00.

73% of the participants indicated that they visit online social media via mobile phones.

But, only 17% said that they access those media via mobile frequently.

In order to estimate how the source type influences consumers’ intention to purchase,

participants were asked to rate contents from different sources like friends, non-friends,

anonymous sources, companies and online advertisements. Friends turned out to be the

most influential sources in creating intention to purchase. Friends are followed by

companies, online advertisements, non-friends and anonymous sources.

When situational effects are investigated, it is observed that contents searched and found

by the consumer himself/herself are more important in creating purchase intention than

contents reaching to the consumer without any search attempt.

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Another question that this study focuses on is whether the independent variables like

product, service, source, consumer and situational characteristics do have an effect on

whether the consumer uses online media impulsively or pre-planned. Survey respondents

were asked to indicate product types that lead to using a media in a pre-planned manner,

which means they are already interested in getting info about those products. The results

are as follows:

Product Type Following in a Pre-

planned Manner Product Type Following in a Pre-

planned Manner

Music 9,84% Computer Game 2,64%

Book & Magazine 8,96% Drinks 2,28%

Clothing 8,61% House, Decoration, Garden 2,28%

Movie 8,26% None 2,28%

TV Series 6,50% TV 2,11%

Computer 5,27% Small Houseware 1,76%

Mobile Phones 4,92% Automobiles/Motorcycles 1,76%

Cosmetics 4,39% Sunglasses 1,41%

Digital Music 4,39% MP3 Player 1,41%

Food 4,22% White Goods 1,23%

e-book 3,87% Video Camera 1,23%

Watch 3,16% Furniture 1,05%

Camera 2,99% Box games 0,35%

Jewelry 2,81%

Music, books and magazines, clothing, and movie are the most influential types of

products that lead to pre-planned following.

In another questions, participants were asked to indicate service types that lead to using

online media in a pre-planned manner. The results are as follows:

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Service Type

Following in a Pre-planned

Manner Service Type Following in a Pre-

planned Manner

E-Shopping 8,07% Beauty 3,74%

Vacation 7,62% Café 3,59%

Airline e-ticket service 7,17% Online Event Ticket Service 3,59%

Private shopping 6,73% Bus e-ticket service 3,44%

Restaurant 6,28% Credit Card 3,14%

Online music services 5,98% None 1,35%

Banking 5,68% Cargo Service 1,20%

GSM operator services 5,68% Automobile maintenance 0,90%

Online food order service 5,53% Online suction service 0,75%

Online video sharing service 5,23% Insurance 0,60%

E-mail service 4,63% Online dating service 0,45%

Accomodation 4,48% Pension contracts 0,15%

Health 4,04%

E-shopping, vacation and airline e-ticket service, private shopping, restaurant and online

music services are the most influential types of services that lead to pre-planned usage.

Source type, is another factor that affects the usage pattern of online social media. Friends

are found to be the most important source that leads to usage in a pre-planned manner.

Other sources with respect to their importance according to the consumers are companies,

non-friends and anonymous sources.

Previous product experience like using the same product/service or another product/service

of the same company or similar product/services of a different company is another factor

that affects the intention to purchase. It is found that previous experience with the same

product/service reinforces the intention to purchase. This is followed by previous

experience with another product/service of the same company and the experience with a

similar product/service of a different company. In contrary, we did not observed any

relation between previous product experience and pre-planned following.

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6) MODELS

Being ensured with the results of survey, we come up with two models about the factors

affecting consumers’ intention to purchase and their pattern of following online social

media.

Model depicting the factors affecting whether a media is followed in a pre-planned

manner:

Source and situational characteristics have an effect on whether the media is followed in a

pre-planned manner.

Model 1

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Model depicting the factors affecting consumers’ intention to purchase:

In addition to previous model, previous experience with the product also has an effect on

the intention to purchase as well as source and situational characteristics.

Model 2

7) CONCLUSION

We conducted this study to investigate the factors effecting consumers’ intention to

purchase from online social media as well as usage pattern in those media. To collect data

for our research, an online questionnaire was done among 100 respondents. Based on the

survey results, we came up with two models which are depicted to illustrate the factors

lying behind the purchase intention and usage pattern. Future researches can extend the

study by applying the questionnaire to a larger set of people and collect more data. To

investigate the effect of demographics, one would need a more detailed statistical analysis.

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8) REFERENCES

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Online Communities: Conceptualizing the Online Social Network.” Journal of

Interactive Marketing 21.3 (2007): 2-20

Corcoran, Andrew, Paul Marsden, Thomas Zorbach, and Bernd Röthlingshöfer, "Blog

Marketing," in Kirby & Marsden, op. cit. (2006): 148-158

Hennig - Thurau, Thorsten, Kevin P. Gwinner, Gianfranco Walsh, and Dwayne D. Gremler

"Electronic Word-of-Mouth via Consumer-Opinion Platforms: What Motivates

Consumers to Articulate Themselves on the Internet?" Journal of Interactive Marketing

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Hall, 2009.

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Nyilasy, Greg, “Word-of-Mouth: What We Really Know – and What We Don’t.” in Kirby

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