Week 1 - Social Media Landscape

Question 1

What is the definition of Social Media?

Answer 1

The online platforms that host user-generated content. This means that many platforms fit this scope: even NY times online as comments are user-generated content.

Question 2

What is the definition of User-Generated content?

Answer 2

Content that is generated or created by an internet user who is a consumer of this information or content.

Question 3

Why is social media important for marketing?

Answer 3

Social Media informs purchasing.
• People research products through social media, and care about what other people buy/use and review the product.
• Discover brands and products that they otherwise wouldn’t be aware of through ads of recommendations of friends or influencers.
• Opportunity to buy products through buy now buttons on social media.

Question 4

Why did social media take off?

Answer 4

•	Digital social networks.
o	     Structured information flow.
•	Machine intelligence.
o	      Recommendations of friends and content over the network.
•	Smartphones.
o	     Always on.
o	    Feeds our social brain.

Question 5

What is the dark side of Social Media?

Answer 5

• Mental health effects.
• Echo chambers due to selection into content and recommender systems.
o Political polarization.
• Privacy concerns.

Question 6

What is Intrinsic Utility in social media?

Answer 6

• Intrinsic Utility: Inherent satisfaction
o Prediction: Exogenous increase # of followers -> more posts.
o Why? Broadcasting to more people.

Question 7

What is Image-related Utility in social media?

Answer 7

• Image-related Utility: Motivated by perceptions of others.
o Prediction: exogenous increase ## of followers -> no change / decrease in posting behaviour.
• Why? Having followers is ‘enough’, post content to attract new followers.

Question 8

What are the findings of the research on Intrinsic versus Image related utility in social media?

Answer 8

• No main effect on posting activity.
o There was a 6%-point difference which is not statistically significant.
• Differential effect based on # follower started with.
o Few followers – Intrinsic utility dominates. Happy to share.
o More followers – image-related utility dominates. More worried about what people think of you.

Question 9

What are the managerial implications?

Answer 9

• Brand advocates not always going to be users with a large follower count
o Image concerns will start to kick in.
• As Social media platform matures might see more firm-generated content.
o An alternative way to broadcast to consumers.
o As opposed to a social listening platform for firms.

Question 10

What is the definition of a lurker on social media?

Answer 10

Lurker: A user of social media site who does not actively participate/contribute. They read or observe.

Question 11

Why are lurkers important to marketeers?

Answer 11

• Lurkers still engage and may make decisions based on what they see online.
• And these decisions may matter.

Question 12

What are the two types of lurkers?

Answer 12

• Passive lurkers: Absorb content and don’t spread information.
• Active lurkers (diffusers): Transmit information to others.

Question 13

What is the value of active lurkers?

Answer 13

• Value from diffusion
o Share information with others.
o Others directly engage and share with another group of people.
• Value from own decisions.
o Their purchase, clicks, brand recall, etc.

Question 14

What is the value of passive lurkers?

Answer 14

• Own decisions on what they see on social media:
o Positive movie reviews from Twitter -> go see the movie.
• Also, brand recall, website clicks, etc.

Question 15

How can you engage lurkers?

Answer 15

• Posts that are not permanent (IG stories) -> Lurkers become contributors.
• Repeated interaction with the same content (seeing many retweets of the same content).
o Encourage active lurkers to spread the information – lesser ‘need for uniqueness.

Question 16

Why is it hard to measure lurkers as an analyst?

Answer 16

If you use data on individual behavior on social media as your only data set, you cannot measure impacts or lurkers.
• Can quantitatively assess this funnel for users who engage with the ad on the platform.
• Can’t measure whether:
o A lurker viewed the ad and bought it via another channel.
o The lurker passed on information from the ad to someone else and that person made a purchase later.

Question 17

How can you try to include lurkers in your analysis?

Answer 17

If you relate social media aggregates to an aggregate outcome variable, lurker effects are baked into one’s analysis. Aggregation means that:
• Anyone who has seen a post on Twitter might respond to the content.
• Impact on sales could be from
o Original content creator, active site users,
o Passive lurkers, active lurkers,
o Or anyone else who saw it.
• But we can’t tell which.