TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.
....................... ............... ......... .. ................ ....................... ............... .......... ............... ....................... .............. ...... 2 Introducton ...............
2.
SocIal MedIa ............... ....................... ................ .......... ............... ....................... ............... ......... .. ................ ....................... ........... .... 3 2.1.
Defi nition of Social Media ............... ....................... ............... ......... .. ................ ....................... ............... .......... 3
2.2.
Social Media in Mark eting ............... ....................... ............... ......... .. ................ ....................... ............... .......... 4
2.3.
Types of Social Media ............... ....................... ............... ......... .. ................ ....................... ............... .......... ...... 6
2.3.1. Social Network ing Sit es ............... ....................... ................ .......... ............... ...................... ............... .......... 6 2.3.2. Content Communities:................ ....................... ............... .......... ............... ....................... ................ .......... .. 9 2.3.3. Forums: ............... ...................... ............... .......... .. ............... ....................... ................ .......... ............... ...................... ....... 10 2.3.4. Virtual Worlds ............... ...................... ............... .......... .. ............... ....................... ................ .......... ........... ........... 10 2.3.5. Blogs ............... ....................... ................ .......... ................ ........................ ............... ......... ............... ....................... ........... ... 12 2.3.6. Social Bookmark ing and News Sites ............... ....................... ................ .......... .......... .......... 13 3.
Social Media User Typology ............... ....................... ................ .......... ............... ....................... ............... ......... .. .. 14 3.1. Uses and Gratifications Theor y ................ ....................... ............... .......... ............... ....................... ............ .... 14 3.2. S ocial Technogra phic Model ............... ...................... ............... .......... .. ............... ....................... ................ ........ 15
4. Refer ences ............... ....................... ................ .......... ................ ....................... ............... .......... ............... ....................... ................ .......... . 17
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1.
INTRODUCT ION
Af ter the invention of the Internet and World Wide Web technology; peo pl e and Institutions launched their Internet pages. However ; these pages had static
inf ra es and limit ed f unct rastructur es unctionalities. In literatur e this era is called Web 1.0. Peo ple could only find the inf ormat ormat ion t hat the com panies r eleased. In time, technology
im proved and f or or the Int Int ernet a new era, which is called Web 2.0 or Social Media started. Social Media consists of social network ing sites, f orum orums, virtual worlds, ey featur e of social media cont ent communities, blogs and bookmark ing sites. The k ey which differ entiate it f rom rom Web 1.0 technology ar e cont ent and inf ormat ormation shar ing and two-way communication with other s. unct ions and cont ents of the Int ernet s. Because the f unct
sites getting r icher , ever yday mor e peo ple pr efe efer to use social media tools rat her than mass media tools.
One of the most im portant im pact of social media has been in mark eting. Com panies can communicate with the customer s and get feed back f rom rom them, also bout the customer s can communicat e with other customer s and shar e the inf ormat ormation a b products and services (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). A nother im portant aspect of social media in Mark eting is Segmentation (Brandtza eg, 2010). By using social media tools,
esources. com panies can catch their targ r target mark et and don¶t waste their r r r es In order to be successf ul ul in social media segmentation and targeting,
se user behavior s into meaningf ul ies of user t classifying diver se ul categor ies r types, according to equency of use, var ie iety of use and cont ent pr efe efer ences ar e ver y im portant the f r r eq (Brandtzaeg, 2010). Ther ef ef or or e the main o bjectives of this study is classifying the social media user s iety of use, cont ent who ar e in the Generat ion Y se gment, according to their var ie pr efe efer ences and f r equency of use i n Turk ey ey and determining the demogra phic affinities r eq ehensi ve inf ormat of these grou ps. Another o bjective of this study provi ding a com pr ehe ormation a bout the social media and its types.
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Although some r esearcher s conduct ed r elated to the social media usage classifications, none of them include Turk ey. Cultur e inf luences the lifestyle, and the lifestyle i nf luences the way we communicate and interact with new media technologies
(Brandtzaeg, 2010). Ther ef or e; it is not possible to generalize the r esults of the studies conduct ed in other countr ies. This study will be the fir st in this ar ea and provide
benefits to the com panies and mark eter s to better under stand the social media usage grou ps ni Turk ey and mor e effective segmentation and mark eting o pportunities.
Another contr ibution of this study is that Classification of the social media user s will hel p develo per s of social media to provide better services to differ ent types of user s. In order to classify the s ocial media user s a questionnair e will be f ormed in
Lik ert f ormat in light of pr evious studies and a pplied to the Generation Y peo ple according to the convenience sam pling met hod. The Survey r esults will be tested in
Cluster analysis.
2.
2.1.
SOCIAL MEDIA
DEFINITION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Internet usage rate, speed and web site a pplicat ions have develo ped gradually, and all these develo pments o pen a new world and cr eate some o pportunities to both consumer s and cor porations r elated to social r elationships and business practices. One of the most im portant term which was emerg ed through the develo pments is s ocial media. In the literatur e ther e is not a standard definition of social media. Academics,
internet experts and consultant s mak e their own definition of social media.
Weber (2007, s.4) defines Social Media as ³The s ocial Media is the online place wher e peo ple with a common inter est can gat her to shar e thoughts, comments, and o pinions´. According to R o binson (2007), s ocial media ar e the tools used f or communication that hav e Web 2.0 attr ibutes ± that is, they ar e participator y, colla borative, knowledge shar ing, user-em power ing tools ava ila ble on the Web. Saf ko
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and Brak e (2009, s.6) defines social media as ³activities, practices, and behavior s among communities of peo ple who gather online to shar e i nf ormation, knowledge, and o pinions using conver sational media´.
As it is seen in the definitions ther e ar e some common points between them. The fir st common point is shar ing that in Social Media sit es peo ple may shar e their knowledge, comments, videos and photos. Second point is the communication that
peo ple communicat e with their f r iends, f amily mem ber s, experts or new peo ple. In this aspect, online word of mouth conc ept gain im portanc e. The differ ences between online and off line word of mouth is r eac h count and speed. Mangold and Faulds (2007, p.4)
points out that µµConventional mark eting wisdom has long held that a dissatisfied customer tells ten peo ple. B ut that is out of date. In the new age of social media, he or
she has the tools to tell 10 million¶¶.
2.2.
SOCIAL MEDIA IN MARKETING
Social media have i m pacts on several f unctions f or the businesses. One of the most im portant department which can der ive benefit f rom the Social Media is
Mark eting. Because ³it provides a gr eat way to r each and engage existing and potential customer s´ (Halligan and Sha h, 2010, s.85). Through social media¶s communication
f unct ion, Mangold and F oulds (2009) claimed that social media should be consider ed as the sixth tool of the promotion mix. Joak er (2009, s.12) defines social media mark eting as ³an interaction with a set of online social media conver sations f rom mark eting
per spective, based on converged media (since conver sations can span both technologies and the media)´. Another definition of Social Media Mark eting is Media is a bout
³ena bling conver sation [and] the ways that this conver sation can be prom pted, promot ed, and monetized´ (Saf ko & Brak e, 2009)
Social Media can be used f or differ ent ar eas of Mark eting. One of the most im portant benefits f or the mark et er s and com panies is Segmentat ion (Brandtzaeg, 2010). In social media ther e ar e many tools and internet sites; and customer s choose the 4
tools according to their demogra phy, pr efer ences and life-styles. Ther eby, Com panies and mark et er s can r each to their cor e target customer s with smaller budgets.
Another benefits of social media r elated to the mark eting is mark eting r esearch f unct ion. The emergence of social media offer s mark eter s an arra y of colla borative tools with which to develo p new r esearch a pproaches to explor e the ra pidly chang ing social and media environment (Cook e and Buckl ey, 2007). Today several com panies use
social media tools f or mark eting r esearch in the cont ext of netnogra phy (K a plan and Haenlein, 2010). In addition, com panies and mark eter s can get instant feed back a bout their products, services and cam paigns f rom the customer s what they think and how they r eact without spending money on differ ent k inds of mark eting r esearc hes.
Today, social media tools have becam e a ver y im portant tool f or the promotion activities. Ther e ar e thr ee main pur poses f or promot ion; fir st, to incr ease product awar eness, second to per suade peo ple to purchase the p roduct, or (c) to r emind peo pl e that the product exists (K otler & Ke ller , 2007). S ocial Media tools e na ble com panies to
im plement their thr ee pur poses f or promotion. The com panies can communicat e with the customer s and provide i nf ormat ion to them. F or Exam ple they can o pen an account on Fac ebook and Twitter , so they can easily provide inf ormat ion a bout their cam paigns, new products and activities. Viral Mark eting is the most common promotion tool in
social media (Thack eray and other s, 2008). P orter and Golan (2006, p. 33) defines Viral mark eting as ³ un paid peer-to- peer communication of provocative cont ent or iginating
f rom an identified sponsor using the internet to per suade or inf luence an audience to pass along the cont ent to other s´. Cliff ord and Mar sh (2009, p. 51) claimed that ³The k ey differ ence between a viral and a TV ad is that a viral is somet hing you will seek out, tak e pleasur e in finding, and send on f or someone else to en joy´. Ther ef or e it can said that Viral mark eting has mor e im pact on customer s than Mass media tools.
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2.3.
TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media conc ept consists of a wide range of tools and platf orms. The most im portant and common use d social media types ar e S ocial Network ing Sites, Content Communities, Virtual Worlds, Blogs, Micro blogging Sit es,
Online Gaming Sites,
Social Bookmark ing and News Sites, Forums. These conc epts will be explained in details with the aspects of definition, histor y and elements.
2.3.1. Social
Networking Sites
Social network ing is an incr easing phenomenon r elated to the internet, and several studies have been conducted a bout social network ing sites. Although ther e ar e var ious definitions concerning social network ing by distinguished scholar s (R aack e and
Bonds-R aack e, 2008; Dunne and Other s, 2010; C onstant inides,2009; Zar ella, 2010), two of the most common definitions have been used in this study.
Social Network ing Sites ar e µµ web- based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a pu blic or semipu blic profile within a bounded system, (2) articulat e a list of other user s with whom they shar e a connection, and (3) view and traver se their list of connections and those made by other s within the syst em.´ (Boyd & E llison, 2008) ¶¶. In addition K a plan (2010) defines social network ing sites as ³Social network ing sites ar e a pplications that ena ble user s to connect by cr eating per sonal inf ormation profiles,
inviting f r iends and colleagu es to have acc ess to those profiles, and sending e-mails and instant messages between eac h other . These per sonal profiles can include any type of inf ormation, including photos, video, audio files, and blogs´.
K a plan (2010) claimed that the fir st social network ing site which was called ³Open Diar y´ was f ounded by Bruce and Susan Abelson 20 year s ago. In 2005, In 1995, C lass mates.com, which ena bles peo ple to find their old school f r iends,
and
Match.com, which is an online dating site, wer e cr eated; both r emain f airly po pular sites 6
in their niche (Zar ella, 2010). In 1997, www.sixdegr ees. com which is in ver y si milar f orm with curr ent social network ing sites that user s could cr eate their profiles and list ed their f r iends. Between the year s 1997 -2001 several social network ing sites such as
AsianAvenue, black Planet and miGente a ppear ed. In 2001, r yze.com was launc hed, b ut this social network ing site was just f or the business network s (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).
The growing availa bility of high-speed Int ernet acc ess f urther added to the po pular ity of the concept, leading to the cr eation of social network ing sites (K a plan and Haenlein, 2010). In 2002, The modern era of social network s began, when Jonat han Abrams launc hed Fr iendst er , inspir ed by Match.com (Zar ella, 2010, p:55), and which was designed to hel p f r iendsoff r iends meet (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). In 2003,
Myspace was launched by du plication of F r ienster¶s f unctionality and added some new featur es such as customiza ble user profile and mostly f ocuse d on music a pplications. In a short time MySpace becam e one of the best social network ing site (Zar ella, 2010).
Since Myspace¶s po pular ity incr eased ra pidly in 2005 R u pert Murdoch¶s media conglomerat e News Cor p purchased MySpac e the amount of $580 million (Mintz,
2006). T oday, MySpac e is the 22th most click ed website in the world (Alexa.com). Although ther e is no certain inf ormation a bout num ber of total r egister ed user s, in his internet site Elk in claimed that myspace has 185 million user .
Su bsequently in 2004, Fac ebook which is a social utility that hel ps peo pl e communicate mor e efficiently with their f r iends, f amily and cowork er s was f ounded by
Mark Zuck er berg in 2004. (Facebook .com). However , pr eviously user s had to have a harvard.edu email addr ess in order to join Fac ebook . O ne year later Fac ebook expanded to include high school students, professionals inside cor porate network s (Boyd and
Ellison, 2007). E ventually in 2006, ever ybody could join to f ac ebook with an e-mail addr ess (Zar ella, 2010). T oday, Facebook is the second most click ed web site in the world among all types of internet sit es comes af ter the google (Alexa). According to
Facebook¶s own statistics (2010), on f acebook ther e ar e mor e than 400 million active user s, ever y user on average has 130 f r iends, peo ple spend over 500 billion minutes per mont h.
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Boyd and Ellison (2007) claimed that while MySpac e attract ed the ma jor ity of media attention in the U.S. and a broad, S ocial Network ing sites started to getting mor e
po pular glo bally such as Orkut in Braz il, Fr iendster in Pacific Islands, Mixi in Ja pan, Lunar storm in Sweden, Grono in Poland, Hi5 in Latin Amer ica and Bebo in United Kingdom, Ne w Zealand and Australia (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).
2.3.1.1. Elements of Social Networking Sites
Social network ing sit es differ entiate themselves f rom all other types of social media. Because most of the s ocial network ing sites i nclude all other social media sites¶ tools, featur es and a pplications at one platf orm. For instance in a social network ing site, a user can cr eat e a profile, send pr ivate message, u pload photos and videos, watch videos, play games, join a social grou p, arrange an event and use several a pplications.
Zar ella (2010), s ummar ize the elements of social network ing sites as below.
P rofile: Individuals and Com pan ies can cr eate a Profile on Social Network ing
Sites. This inf ormation can be a bout per sonal, educat ional, em ployment and inter ests.
C onnecting: Two or mor e peo ple can connect which is one of the most
im portant featur e through social network ing sites.
P rivate Messaging: User s can send pr ivate or grou p messages via Social
network ing sites
Public Messaging: Pu blic messages ar e called comments in MySpace and wall
messages in Fac ebook . Comments can be made to profiles, photos, videos, events, grou ps and com pan y pages.
G roups:
Most social network s conta in the conc ept of a group which consist of
the users who have similar interests and they can share and discuss the contents.
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Photos and Videos: Shar ing photo and video ar e two of the most po pular
featur es of social network ing sites. For Exam ple, Facebook¶s photo-shar ing featur e is mor e po pular than all of the other photo-shar ing sites.
Events: Most social network s will allow you to cr eate an event and invit e your
f r iends to attend it. These events most commonl y occur in the r eal world
A pplications: Social network s hav e exposed their f unct ionality through
a pplication programm ing inter fa ces (APIs) to develo per s, allowing them to cr eat e a pplications that plug into their site.
2.3.2. Content
Communities:
With the advent of easy-to-use digital cameras and camcorder s as well as highspeed Internet connections, media-shar ing sites have become extr emely po pular (Zar ella, 2010, p:77). The main o bjective of content communities is the shar ing of media cont ent between user s. Content communities exist f or a wide range of differ ent media types, including text, photos, videos, music (K a plan and Ha enlein, 2010).
One of the earliest Content Community Site, IFILM.net, was launc hed in 1997 as an online coll ection of short videos wher e user s could also su bmit their own work . In
1999, Of oto, Shutter f ly and webshots which wer e photo shar ing and u ploading sites wer e f ounded. In 2002, Flash MX was r eleased and this tool ena bled user s to watch videos without downloading a special player However cont ent communities becam e mor e po pular af ter Flick er¶s launch in 2004. (Z ar ella, 2010). F lickr is one of the best online photo management and shar ing a pplication in the world. Two main pur pose of
Flickr is hel ping peo ple to mak e their content availa ble f or other peo ple who matter to them. The second pur pose is providing new ways f or organizing photos. (Flick er .com).
Now ther e ar e a pproximately 4 billion images in Flickr (trak .in)
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The second r evolution of cont ent communities was the f ounding of Youtu be which allows its user s to post videos f or pu blic viewing and commentar y. Y outu be was
f ounded in 2005 by PayPal em ployees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed K ar im (Kelli, 2008). In a short time Youtu be became the f astest growing internet site ( Kelli, 2008). On Octo ber 2006, Youtu be was acquir ed by Google com pany f or 1.65 billion value (Google Pr ess Center ). Youtu be allows peo ple to u pload their own videos and watch other s¶ videos, the youtu be data base contains numerous videos on any to pic
(Ma br y, 2010). In Addition, YouTu be provides a f orum f or peo ple to connect, inf orm, and inspir e other s across the glo be and acts as a distr ibution platf orm f or or iginal cont ent cr eator s and advertiser s large and s mall (Youtu be). Today, Youtu be is the 3th most click ed web site in the world (Alexa).
2.3.3. Forums:
Forums ar e the i nteractive si tes that the user s sh ar e their knowledge and ideas with other peo ple who hav e si milar inter ests (C onstantinides, 2009), In his book Zar ella
(2010) claimed that Forums ar e the oldest type of social media and modern f orm of community bulletin boards. In f orum sites the f ocus is on the discussion. User s post what they know or wonder and other user s r eply them or mak e comments to them.
2.3.4. Virtual
Worlds
Virtual worlds ar e platf orms that r eplicate a thr ee dimensional environment in which user s can a ppear in the f orm of per sonalized avatar s and interact with e ach other as they would in r eal life (K a plan and Ha enlein, 2009). T oday, ther e ar e millions of user s i n Virtual worlds and this num ber is i ncr easing day by day (Tikkanen and other s,
2009). K a plan and Haenlein (2009 p: 64) claimed that virtual worlds ar e pro ba bly the
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ultimate manifestation of Social Media, as they provide the highest level of social
pr esence and media r ichness of all a pplications discussed thus f ar .
K a plan and Ha enlein (2009), Tikkanen and other s (2009) and Zar ella (2010) categor ize virtual worlds into two. Fir st categor y is s ocial or iented virtual worlds and the second one is game or iented social worlds.
2.3.4.1. Virt ual G ame worlds
The virtual worlds games include si milar elements of traditional video games and their pur poses to r each higher levels by gaining extra points (Tikkanen and other s,
2009), and r equir e their user s h ave to o bey the str ict rules i n the cont ext of a massi vely multiplayer online rol e- playing game (K a plan and Haenlein, 2009). O ne of the most
po pular virtual world game is ³World of Warcaf t´ (Zar ella, 2010) and 8.5 million su bscr iber s or the game who explor e the virtual planet of Azeroth in the f orm of humans, dwarves, orcs, or night elves, to fight monster s or to searc h f or tr easur e (K a plan and Haenlein, 2009 p:64). A lthough ther e ar e millions of user s i n virtual gam e worlds, the social mark eting possibilities in these worlds ar e of t en ver y limited (Zar ella,
2010). 2.3.4.2. Virt ual social worlds
The second grou p of virtual worlds is the virtual social world which allows inha bitants to choose their behavior mor e f r eely and essentially live a virtual life si milar to their r eal life K a plan and Haenlein, 2009). In addition advanc ed su bscr iber s can cr eate o bjects and places (Zar ella, 2010) . In social worlds, user s don¶t have certain goals. Since ther e is an interaction and network ing with other user s, virtual social worlds ar e similar to the Social network ing sites (Tikkanen and Other s, 2009).
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2.3.5. Blogs
In Literatur e, Blog is defined by several author s (Zar ella, 2010; Kelli, 2008;
Huff man, 2008; K a plan, 2007; Weber , 2008). O ne of the most com pr ehensive definition of blog is ³Blogs ar e per sonal web sites wr itten by somebody who is passionat e a bout a to pic, provide a means to shar e that passi on with the world and to f oster an active community of r eader s who provide comments on the author¶s posts.(S cott, 2010, s. 37)
One of the fir st blog which was a bout the video games and gaming conventions was cr eated by J ustin Hall in the mid-1990¶s (Z ar ella, 2010). In 1997, the term weblog which is com bination of the words web and log was cr eated by J orn Barger and in time
it has started to called as Blog (Aschen br enner and Mik sch, 2005) . Blogging started to becam e po pular when LiveJournal and Blogger wer e launc hed (Zar ella, 2010). This o pened Blogs to larger audience (Aschen br enner and Mik sch, 2005). T oday, the exact total num ber of Blogs ar e not known, but it is estimated to be around 150 million and
Glo bally a pproximately 350 million peo ple r ead blogs (Thef utur ebuzz.com, 2010) Micro blogging is a new f orm of communication in which user s can descr ibe their curr ent status i n short posts distr ibut ed by instant messages, mo bile phones, email or the Web (Java and Other s, 2007, s.1). In 2004, micro blogging term a ppear ed when a grou p of technologists and activists cr eated TXT mo b that allow peo ple to communicate through short text messages (Zar ella, 2010).
However Micro-Blogging becam e po pular af ter the launc h of Twitter in 2006. On Twitter su bscr iber s u pdate their status and shar e inf ormation a bout their activities and o pinions which is limit ed only 140 character s (Java and Other s, 2007). T witter ra pidly growt h in 2009 as a r esult of well-known celebr ity mem ber s and a mention on
Oprah (Zar ella, 2010). T oday, according to the Alexa Twitter is the 11th most visited web site in the world. Twitter is one of the most effective tool in social media mark eting. Zar ella (2010, s.31) claimed that ³Most com pan ies should be on Twitter ; it¶s
easy, r equir es ver y little investm ent of time, and can quickly prove worthwhile in
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incr eased buzz, sales, and consumer insight´. In addition Twitter can be used in order to announce offer s, events and promotions.
2.3.6. Social
Bookmarking and News Sites
Zar ella (2010, s.103) defines social new sites as ³Social news sites ar e websites that allow user s to su bmit and vote on content f rom around the Web´. Peo ple vote the news and it becam e ver y easy to differ entiat e inter esting and usef ul link s f rom the other s.
³Social bookmark ing sites ar e similar to social news sites, but the value pr esented to user s is f ocused on allowing them to coll ect and stor e inter esting link s they¶ve f ound and may wish to r evisit´ (Zar ella, 2010, p.103). C om panies can track the num ber of peo ple who ar e b ookmark ing you page and can under stand how r emarka ble their f ormat message is. If no body bookmark s a web site, they have to r econsider a bout their cont ent (Halligan and Shah, 2010)
ITList was the the fir st social bookmark ing site which was launc hed in Apr il
1996, and f rom that point until the po p of the fir st dot-com bu bble, a plethora of sites offer ing pu blic and pr ivate online storage of your f avor ite link s emerg ed (Zar ella,
2010). Today, Digg which was launc hed in 2004 is the most po pular social news si tes. ³Digg allows user s to su bmit and moderate their stor ies by voting on them´ (Lerman, 2007, p.1). On the other hand Delicious (Del.icio.us) is one of the most po pular social bookmark ing site. Delicious which is belong to Yahoo grou p, boasts mor e than 5 million user s and mor e than 150 million URL¶s (Wein berg, 2009). User s can put their
f avor ite link s onto their own web pages within delicious doma in. In addition, Delicious offer s a search f unct ion that provides user s to searc h their own bookmark s ( B ar sk y and
Purdon, 2006).
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3.
SOCIAL MEDIA USER TYPOLOGY
Year by year , mor e peo ple pr efer to use social media tools. In addition the num ber and var iety of social media sites have incr eased gradually. Consider ing the these incr ease in the Social Media Landsca pe, ti is im portant to classify the user s according to their var iety of use, cont ent pr efer ences and f r equency of use (Brandtza eg,
2010). Although ther e ar e differ ent types of theor etical models in r egard to a mediauser typology such as Jung¶s (1971) per sonality types, R oger s¶s (2003) diff usion of
innovat ions model, Venkat esh and Other s¶s (2003) technology acc eptance model and Asseals¶s (2004) Mark et se gmentat ion model (Brandtza eg, 2010); in this study we will mostly f ocus on the Uses and Gratification Theor y and Social Technogra phic Model. 3.1.
USES AND GRAT IFICATIONS THEORY
Uses and Gratifications Theor y explains how same media messages may be use d by differ ent peo ple f or differ ent aims to satisfy their psychological and social needs and achieve their goals (K atz, 1959). In past, this theor y a pplied to Mass media tools and media cont ent. (Dunne, L awyor and R owley, 2010). In 1996, Newhag en and
R af a eli suggest ed that U&G theor y might well be suited to online media tools. Later on var ious aut hor s a pplied this theor y to analyze the motives of using Internet and other
social media tools. For instance; Dunne, Lawyor and R owley (2010) a pplied this theor y f or the motives of social network ing sites and the r esults wer e Communication, Fr iending,
Entertainment, Esca pism and Inf ormation search. Ur ista, Dong and Day (2009) f ound out why young adults use social network ing sites according to U&G Theor y. The r esults wer e Efficient communication, Convenient communication, Cur iosity a bout other s,
Po pular ity, Relationship f ormation and r einf orcement. R aache and R aache (2008) conduct ed a r esearch i n order to under stand why peo ple use s ocial network ing sites via
U&G Theor y. Results wer e ³to k eep in touch with old f r iends´ (96.0%), ³ to k eep in touch with curr ent f r iends´ (91.1%), ³ to post/look at pictur es´ (57.4%), ³ to mak e new
f r iends´ (56.4%), and ³to locate old f r iends´ (54.5%). Less commonl y r eported uses and 14
grat ifications included ³to learn a bout events´ (33.7%), ³ to post social f unct ions´
(21.8%), ³to feel connected´ (19.8%), ³ to shar e inf ormation a bout your self´ (13.9), ³f or academic pur poses´ (10.9%) and ³f or dating pur poses´ (7.9%).
3.2.
SOCIAL TECHNOGRAPH IC MODEL
Social Technogra phics model is cr eated by Li, Bernoff, Fior entino and Glass who work f or the Forr ester r esearch com pany in 2007. The term Social Technogra phi cs
is used ³to descr ibe the differ ent ways in which consumer s may behave online, which in turn governs how they will r espond to a pproaches f rom com panies via social network ing channels.´(Harr is and R ae, 2009, p.30). S ocial Technogra phics is a tool that mark eter s should consider bef or e cr eating their strategies (Li and Other s, 2007). Wit h this model com pan ies will easily under stand which customer s use which types of s ocial media and cr eate a strat egy i n order to communicat e with them efficiently (Harr is and
R ae, 2009). In this model, social media usage behavior s ar e C ategor ized into a ladder wit h
six level of participation and each level has its own charact er istics (Li and Other s, 2007). These levels ar e Cr eator s, Cr itics, Collector s, Joiner s, Spectator s and Inactives. The to p of the ladder start Cr eator s which is the most so phisticated Categor y. Below the categor ies ar e given in details. , C reators: Cr eator s ar e at the to p of the ladder . They ar e the online consumer s
who pu blish blogs, maintain web pages, or u pload videos to sites lik e Y ouTu be at least once per month. They ar e generally young peo ple. The percentage of the cr eator s was
13 % according to the F orr ester¶s 2006-Q4 r eport. However in 2009-Q4 r eport it¶s rate incr eased to 24 %. C ritics: Cr itics participate i n social media in two ways. Fir st they comment on
blogs and posting ratings and the second is they r eviews on sites. In this level Participation is not as intense as bei ng a cr eator s. The perc entage of the cr itics was 19 % according to the Forr ester¶s 2006-Q4 r eport. However in Forr ester¶s 2009 -Q4 r eport it¶s rat e incr eased to 37 %.
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C ollectors: Collector s save URL¶s on a social bookmark ing service lik e
del.icio.us or use RSS feeds on Bloglines, they cr eate metadata that's shar ed with the
entir e community. Collector s r epr esent the 15 % of the po pulation according to the Forr ester¶ s 2006 -Q4 r eport. This rate incr eased to 20 % in 2009. Joiners: This Grou p has just a k ind of behavior . They just visit social
network ing sites and maintain their profiles. The rat e of J oiner s was 19 % i n 2006, but
in 2009 ther e was a ra pid incr ease in the perc entage of the joiner s. It incr eased mor e than 300 % and 59 % of the po pulation ar e in the joiner s grou p. S pectators: This Grou p r ead blogs, listen to podca sts,
watch
videos
of
other s, r ead online f orums, r ead customer ratings and r eviews and r ead tweets.
According to the r esults of the For ester¶s r esearch spectator s ar e mor e lik ely to be women and have lowest income level. The percentage of the cr eator s was 33 % according to the Forr ester¶s 2006 -Q4 r eport. However in 2009 -Q4 r eport it¶s rat e
incr eased to 70 %. Inactives: This grou p don¶t use to the social media tools. They don¶t
participate activities, they ar e generally affected f rom other s and they don¶t tell their f r iends a bout the p roducts that inter est them. This grou p was 52 % i n 2006, but today the rate decr eased to the 17 %. Ther ef or e this statistics proved that the perc entage of
social media usage i ncr eased gradually and at the e nd of the 2009 a pproximately 83 % of the total po pulat ion use some or all k inds of social media tools.
Brandtza eg (2010), conduct ed a Meta-Analysis and r eviewed 22 articles r elated to the media user typologies. Af ter analyzed the articles, he has f ormed his own Media
User Typ ology Hierarchy. According to the Brandtzaeg social media user types ar e; Non-User s who don¶t use social media tools, Sporadics who ar e newcomer s or low level participants, Debat er s ar e the blogger s, Entertainment User s who participate in the
social media such as online games in order to have f un, Socializer s who use social media tools in order to be social, Luck er s who mostly p articipate in order to k ill their time, Instrumental User s who use social media tools in order to get inf ormation and
finally Advanced user s who use the most advanc ed social media technologies and use wide range of media Fr equently.
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