SMM2 - Motives of social media use (keywords, mp + scenario questions)

Traditional marketing definition (AMA, 2017)

The activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large

The 4Ps of traditional marketing

Product, Price, Place, Promotion — the complete set of tools to achieve marketing goals

The 5th P in social media marketing

Participation — consumers are involved in all stages of the marketing process, including product development and promotion

Push communication

Top-down, one-way communication where the company sends messages outward to a passive audience; characteristic of traditional marketing

Pull communication

Bottom-up communication where consumers actively seek out content they find enjoyable or valuable; characteristic of social media marketing and content marketing

Most important difference between traditional marketing and SMM

In SMM the consumer has much more input — they help attract new customers, shape products, and become part of the distribution channel through sharing

Consumer empowerment in SMM

The consumer has become responsible for attracting new customers and has input in all stages of the marketing process across all Ps

Owned media

Media channels controlled directly by the brand such as a company website, blog, or official social media profile; high control, limited reach on its own

Paid media

Advertising space purchased by the brand such as TV commercials, radio spots, internet banner ads, or sponsored social posts; high control, costs money

Earned media

Coverage or content generated by others without direct payment such as eWOM, press coverage, UGC, and viral sharing; largest reach but least control

Reach vs control trade-off in media

Earned media has the largest reach but the least control; owned media has the most control but the least reach; paid media sits in between

Relationship between the three media types

Paid and earned media drive traffic back to owned media; all three work together in an integrated strategy

Uses and Gratifications theory (U&G)

A theory explaining that people actively and selectively choose media to fulfill specific needs or gratifications; media use is goal-oriented

Gratifications sought

The needs or expectations a person has before using a medium; the antecedents of media behavior

Gratifications obtained

What a person actually gets from using a medium; the consequences of media behavior; does not always match gratifications sought

Why the gap between sought and obtained gratifications matters

When media fails to deliver the expected gratification (e.g. TikTok creates stress instead of relieving boredom) users switch platforms or reduce usage

Five broad social media motives (Chen & Peng, 2023)

1. Expression and exhibition 2. Information seeking and sharing 3. Social interaction 4. Escapism and relaxation 5. Norm and trend following

Affordances (platform affordances)

The perceived structural features and capabilities of a platform that enable certain user behaviors and actions

Six platform affordance categories (Chen & Peng, 2023)

1. Information richness 2. Communication regulation 3. Persistence 4. Network association 5. Anonymity 6. Privacy

Information richness (affordance)

The breadth and variety of social and non-verbal cues such as emojis, photos, and videos that strengthen the sense of social presence during communication

Network association (affordance)

A platform's built-in capacity to identify potential contacts and connect users within a larger social network

Persistence (affordance)

The degree to which online content remains stored and retrievable at a later time

Communication regulation (affordance)

A user's ability to control interactions, manage timing, personalize messages, and edit content before sharing

Strategic implication of U&G theory for marketers

Understand why your target audience uses a specific platform before designing content for it; a mismatch between content strategy and user motives will fail regardless of execution quality

Social interaction motive — platform preference

Users motivated by social interaction prefer high network association but lower information richness, indicating preference for text-based communication

Expression and exhibition motive — platform preference

Users motivated by expression and exhibition value high information richness and strong privacy controls

Information seeking motive — platform preference

Users motivated by information seeking prefer platforms with information richness, communication regulation, and persistence

Narcissistic users — platform behavior

Narcissistic users primarily use social media for expression and exhibition and seek platforms with rich visual information transfer

Big Five personality traits

Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism — the five stable dimensions of human personality

Personality and social interaction motive

Extraverted and neurotic individuals are more likely to seek social interactions and prefer platforms with strong network association

Personality and information seeking motive

Open and conscientious people primarily use social media for information seeking and sharing, reflecting utilitarian and cognitive motivations

Conscientiousness and trend following

Conscientious people are significantly less likely to use social media for following trends or norms

Bazi et al. 2020 — research question

What factors explain why consumers engage with luxury brands on social media?

Bazi et al. 2020 — conclusion

Engagement with luxury brands is driven by 13 specific motivations organized under 6 macro-dimensions, influencing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement

Six macro-dimensions of luxury brand engagement (Bazi et al. 2020)

1. Perceived content relevancy 2. Brand-customer relationship 3. Socio-psychological motives 4. Brand equity 5. Aesthetic motives 6. Hedonic motives (+ Technology factors)

Brand ethereality

A brand's capacity to allow consumers to dream and fantasize about idealized or aspirational lifestyles through luxurious and exclusive imagery

Status signaling

The deliberate motivation to display social position, wealth, and elite group membership through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods

Actual self-congruency

The alignment between a brand's identity and the consumer's actual self-image; motivates engagement when the brand feels like a genuine extension of who you are

Enhance and maintain face

Using online brand interactions to protect and improve one's public reputation, dignity, and social respectability

Why luxury brand followers often don't own the products

They engage for aspiration, fantasy, and status signaling rather than as actual customers; the dreaming function drives engagement

Br-UGC (Brand-related UGC) — four characteristics

1. Visual 2. Often includes a brand mention 3. Used strategically 4. Comes from trusted sources

Why Br-UGC is more powerful than influencer marketing

It shows real experiences from trusted sources rather than paid endorsements, making it more credible and more likely to bypass the advertising radar

Persuasion knowledge

A consumer's awareness that they are being persuaded by an advertisement; once activated it triggers skepticism and resistance to the message

Advertising radar

The consumer's automatic detection mechanism that identifies content as advertising and reduces its persuasive impact

Functional vs emotional content strategies

Functional strategies (direct promotion) activate persuasion knowledge; emotional and inspiring strategies are less likely to trigger the advertising radar

Four brand content takeaways

1. The sender makes the difference 2. Authenticity is crucial 3. Subtlety works 4. Match strategy to the source

Social community (definition)

A platform or space focused on the collective activities of users who share similar interests or identities, emphasizing relationships, conversations, and collaboration

Primary reason for participating in social communities

Social interaction — establishing and maintaining relationships with others who share similar interests or identities

Three characteristics that differentiate social media sites

1. Audience specialization (internal vs external) 2. Social objects that mediate relationships (existing network vs shared interest) 3. Openness (open vs closed)

Open social media platforms

Platforms allowing one-to-many or one-to-everyone communication such as Facebook, Instagram, and X

Closed social media platforms

Platforms restricting access and creating more intimate trust-based environments such as WhatsApp groups or private communities

Internal vs external social community audiences

Internal audiences are employees (e.g. Microsoft Viva Engage); external audiences are customers and the public (e.g. LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook)

Brand takeaways for social communities (3)

1. Ensure presence on relevant community sites 2. Interact with your target audience where they already are 3. Encourage content sharing within communities

The 90-9-1 rule of brand-related social media use

90% are consumers (lurkers), 9% are contributors (occasional sharing), 1% are creators (loyal brand ambassadors producing original content)

Why engagement quality matters more than fan count

Most of your community (90%) are lurkers who are still influenced but invisible in metrics; a smaller engaged community produces more value than a large passive one

Why do customers befriend brands? (3 reasons)

1. Identity expression — the brand reflects who they are 2. Showing their ideal self — the brand signals aspirational identity 3. Social capital — association brings status or belonging

Three brand engagement strategies

1. Conversations 2. Real-time marketing 3. UGC contest campaigns (participatory advertising)

Conversations (engagement strategy)

Actively initiating and participating in dialogue with consumers through replies, questions, and content that invites responses; the foundation of community building

Real-time marketing (engagement strategy)

Reacting to current events, trends, or cultural moments at the right time to generate organic reach; high reward when executed well, high risk if tone is misjudged

UGC contest campaigns / participatory advertising

Inviting consumers to create their own branded content through challenges, photo contests, or review campaigns; most trusted and widely spread because it comes from peers not brands

Brand ambassadors

Consumers who voluntarily and enthusiastically promote a brand to their own network, created through sustained brand engagement strategies

Kaur et al. 2020 — research question

What is the effect of brand community identification and reward on consumer brand engagement, and how does engagement affect brand loyalty in virtual brand communities?

Kaur et al. 2020 — causal chain

Brand community identification + Reward → Consumer brand engagement → Brand loyalty

Brand community identification (Kaur et al. 2020)

The degree to which consumers identify with an online community, creating emotional belonging with both the brand and fellow members; directly increases engagement

Reward (Kaur et al. 2020)

Utilitarian benefits (discounts, information, early access) and hedonic benefits (entertainment, enjoyment) offered through community participation; directly drives engagement

Consumer brand engagement — four dimensions (Kaur et al. 2020)

1. Conscious attention 2. Affection 3. Enthused participation 4. Social connection

Partial mediation (Kaur et al. 2020)

Consumer brand engagement partially mediates the relationship between identification/reward and brand loyalty; identification and reward also have some direct effect on loyalty

Virtual brand communities

Specialized, non-geographically bound online networks based on social communication and relationships among consumers of a specific brand

Why similarity matters in brand communities

Consumers engage more deeply with brands and communities where they feel genuine commonality with other members or with the brand identity; identification is stronger when similarity is high

What is the most important difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing?

The consumer has much more input in SMM — they participate in all stages of the marketing process and become part of the distribution channel through sharing

Statement 1: Push communication is bottom-up communication. Statement 2: Pull communication involves a lot of interaction between company and consumer. Which is correct?

Statement 1 is incorrect — push is top-down. Statement 2 is correct — pull involves high interaction and the consumer actively seeks out content

A brand posts inspiring travel content that subtly features their product without directly promoting it. Why is this strategy effective?

It bypasses persuasion knowledge by using an emotional and social angle; content with an inspiring angle is less likely to be recognized as advertising, keeping the advertising radar inactive

A fitness brand wants to build an engaged community on social media. According to U&G theory, what should they do first?

Understand why their target audience uses the specific platform — identify their motives (e.g. information seeking, social interaction, escapism) and align content strategy with those motives

A luxury fashion brand has 2 million followers but very low engagement. A niche streetwear brand has 50,000 followers with extremely active comments and sharing. Which brand has a more valuable social media presence and why?

The streetwear brand — engagement quality matters more than reach or fan count; an active engaged community produces more actual brand ambassadors, UGC, and loyalty than a large passive following

A gaming company creates a Facebook group for their most loyal players where they share exclusive updates and collect product feedback. Which community characteristic makes this effective and which Kaur et al. finding supports it?

It is a closed community based on shared interest; Kaur et al. shows that brand community identification drives consumer brand engagement, which in turn builds brand loyalty — the exclusivity strengthens identification

Explain why earned media is both the most powerful and most dangerous media type

Earned media has the largest reach of all three media types but the brand has the least control over the message; positive eWOM spreads further than any paid campaign, but negative eWOM (including firestorms) is equally uncontrollable

A consumer follows a luxury car brand on Instagram but has never bought one and cannot afford to. According to Bazi et al. 2020, which motivations explain this behavior?

Brand ethereality (dreaming about an aspirational lifestyle), status signaling (being associated with the brand signals taste), hedonic motivation (entertainment from beautiful content), and aesthetic motivation (pleasure from design appeal)

Why does Br-UGC outperform influencer marketing according to lecture 2?

Br-UGC comes from trusted everyday sources showing real experiences; it is visual, credible, and authentic; influencer marketing is increasingly recognized as paid promotion and triggers persuasion knowledge more quickly