Active Social Media Use Research Articles

Leading in the digital age: A study of how social media are transforming the work of communication professionals

This study examined: (1) how communication professionals’ understanding of social media’s strategic role was associated with their active social media use, and (2) how strategic social media management was related to communication professionals’ leadership behaviors. Analysis of an online survey from a national sample of communication professionals (n=461) revealed the following. First, social media use was closely related to participants’ leadership behaviors. Second, years of experience, organizational type and size, size of communication staff, and professionals’ primary role as managers significantly impacted the social media use in communication-related work. Finally, communication professionals’ strategic vision about social media predicted their social media use.

Extraversion as a stimulus for user-generated content

Purpose– User-generated content comprises an important asset for many web sites. The purpose of this study is to show how extraversion, a basic dimension of human personality, is positively related to this activity, both directly and through its impact on social identity expressiveness.Design/methodology/approach– The data come from an online survey of 1,308 online users who actively contribute content to social media.Findings– The results support hypotheses that extraversion and social identity expressiveness are positively related to active use of social media web sites, and that extraversion is related to active use both directly and indirectly through social identity expressiveness.Research limitations/implications– The findings are limited to the selection of social media to which the participants belong and provide only a partial picture of the motives behind active use of such web sites. Despite the limitations, the findings do identity two active user motivations.Practical implications– An understanding of the psychology underlying active social media use can aid managers in developing marketing strategies to encourage such use. Strategies that emphasize one's ability to express oneself freely should enhance active use, especially for the more extraverted active users.Originality/value– This is the first study to combine both extraversion with social identity expressiveness to partially explain active use of social media, thus enhancing the understanding of the motivations for active use of social media.

Social network activity and contributing to an online review site

Purpose – The purpose of the studies was to test if extent of prior social media activity could predict likelihood that a consumer would post reviews on a new review website.Design/methodology/approach – Two online surveys were conducted presenting scenarios in which users were asked about prior social media activity, the number of social networks they belonged to in study one, and how actively they had posted reviews in study two. These questions were followed by descriptions of new review websites, a general local merchant review website in study one and a local restaurant review website in study two.Findings – Although demographics did a poor job of predicting who would post reviews on the new review websites, prior active social media use and review posting did modestly predict intention to post reviews on the new review websites.Research limitations/implications – This is not an experimental study and so causality cannot be claimed. Descriptively, although the results were consistent in two studies u...