Social Media: Are we connecting people

Carr & Hayes (2015, p.50) defined social media as “Internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from user-generated content and the perception of interaction with others”. Their definition was created to provide the distinct area that will assist scholars in future research on the communication perspective of social media. Although the most common definition describes the technology behind social media, i.e., internet and user-generated content, their definition provides the rationale why users are into social media.

Social media interest me because it makes it easier to connect with people. It is a useful tool to me because it allows me to connect with my family using a smartphone and internet. My families are late bloomers because they still use a landline or cell phone until early this year when they signed up in Viber. However, I can check their Facebook profile to know what is happening to them.

Social media applications are accessible to any platform, e.g., smartphone, tablets, laptops, computer, etc. The functionalities include among others: a) messaging, b) virtual relationships such as friends, follower, or connection, and c) tweeting. Some users are always connected to their virtual self that takes most of their time away from a face-to-face relationship. An example is a group of friends who are having dinner and at the same time posting messages to their virtual profile. In this situation, I often asked if a virtual relationship is more important than the personal relationship.

LaRose, Connolly, Lee, Li & Hales (2014) studied the impact of social connections on our psychological well-being. The study showed that there is a cumulative effect of relationship demands across media and cultures. However, further studies are required to understand the complicated issue of communication overload. Indeed, we live in a world where everything is available online that sometimes we are always tempted to keep us with other people. Some people even suggested having digital detox within a week to remind us of what we missed when we are always connected to our virtual profile.

Social media provide the opportunity to build customer engagement in both business and consumer market (Sachi, 2012, p. 255). The interactive features allow businesses to connect to their clients as well as customers with fellow customers. As such, they can either add value to the product or influence the purchase decision of other people. Likewise, the organisation can use the social media platform to analyse customer behaviour which can help them formulate a business strategy (Chan, Lacka, Yee, & Lim, 2015, p. 1).

Social media is an affordable platform to build a business. However, there are risks associated when interacting directly with customers such as overloading them with marketing advertisements that may lead to negative results. The business can leverage the platform to their advantage without alienating their customers.

A study conducted by Mansour, (2016, p. 351) revealed that social networking sites, hackers, internet social engineer could easily get personal information from users’ profile and network behaviour profile. Likewise, a user’s personal attributes can be automatically and accurately inferred using Facebook Likes (Kosinski, Stillwell, & Graepel, 2013, p. 5805).

Predicting users preferences can improve product and services. An example is Amazon feature that displays similar products based on users’ viewing history. On the other hand, predicting users preferences can also lead to decreasing trust in online services such as privacy issues. As a user, what are we going to do with big data analytics that organisations use to increase their profit? How can we secure our personal information?

These are some of the implications of social media. In my succeeding blogs, I will explore more about social media and its effect on a personal relationship, business and customer relationship, and big data.

References:

Carr, C., & Hayes, R. (2015). Social Media: Defining, Developing, and Divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1), 46–65.

Chan, H. K., Lacka, E., Yee, R. W. Y., & Lim, M. K. (2015). The role of social media data in operations and production management. International Journal of Production Research, 1–10. http://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2015.1053998

Kosinski, M., Stillwell, D., & Graepel, T. (2013). Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), 5802–5805. http://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1218772110

LaRose, R., Connolly, R., Lee, H., Li, K., & Hales, K. D. (2014). Connection Overload? A Cross Cultural Study of the Consequences of Social Media Connection. Information Systems Management, 31(1), 59–73. http://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2014.854097

Mansour, R. F. (2016). Understanding how big data leads to social networking vulnerability. Computers in Human Behavior, 57, 348–351. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.055

Sashi, C. M. (2012). Customer engagement, buyer‐seller relationships, and social media. Management Decision, 50(2), 253–272. http://doi.org/10.1108/00251741211203551