Introduction - Giving too much social support: social overload on social networking sites

Social networking sites (SNS) have become well-established online services in the daily lives of individuals. A key functionality of SNS such as Facebook is networking with others (Koroleva et al, 2011). The primarily function of SNS is to post private or public messages to contacts (Krasnova et al, 2010; Tow et al, 2010). While some messages exchanged over SNS provide neutral information (I am waiting for the bus), others are social requests demanding reaction and assistance (Help me! I need an apartment in New York!, I am sick. Cross your fingers for my recovery!; I’m bored – entertain me!). The number of messages a user receives increases with the number of her social relationships embedded in SNS (Manago et al, 2012). As a result, SNS users might be confronted with an increasing number of social requests that require some form of reaction. This raises questions about the consequences of increasing SNS usage on a user’s life (Brandtzaeg, 2012; Amichai-Hamburger, 2013). On the one hand, social embeddedness through SNS can benefit SNS users, who experience more social support than non-SNS users (Hampton et al, 2011). On the other, users can be drawn into exhausting social situations. In particular, the many social relations enabled in SNS might cause users to feel they are giving too much social support in SNS to individuals embedded in their social network out of a sense of duty to respond to social support requests. We call this newly observed phenomenon ‘social overload’, and we will develop a theory of its impact in this paper. Social overload might have negative psychological and behavioral consequences. Such consequences, as elaborated in studies based on non-IT enabled social networks (Bliese & Britt, 2001) and social support theory (SST) (Caplan, 1974; Cassel, 1976; Cobb, 1976), emphasize the need to better understand the social exhaustion phenomenon, its drivers, and consequences in IT-enabled SNS as well. Some consequences may range from short-term exhaustion to long-term physiological, social, and/or psychological harm (Tarafdar et al, 2010) and could result in users reducing or complete stopping platform usage.

This research aims at identifying the possible negative effects of SNS usage on the individual (Brandtzaeg, 2012; Turel & Serenko, 2012; Amichai-Hamburger, 2013), as SNS replace other individual communication channels. In addition to being used to post personal messages to private and public social networks, SNS are also used by organizations in marketing (Culnan et al, 2010) and recruiting (Weitzel et al, 2009; Leidner et al, 2010) to communicate with external stakeholders, and for internal business communication (Majchrzak et al, 2009; Koch et al, 2012). In addition to causing stress, if social overload leads to reduction or stopping SNS channel usage, it could threaten user participation in social media. A better understanding of SNS is necessary to avoid such negative consequences, as well as those observed with other communication media (e.g., Barley et al, 2011).

The goal of this paper is to understand the phenomenon of social overload, its antecedents, and its consequences for the individual. As defined above, social overload is the negative perception of SNS usage when users receive too many social support requests and feel they are giving too much social support to other individuals embedded in their virtual social network. Increasing SNS usage for both private and professional communication and the societal need to understand drivers of possibly negative physiological, social, and psychological consequences of IT-enabled SNS motivate our research question: What are the antecedents of social overload and its consequences for SNS users?

In the following, we first discuss SNS as a technology enabling social connections among individuals and organizations and introduce SST as the theoretical base for developing the concept of social overload. Second, we develop social overload as a theoretical variable and derive hypotheses for its drivers and consequences. Third, using a study with 571 SNS users, we empirically evaluate social overload and the hypotheses. We then discuss the results, limitations, and implications for research and for practice.

Further more information about this articles, please you check on European Journal of Information Systems or e-mail christian.maier@uni-bamberg.de.

By Christian Maier, Sven Laumer, Andreas Eckhardt & Tim Weitzel

Repost by Acarre Community Media

5 Tips for Creating Quality Social Media Content

The secret to a successful social media presence is generating original, high-quality content.

Publishing content that gets widely shared on social media is good for business. Every time your content is Liked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter, +1 on Google+, or shared on LinkedIn, it gets a stamp of approval — boosting its reach along with your website traffic, lead generation, and search engine optimization. And once you publish highly shareable content repeatedly, your social media clout will rise — expanding the influence and the reach of your company.

Producing such content consistently and frequently is a major challenge. It requires dedication, creativity, insight, industry knowledge, a unique perspective, and excellent writing skills.

Here are five tips for generating content that likely will be shared.

1. Newsjacked Content
2. Statistical Content
3. Case Studies
4. Infographics
5. Visual Content

Conclusion
No matter which medium you choose, your content must resonate with your audience. Create a compelling title, one that is clear, concise, and relevant — and maybe even slightly mysterious.

Invigorate your social media marketing with these content ideas, and you will see that content being shared across the web.

Further more information to this articles, please visit at WebMarketing Today.

By Yasmin Bendror
Repost by Acarre Community Media (R & D Team)

Instagram: 6 Content Tips for Small Businesses

Instagram, the popular photo-based social media platform, is not just for celebrities and tweens. It can help small businesses increase their exposure, and generate leads and sales.

Adding yet another social media channel to your marketing mix might seem daunting; you have to produce more unique content to provide real value for users. However, with Instagram, all you need is an iPhone or Android to get started. Instagram’s 100 million users and 4 billion photos make it a channel worth exploring. Here are six content keys for creating an effective Instagram presence.

1. Showcase Company Culture and History
2. Promote Sales, Offers, Events
3. Host a Contest
4. Provide Insider Access
5. Feature Your Fans and Advocates
6. Leverage the Power of Hashtags

Summary
Companies of all sizes can benefit from having an Instagram presence. With an iPhone or Android and a little time, you can be off and running. Test your content, find what resonates with your followers, and continually add new things to the mix. For more articles please at WebMarketing Today.

By Tina Kelly
Repost by Acarre Community Media

How to Tweet for your Business: 9 Pointers

Twitter can be a helpful social media platform for your business. It’s a way to connect with or find your customers, partners and vendors, follow thought leaders, and keep up with your competition. In short, it’s an easy way to get your message out and stay abreast of your industry.

An effective Twitter presence starts with understanding how it works. Here are nine pointers.

1. Usernames
2. Mentions
3. Replies
4. Retweets
5. Hashtags
6. Favorites
7. Direct Messages
8. Keep Tweets Short and Sweet
9. Create and Use Twitter Lists

Basic Rules
To maintain a successful Twitter presence:

1. Tweet great content 3 to 4 times a day;
2. Reply to conversations;
3. Retweet other people’s content;
4. Be easy to retweet and follow

Further more information for this articles please at WebMarketing Today.

 By Yasmin Bendror

Repost by Acarre Community Media

10 Ways to Improve EdgeRank on your Facebook Page

With over a billion users spread across the globe, Facebook is increasingly becoming the “home page from home” for millions of people, who likely include your customers.
A Facebook user has an average of 234 friends and is connected to an average of 80 community pages, groups, and events. The 18-to-24 year-old Facebook user demographic is double this figure, as those users on average have a whopping 510 Facebook friends.
With this many connections, the newsfeed of Facebook users’ would lead to a mess of updates from the people and pages they are connected to if there were no mechanism for determining which page and friends’ activities appeared in their feed. This mechanism is EdgeRank.

The Basics of EdgeRank
EdgeRank is one of the most important ways Facebook sorts content in its users’ newsfeeds. EdgeRank ranks “Edges”; an Edge is anything anyone does on Facebook. It’s a generic term for a single piece of activity and it covers everything from liking a post to posting a status update to sharing a link. Every time you do something on Facebook you create an Edge. That Edge is then ranked according to three criteria: Affinity, Weight, and Recency (or Time Decay).

Affinity
The “Affinity of an Edge” is a measure of the relationship between a Facebook user and an Edge. As an example, if you post status updates to your Facebook business page and your fans regularly comment, share, or like on your posts — referred to as “the Edge,” they have high “Affinity” and are more likely to see updates from your page. Alternatively, fans with little or no interaction see less of your status updates due to their low Affinity score.
Importantly, Affinity is measured by frequency of your fans interaction with your business page and not the frequency of your interaction with your fans.

Weight
The “Weight of an Edge” measures the value of the Edge to the user. This “value” or weight is determined by the type of interaction made by the user with the Edge.
Although Facebook does not explicitly reveal the precise details of its weighting system, as a general rule posts with photos, videos, and links attract more Weight than plain text updates. Thus, incorporating objects with higher Weight scores into your posts generally increases the likelihood of your posts turning up in your fans’ newsfeed. And if your fans like, share, or comment, your page gains Affinity.

Time Decay or Recency
The “Time Decay” of an Edge measures its age.
Simply put, the older an Edge, the less likely it is to appear in users’ newsfeeds, as it is old news.

New Edges naturally perform better than older ones. However old updates or Edges that have a continuous stream of comments behave a little bit differently — their Time Decay is typically calculated on the basis of the timing of the last comment. This could be deemed a signal of the relevance of the information in the update.

When marketing your business on Facebook, it is important that your updates and marketing messages get delivered to your fans’ feeds. The ten tactics below will help improve your page’s reach.

1. Post Videos to Improve Weight
2. Improve Affinity by Short, Tweet-like Posts
3. Ask your Fans Questions
4. Improve Affinity with Visual Posts
5. Post Images with a Text Message to Increase Weight and Affinity
6. Post Frequently
 7. Use Hashtags
8. Check your Insight Metrics
9. Post at Appropriate Times
10. Post at Times When your Competition Isn’t Posting

Summary
EdgeRank is increasingly important as Facebook both commercializes and attempts to retain its social model. EdgeRank is a metric of how much Facebook thinks your fans should care about your posts. Give them a reason to care. EdgeRank rewards interactions, but you can use it to figure out how to generate interactions too. Further more information please at
WebMarketing Today.

By Kunle Campbell

Repost by Acarre Community Media

Facebook Video Ads ("Could Appear In Newsfeeds As Soon As July")

The online battle for TV ad dollars continues to heat up. Yahoo, AOL, YouTube among others, and now Facebook are all facebook-logo-newaiming their sites on the burgeoning online video ad market and a share of TV’s outsized ad budgets. As first reported in December, Facebook has been shopping new video ad units to agencies. Now it appears Facebook will be bringing video ads to users’ newsfeeds in July, according to The Financial Times.

The video ads will appear in newsfeeds on desktop computers as well tablets and smartphones and be set to autoplay on mute. If a user clicks on a video ad, it will restart with sound. Facebook is reportedly seeking CPMs in the “low $20s”, a bit lower than the average $29 CPM of broadcast television according to MagnaGlobal.

Among the concerns from analysts and others are how users will react to having yet another form of advertising in their newsfeeds, as well as how the load time of video will affect user experience on mobile devices. Performance on mobile is of particular concern for Facebook as it works to allay investor worries that it has not moved quickly enough to monetize mobile traffic. The company showed a 54% increase year-over-year in mobile users in its Q1 2013 earnings, and mobile advertising accounted for roughly 30% of advertising revenue during the quarter. Yet, the company’s stock price has been hovering under $30 since February.

For more information this post, please visit Marketingland

By Ginny Marvin

Repost Acarre Community Media

Marketing in the Digital Age

The digital domain is quickly becoming one of the world's great marketplaces. Maximizing its potential means starting with a well-thought-out strategy and a plan for using a growing lineup of digital tools in the new world of marketing. For read more click below to download articles.

Marketing in Digital Age (7.4 MB)  
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By Bo Bothe

References from Acarre Community Media

Social Media Principle 6 – Be Open and Be Human (Reprint)

Social marketing earns, not buys attention so have an opinion, be true to what you say, be of value, be open - above all be human.

"Ask not what your customers can do for you; ask what you can do for your customers" Stan Rapp

As 'markets become conversations' customer relationships and advertising models are changing for good. Passive consumption becomes active interaction. Monologue becomes dialogue. Control becomes collaboration. Customers are empowered, well informed, connected. Companies are becoming more transparent whether they like it or not.

It's an environment in which the balance of effective communication shifts from being less about interruption to more about participation, less about delivering a message to more about being part of a conversation, less about what you say to people and more about what people are saying about you.

It's an environment, which operates to social principles - creating not subtracting value, serving a larger purpose than your own, being useful, facilitating.

It's an environment in which the more human elements matter - having a point of view, being true to yourself and what you say, being open, honest, transparent. Ford use social media to (in the words of Scott Monty) "humanize the Ford brand and put consumers in touch with Ford employees", and regularly reach out to bloggers for feedback and to encourage the spread of positive word of mouth.

Zappos believe that their "culture is their brand" and use social media to create touch points throughout every area of their business and ensure customer service isn't just a department, it’s the entire company. Authenticity is the currency that encourages trust, involvement, and engagement. Authenticity is what turns an audience into a following. To find out more about Jon and receive access to some awesome FREE gifts, go to: - http://whoisjonleuty.com

Author : Jon Leuty
Repost : Acarre Community Media