According to Facebook’s mission statement it exists to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Well, it gave us the power to share and by using this power we made the world more open. First, we shared with our friends what we found entertaining or informing. Then we started to post more personal stuff in our profiles. We became very concerned about what our profiles say about ourselves. In time, we became entrapped in the process because everyone we know and potentially the rest of world were so into it. We shared photos, videos, comments, our thoughts and feelings, hobbies, friends, friends of friends and eventually we started to share everything that serves our purpose of sharing. The important question is: What is that purpose? If marketers can get a clue on that, they’ll be able to provide people with stuff that will serve that particular purpose. Such content will naturally blend in and get disseminated through online publics with no cost at all.
Findings of our latest research suggests that impression management is the key motivation for sharing content in social networking sites and people purposefully share content in order to keep up their impressions. Before associating themselves with a particular content on social networking sites, people carefully judge how that association will reflect on their self-image. A profile is then perceived as an online representation of the self. So what we do in Facebook, as danah boyd so beautifully postulates, is essentially “writing ourselves into being”. People have the innate need for social approval and belongingness, and strive to establish desired social identities. Facebook is so widely adopted because it allows people to carefully structure their desired impressions by making selective self-disclosures and making their social associations (group memberships) known to the others, especially significant others. Well, existing market research shows that only a small portion of people actually create content. The majority of people just shares what they find online. Marketers can leverage this opportunity by providing people with stuff to share, because basically people are readily motivated to share. The lesson to take home here is that, people will more likely “pick-up and forward” a digital content when it fortifies their desired self-image. Therefore, in order to facilitate a strong viral effect, apart from employing the common practice of preparing shocking or entertaining content, marketers may also benefit from concentrating on the desired self-images of their target customers, figure out what kind of a sharing would enhance that self-image, and design brand-related content accordingly.
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