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Social Connection

Factors that contribute to feeling connected in social media include virtual communities, live videos, photographs, people with similar interests, the ability to connect to people throughout the world, etc.

Social connection is desirable because humans have evolved to be social beings. Humans desires and needs are fulfilled by having connections with others (Baumeister & Bushman, 2016).

Homophily and Social Media

Fu et al. (2012), refer to homophily as being more likely to have a connection with individuals that share common traits or characteristics as ourselves. In the real world, without the internet, it is a struggle for some to find individuals and groups similar to them. Social media encourages homophily because those boundaries and limitations don’t exist (Gu et al., 2014). One of the benefits is the connection to others that are far away. For instance, offline someone in America would find a difficult time to find a similar individual in Japan. Another benefit of homophily in social media, is the ability to have a support system away from home.

Homophily and Platform Algorithms

Platform algorithms contribute to homophily by making new follower or friend suggestions based on the accounts individuals follow, users who follow individuals, and common interests (Chin et al., 2013). This is a common occurrence on Instagram, while Facebook goes even further by making suggestions based on those individuals are connected to on other social media platforms and contacts in phones.  

References

Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2016). Social psychology and human   

    nature (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Chin, A., Xu, B., & Wang, H. (2013, May 1). Who should I add as a "friend"?: a 

    study of friend recommendations using proximity and homophily. Retrieved   

    from  https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2463656.2463663

Fu, F., Nowak, M., Christakis, N. et al. The Evolution of Homophily. Sci Rep 2, 

    845 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep00845

Gu, B., Song, T., Bhattacharya, P., & Yang, M. (2014, September 25). Research 

    Note-The Allure of Homophily in Social Media: Evidence from 

    Investor Responses on Virtual Communities. Retrieved May 9,   

    2020, from https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/isre.2014.0531

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Attention and Engagement in Social Media

CAPTURING ATTENTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA

           Capturing attention in social media is presenting content in a way that draws users in. In order to get followers, likes, shares, replies, etc., It is important because without capturing attention, the account, or page, will be overlooked.

           One of the challenges faced in capturing attention in social media, is the fact that many viewers have short attention spans. Users of social media generally scroll quickly through their feed of posts made by friends, family, and other accounts they follow.

           Strategies for gaining viewer attention are:

                1. Utilizing the mere exposure effect theory (Zajonc, 2001). When an individual is shown something repeatedly, the more likely the individual is to favor it. This is done by posting as often as possible to your account, and by re-posting other people’s content

               2. Use visuals that will stand out (images, color schemes, font) (Chua & Banerjee, 2015).

               3. Create a unique username 

MAINTAINING ENGAGEMENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA

           Securing engagement in social media means that an account keeps other users’ interest in the content they post. It is important because the success of the accounts is dependent on the amount of followers they have. The more followers, the more likes, shares, and comments the account will gain, continuing its success.

           Strategies for social media engagement include:

                       1) The use of hashtags and mentions of other users in posts (Lahuerta-Otero & Cordero-Gutierrez, 2016).

                       2)  Creating contests

                       3) Joining an online community (Hall-Phillips et al., 2016).

REFERENCES

Chua, A. Y. K., & Banerjee, S. How Businesses Draw Attention on Facebook through Incentives, Vividness and Interactivity. IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, 42(3), 275-281.

Hall-Phillips, A., Park, J., Chung, T., Anaza, N. A., & Rathod, S. R. (2016). I (heart) social ventures: Identification and social media engagement. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), 484-491. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.005

Lahuerta-Otero, E., & Cordero-Gutiérrez, R. (2016). Looking for the perfect          tweet: The use of data mining techniques to find influencers on Twitter. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 575–583.

Zajonc, R. (2001). Mere Exposure: A Gateway to the Subliminal. Current Directions in Psychological