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Are you and your friends just alike?

Photo by Chan on Unsplash

Connecting with anyone socially is vital to a person’s existence. In 2019, those connections tend to be digitally. One of the reasons connecting with people digitally is much easier than doing so in person is because of the simplicity the interactions involve. When humans interact in real life, the amount of nonverbal information that is being processed is quite high compared to the interactions we have online. In person, we are constantly analyzing the non-verbal cues coming from the other person such as how they tweak their face, the inflection of their voice, and mannerisms, among other things (Margalit, 2014). The simplicity in the online conversation means that one can hide their emotions and true feelings. For instance, if a person was crying in real life while conversing, the topic of the conversation would be about the reason why the person was crying. Online, a person can hide behind their language used or use “emojis”, a smiley face which often characterized different emotions, to hide the crying.

Homophily is a trend of humans seeking out others who closely resemble themselves. This concept is especially true online, with one study done that was able to predict a person’s real-life relationship based on the relationship that person had on social media (University of Southampton, 2017). Another similar study showed that in a particular online game, a player’s friends consisted of those who were close in age, region, and who had similar experiences (University of Southampton, 2017).

Algorithms are a huge part of social media. Facebook is at the forefront of using these types of algorithms to enhance a person’s experience, in part due to their size and the length of time they’ve been around. They’re used for showing people what content they desire to see, based on the interactions they had previously, whether with items or with people (McClain, 2017). Twitter has also started a similar system, based on the user’s viewed tweets (McClain, 2017). According to AJ Agrawal, a marketer and advisor for various Fortune 500 companies “As technology becomes more advanced, algorithm-based feeds will become more intelligent and engagement will be the only metric that matters” (Agrawal, 2016).

   AJ Agrawal. (2016, April 21). What Do Social Media Algorithms Mean For You? Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/04/20/what-do-social-media-algorithms-mean-for-you/#44649d64a515

Margalit Ph.D, L. (2014, August 29). The Psychology Behind Social Media Interactions. Retrieved October 23, 2019, from Psychology Today website: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/behind-online-behavior/201408/the-psychology-behind-social-media-interactions

‌McClain, K. (2017, October 27). Do You Know What Homophily and Algorithms are Doing in Your Social Media? Retrieved October 24, 2019, from Medium website: https://medium.com/@menosfun/do-you-know-what-homophily-and-algorithms-are-doing-in-your-social-media-6b08e555aebb

University of Southhampton. (2017). Homophily in social networks - The Power of Social Media. Retrieved October 23, 2019, from FutureLearn website: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/social-media/0/steps/16055

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[confusedguy921-blog]

Social Media And You!

Capturing Attention in Social Media

Social media has become the great equalizer for notoriety. Before the invention of social media, the chances of a regular person becoming a household name were few and far between. But nowadays, there are numerous people who have gotten famous strictly from building their social network on one of the many platforms.

These social media all-stars, sometimes known as “influencers”, since they influence their followers towards certain things, know how to capture their audience’s attention. One of the ways to capture a social media following is by using visuals. Due to the wiring of the brain, we process images, via what we see, at a far faster rate than reading a word and comprehending the meaning of it (Merkel, 2018). This means: taking photos of yourself, of the food you eat, of the places you visit, or taking photos of seemingly benign stuff, just to allow the world into your life.  The next step is to make sure the UI or user interface, while browsing on a cell phone is seamless, just like it would be on a laptop (Merkel, 2018). This is especially true since the majority of people are around their smartphone more often than a computer. Finally, self-promotion is another way to capture the attention of your followers. By asking vague, generic questions or run a poll to engage your followers, can allow those to feel included in your activities. (Nurture, 2017). This can also be helpful if you are sponsored by a company and have giveaways, this can be beneficial to help engage your followers and grow your brand.

Maintaining Engagement in Social Media

Anyone can create a social media site, but those that do it best, engage their audience. Social media engagement is using the likes, comments, shares, and views on a social media page (BigCommerce, 2019). The sites that stick out and make people come back time and time again, work the best. One of the best proven ways to maintain engagement in social media is to ask questions. One doesn’t always have to ask traditional questions to achieve this. Asking your followers to participate in a poll, quizzing them on a subject, or asking them to give their impression on a hot subject, all work (Feldman, 2019). Another engagement is having giveaways or having a competition for prizes (Feldman, 2019. The drive to win is a huge driving force for many people. This drive can be used to your advantage in the form of likes or shares. Winning money or the equivalent of money can be helpful to engage followers but so can saving money. Those who are lucky enough to get a sponsor can give their followers a deal on the sponsorship, receive their shipping on the products they order for free, or receive deals that are only available to the followers of that social media personality.

 References

Everywhere, S., Started, G., marketplaces, Amazon, shop, & searches et al. (2019). 

What is social media engagement?

. 

BigCommerce

. Retrieved 16 October 2019, from https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-is-social-media-engagement/ Feldman, B. (2019). 

5 Proven Social Media Engagement Strategies for 2019

. 

Blog.hubspot.com

. Retrieved 16 October 2019, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/proven-social-media-engagement-strategies

Merkel, C. (2018). HERE IT IS!! Capturing Attention in Social Media. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@camerkel19/here-it-is-capturing-attention-in-social-media-b4cb10043d9c [Accessed 15 Oct. 2019].

7 ways to grab your customer's attention on social media - Nurture

. (2017). 

Nurture

. Retrieved 15 October 2019, from https://www.thenurturenetwork.co.uk/7-ways-to-grab-your-customers-attention-on-social-media/