COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER SUBSCRIPTION OF VARIOUS SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.

Faridh Khan

Nivas

Shyam Prasad

Dhanabal

Subhashini

Bharathidasan Institute of Management

ABSTRACT :

A social networking service is an online service which provides a platform for building social network or social relations among people. The use of social networks has risen dramatically over the last few years as users have reached out to friends, new acquaintances and businesses through this new means of communication. India is one of the biggest growing markets for Community network. The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook., Myspace, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google + more than quadrupled from 2005. We are focusing on determining the factors that contribute to  social networking sites being the centre of attraction in this new era of 21stcentury. This paper aims at comparing the various factors that influence consumer subscription of Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter and Google+. Through the usage of Principal Component Analysis, Varimax Rotation and Paired Comparitive Analysis, this research examines constructs that influence consumer attitudes toward social networks and their intentions to use, continue using, and recommend social networks. The findings indicate that applications, security and privacy features available, the personal image the site provides it’s members, level of interactive ness that a social networking site offers can be the strongest positive factors influencing user attitudes or intentions with regard to social networks.

Key Words : Social networking, Facebook, Google+, factors

I.INTRODUCTION :

Boyd and Ellison (2005) define social networking sites as , “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. A social network service consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web-based and provide means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Social networking websites  have grown in popularity and number recently, particular since 2003 (Boyd and Ellison, 2005). The success or failure of a particular social networking website depends primarily on the consumer subscription rates. This research attempts to find what factors influence the customers to use these social networking sites, whilst trying to define and model the relationships so that site builders and society alike can benefit from the results. In this paper we present the literature review and our hypothesis followed by methodology, data analysis, results and discussion, and scope for future research.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW :

Today's world is a place where innovation is the norm and technology transforms everything. Today's society like everything else is transformed by technology in a way previously Unthought -of Old methods of communicating in social circles have been

redefined over the web as web based social networks (Atukorala, K.W.). James M.Curran and Ron Lennon (2011) in their research using the relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions established in the Theory of Reasoned Action and applied to technology use by the Technology Acceptance Model, this research examines constructs that influence consumer attitudes toward social networks and their intentions to use, continue using, and recommend social networks. The findings indicate that the level of enjoyment derived from using social networks is the strongest positive influence and that the drama associated with behaviors of others on the social network can be the strongest negative influence. These findings also show that the constructs of ease of use and usefulness made popular by the Technology Acceptance Model play no significant role influencing user attitudes or intentions with regard to social networks. Hu & Ramirez (2006) have found in an empirical analysis that the social networking websites are used primarily for posting profiles, creating impressions, cultivating image, and enjoying.

III. SECONDARY RESEARCH

2012 2011Facebook

63.18% 64.50%

Google+ 0.58% 0.01%Twitter 1.73% 1.34%LinkedIn 0.77% 0.63%

LinkedIn , Facebook and Twitter – In different Leagues:

Facebook is massive in scale and scope. It is more personal and involves majorly ‘being in touch’ with friends and family. Photo-sharing and video uploading play occupy the dominant position in activities carried out on facebook. Twitter is a public communication forum, when a person follows another, it is not necessary that the other person reciprocates. It is more to do with publicity and most of the celebrities use this as a medium to reach out to their fans and the public. LinkedIn is, simply, a professional network. It is a professional network, which has monetized its connections through its tremendous power as a corporate recruitment platform.So comparing attributes and growth across these three completely different sites would not make much sense and would not throw up tangible results.

On the other hand Facebook and Google+ both fall under the same category. In fact pundits were of the opinion that Google+ was launched to provide direct competition to Facebook. But Google+ has not been able to match its initial sensational ascent with a sustained growth in terms of subscriptions. The backgrounds of the two sites and the factors leading to this variation in subscription are discussed here.

Facebook:

Facebook was invented by Harvard computer science student Mark Zuckerberg , along with classmates Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. Initially it was started as network for connecting to students within the college. It then slowly spread to other universities and finally Feb 4, 2004 Facebook went online to the public. It easily uprooted the existing social networking sites like orkut and grew at a rapid pace. From jus 1Million users in Dec 2004, Facebook has crossed 1Billion users (a eight of the world’s population) in Oct 2012. It now enjoys around 63% market share. Facebook recently acquired the photosharing app Instagram for 100Million. This has further strengthened its photo sharing abilities, which has always been its USP. Analysts predict this move has further increased Facebook’s userbase.

IV. HYPOTHESIS :

James M.Curran and Ron Lennon (2011) in their research using the relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions established in the Theory of Reasoned Action and applied to technology use by the Technology Acceptance Model, this research examines constructs that influence consumer attitudes toward social networks and their intentions to use, continue using, and recommend social networks. The findings indicate that the level of enjoyment derived from using social networks is the strongest positive influence. Therefore,

H1: Applications, Instagram, video chat features, games, photo tagging that dictate the level of enjoyment in a social networking website has a direct and positive impact on influencing the increased consumer subscription to Facebook compared to Google+.

Hu & Ramirez (2006) have found in an empirical analysis that the social networking websites are used primarily for posting profiles, creating impressions, cultivating image, and enjoying. Hence we propose our second hypothesis as below.

H2 : Factors like trend, member of a particular website being a style statement has a direct and positive influence on the consumer subscription of Facebook compared to Google+.

V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY :

5.1 Data Collection Procedure

An online Survey 1 was administered to youngsters who are the active members of social networking websites. This survey was determined to identify those factors that influence consumer subscription for any social networking website. This was followed by another online survey2 which was again administered to youngsters to determine why facebook grows at a higher rate than google+ in terms of consumer subscription.

5.2 Sampling Method

A convenient sampling was done for both the surveys. This is because we aimed at tech savvy youngsters who were active members of social networking sites. A total of 144 and 68 responses were received for Survey 1 and Survey 2 respectively.

5.3 Questionnaire Description

Survey 1

The survey 1 questionnaire mainly focused on the factors that were perceived to be the reasons for influencing consumer subscription for any social networking website. A likert scale of 1 – 5 range was used to capture the importance of every factor as perceived by the respondents in using a particular social networking website.

Survey 2

The survey 2 questionnaire mainly focused on determining those factors that contribute to the high growth rate of facebook when compared to that of google+. A paired comparison scale was used to understand the ratings of the respondent for a particular factor with respect to facebook and google+.

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

SPSS software tool was used to perform factor analysis on the results of Survey 1. Principal Component Analysis. PCA is done by eigenvalue decomposition of data covariance matrix. As a result of this the set of factors (31 factors) that was available for survey 1 was converted to into a set of values of linearly uncorrelated variables called ‘principal components’ (11 components). The available data was then rotated by varimax rotation as a result of which each individual factor can be well described by a linear combination of only a few basis functions. The results are summarized in the following table. Those factors under a component whose eigen values are greater than 0.6 are the set of linearly uncorrelated variables.

Rotated Component Matrix(a)

Component

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11Identity

0.3080.14

20.065 0.109 0.219

-0.08

00.109 0.545

-0.027

0.412

-0.136

Gender_Diversity -0.085

0.060

0.124-

0.0310.013

0.033

0.003 0.850-

0.0770.03

7-

0.001Dicussion_forum

0.0400.09

4-

0.062-

0.0030.034

0.070

0.376 0.049-

0.0020.70

0-

0.126Peer_presence

0.018-

0.062

0.232 0.102 0.001-

0.084

-0.256

0.070 0.1070.68

10.114

Gossiping0.427

-0.16

20.070 0.171

-0.295

0.333

0.191 0.037 0.314-

0.234

-0.231

Advertisement0.217

0.174

-0.169

0.054 0.0890.25

10.016 0.058 0.098

-0.18

20.646

Impression0.477

0.198

0.014 0.103 0.2200.09

0-

0.0850.149 0.548

-0.14

90.054

Resistance_to_change0.118

0.050

-0.018

-0.020

0.040-

0.022

-0.002

-0.137

0.8260.13

7-

0.031

Entertainment0.089

0.269

0.008-

0.0430.241

0.060

0.632 0.294 0.1380.05

0-

0.011Communication 0.271 0.66 0.003 - - 0.15 0.211 0.061 - - 0.055

6 0.080 0.003 1 0.0980.09

4Awareness

0.1000.13

80.218

-0.019

0.0270.77

9-

0.0830.141 0.023

0.170

0.106

Criticism0.114

0.014

-0.063

0.093 0.0630.75

30.135

-0.120

0.005-

0.156

0.072

Youth_trend0.673

0.172

0.029-

0.0590.416

0.025

0.038-

0.2220.162

-0.01

50.057

Style_statement0.849

0.144

-0.031

0.049 0.200-

0.005

0.027-

0.0950.059

0.054

0.178

Image0.771

-0.03

9

-0.009

-0.146

0.0480.34

30.076 0.210

-0.004

0.067

0.115

Competitive_value0.687

0.193

-0.019

0.271-

0.2190.01

60.023 0.037 0.097

0.059

0.067

Interface -0.021

0.481

0.238-

0.1410.458

0.217

0.058 0.082 0.0840.27

5-

0.073Virality

0.0810.22

5-

0.1050.044 0.557

0.247

-0.123

0.352 0.346-

0.081

0.075

Simplicity -0.339

0.274

0.114 0.018 0.0620.31

00.352 0.305 0.308

0.017

0.225

Level_of_interactiveness

-0.028

0.769

0.101 0.109 0.036-

0.052

0.069 0.077 0.2230.16

40.188

Preference_list0.216

0.585

0.198 0.334 0.184-

0.080

-0.054

-0.023

0.099-

0.077

-0.055

Acess_to_add_frnd0.165

0.559

0.236 0.153 0.3070.34

90.168 0.130

-0.072

-0.01

8

-0.143

Security0.007

0.135

0.904 0.109 0.0480.11

50.033 0.018 0.005

0.048

0.027

Privacy -0.063

0.163

0.899 0.117 0.0450.06

6-

0.0290.104 0.000

0.119

-0.043

Video_chat0.050

0.178

0.122 0.769-

0.054

-0.02

40.083 0.248 0.086

-0.00

4

-0.059

Mobile_APP0.166

0.058

0.066 0.743 0.2250.01

90.166

-0.037

-0.206

-0.02

20.169

Instagram-

0.087

-0.04

70.030 0.793 0.028

0.129

-0.052

-0.200

0.1190.13

50.205

Tagging_photo0.154

0.086

0.154 0.186 0.815-

0.016

0.197 0.022 0.0140.05

30.012

Ebusiness0.127

-0.02

60.131 0.195

-0.040

0.004

0.067-

0.074-

0.0760.08

40.781

Hassle_free_network0.064

-0.00

90.553

-0.092

0.218-

0.163

0.560 0.152-

0.062

-0.06

00.134

Presence_of_Games0.041

0.080

-0.010

0.295-

0.0700.10

00.772

-0.225

-0.124

0.051

0.062

H1 : A second survey carried out using a paired comparison scale to rate the identified components in terms of facebook and google+ revealed that they enjoy using facebook for the level of entertainment it provides through the applications, games, photo tagging, video chats, instagrams and other exciting features getting introduced every other day. Thus hypothesis H1 holds in that the level of enjoyment that a particular social networking website is one of the main reasons for the increased consumer subscription for that website, in this case facebook rather than google+.

H2 : The second survey also proves H2 in that youngsters prefer being members of a particular website because they feel doing so builds their personal image as being a member of a particular website, in this case the facebook, is viewed as a trendy and style statement.

Besides these factors the research also identified that the privacy and security features and the level of interaction or communication that facebook facilitates also are major factors that fosters the consumer subscription rate for facebook.

VII. CONCLUSION :

VIII. REFERENCES :

Shailja Agarwal, Monika Mital (2009), “An exploratory study of Indian university students’ use of social networking web sites: Implications for the workplace”, Business Communication Quarterly / March 2009

James M. Curran, Ron Lennon(2011), “Participating in the conversation: Exploring usage of social media networking sites”, Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, Volume 15, Special Issue, Number 1, 2011

http://www.businessinsider.com/secrets-to-facebooks-success-2012-5?op=1

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/27/secrets-of-facebooks-success-identity/

http://chimprawk.blogspot.in/2006/05/facebooks-critical-success-factors.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2009784/Facebooks-success-revealed-Sharing-gossip-friends-addictive-arousing.html

http://askville.amazon.com/facebook-successful-orkut/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=6250375