Why do social network site users share information on Facebook and Twitter?

Abstract

Users join social network sites (SNSs) for social network building and information sharing, however, little has been ascertained as to why users share information on SNSs. This study examined why SNS users share information, knowledge, and personal experiences with others on SNSs. Through an online survey, 10 motivation factors were tested with Facebook and Twitter users. The findings indicate that the motivations of SNS users in sharing information could be attributed to various aspects such as demographic characteristics, experiences of SNSs and Internet usage, as well as the characteristics and features of SNSs. SNS users could be highly motivated by the learning and social engagement aspects of SNS services. It is also found that the motivations could vary depending on the characteristics of services. The results of this study could be helpful for researchers in understanding the underlying reasons for social activities as well as for SNS developers in improving SNS services.

Generating Engagement on the Make Healthy Normal Campaign Facebook Page: Analysis of Facebook Analytics (Preprint)

“…The exception to this was Drink posts receiving more shares, suggesting that users find this content to be more novel, relevant, and interesting. [39] Further research is needed to explore these characteristics in more detail, underscoring the importance of evaluating Facebook campaigns and disseminating the results.…”

“…In addition, our results should only be considered in relation to Facebook, rather than as relevant to other social media platforms given the reasons for using different platforms varies. [39,42] Our post-level analysis was also limited by a relatively small sample size of only 392 posts; more posts would have given us greater power to detect differences between the post characteristics. Finally, our interpretation of the results is based on the assumption that generating engagement is a necessary precursor to population-level impacts but, as yet, there is little evidence available to support this assumption within public health.…”

Mavenismo: Un análisis de sus motivaciones

“…Relacionado con la gestión de la red de contactos se encuentra la motivación de conocer gente nueva y estar en contacto con estas personas como otra de las razones para publicar contenidos (Syn y Oh, 2015). Los mavens se rigen por beneficios sociales (Price, Feick, y Higie, 1987) y tienen interés por actividades sociales siendo caracterizados como extrovertidos (Brancaleone y Gountas, 2007), por lo que proponemos que:…”

Motivations for self‐archiving on an academic social networking site: A study on researchgate

“…We developed our motivational framework based on the two models of motivation: motivation for self‐archiving in academia (Kim, ) and motivation for sharing information via social media (Oh & Syn, ; Syn & Oh, ). The personal, social, and professional motivations, as well as external factors for self‐archiving, were identified and proposed in the current study.…”

“…To build our research framework of motivation for self‐archiving in ASNSs, we adapted two models of motivations: motivations for self‐archiving in academia (Kim, ) and motivations for sharing information in social media (Lee, Oh, Dong, Wang, & Burnett, ; Oh & Syn, ; Syn & Oh, ). Kim () defined self‐archiving as an act of uploading prerefereed, refereed, or unrefereed research articles, book chapters, and datasets on a variety of venues (personal, research group, and departmental websites, as well as disciplinary/institutional repositories).…”