Content sharing and tagging

From the company perspective, the most important engagement behavior is sharing content, as it allows the message to be spread to a large audience all at once without any cost on the part of the company. Moreover, company content shared by other users can be more successful in driving sales than content posted directly by a company (Godes & Mayzlin, 2009). At the same time, this might be the toughest engagement behavior to stimulate. As the following discussion shows, the motivation for active engagement in the form of sharing content is narrowed to providing value to one’s connections.

The following quotes show that the content must provide value to one’s friends for it to be shared on social media. It is not enough for the content to be interesting to the user for it to be shared with other people, as study participants write:

“A situation in which I’d engage in a social media post by a firm (and risk spamming my acquaintances) would be one which had some relevance or value to a large part of my friend list”

Narrative 8, male, 26 years old

“I did share the content as I thought many people will benefit from it, however, I did not pay much attention to it myself, as I already mentioned that I am a member”

Diary 13, female, 22 years old

“When I shared the content, it was usually privately sharing the link to some people because I believed it could benefit them”

Narrative 12, female, 24 years old

“I did share the content as I thought many people will benefit from it”

Diary 13, female, 22 years old

“I wouldn’t promote any ads unless I thought they were useful to some of my friends”

Narrative 24, male, 35 years old Providing value to one’s connections includes sharing information that benefits others, information that ‘others should know’, that is relevant to a large part of one’s friends list, or has possible social impact by raising awareness of important issues, propagating a good approach or idea, or the type of content which people in one’s social circle might like or benefit from.

Respondents also try to carefully target specific friends to whom the content might appeal the most:

“I could share some content of a company directly to my friend but not share the post on my own Facebook wall. I could share information that would be interesting in my friend’s point of view and he or she could benefit from that. On the other hand, I could tag my friend to some photo that he or she could go and see the information there. I think it’s better to share the information directly to a friend than use public platforms for that. On the other hand, if there would be something interesting to large group of people that would be better to post i.e. on Facebook to reach more people.”

Narrative 45, female, 22 years old

“I did not publicly share the content but I sent the link to one of my friends in my hometown as I thought she would like to go check out the store’s promotion”

Diary 22, female, 26 years old

“I tagged a friend to one of the fashion item pictures as I thought she would like it, and the price was pretty cheap”

Diary 2, male, 22 years old Providing content valued by others (through e.g. sharing/tagging) might allow individuals to earn network-based power. Labrecque et al. (2013) refers to the network-based power as “network actions designed to build personal reputation”

by providing value to others in the community (p. 263). This is achieved through e.g. engaging with the content, such as sharing, or commenting on social media.

Peer recognition and status earned within a community is directly correlated with the degree to which one contributes to it (Labrecque et al. 2013). Sharing content that others find of value provides individuals with recognition within their community (Labrecque et al., 2013).

Previous research reported that self-presentation or self-enhancement was also a motive for social media engagement or participation (Henning-Thurau et al., 2004; Krasnova et al. 2008; Nambisan & Baron 2007; Nov et al. 2009;

Teichmann et al. 2015). While self-presentation has not been mentioned in this study as a motive for active engagement per se, the respondents are conscious of actively engaging with any content that would hurt their image. With the desire to provide value to other users, consumers are very conscious of what others may think of them. Thus, users are careful that the content they post or share does not

destroy their image, even when they do not actively try to build their personal brand on social media:

I am very careful about how the content that I post will influence what other people think about me. So even though I will passively engage with this content and for instance watch or read it; if I feel this does not comply with some norms or the image how people perceive me I will not share this content.

Interview 10, 27 years old, female This approach is related to the concept of self-monitoring which constitutes the extent to which an individual is attentive to and regulates his or her expressive behavior and self-presentation following the social cues in order to present oneself in a socially desirable way (Gould 1993; Snyder 1979). Respondents claim they do not build their reputation online but are aware of what they share and what others may think of them. They consider the question “will others perceive me in a bad light if I post it” rather than “will sharing this content enhance my image?”. Those concerns are supported by the respondents mentioning they removed a friend from their friends list or decided to unfollow their updates, like the respondent in the following quote:

“If something bothers me, such as irritating advertisements or the religious attachment of people to Apple and other brands without any logical reason backing it up, I simply unfollow these friends”

Narrative 24, 35 years old, male

“I did unfollow the content from some of my friends... well not that many, maybe two or three. I also unfriended some because of what they post”.

Interview 3, female, 29 years old

“(...) so I just chose not to see his postings. It is there if he wants to communicate with me (...) it is ok, but I do not want to see his postings, and likewise there is another person too... (...) so I just had to say look I had to hide everything from him, I do not want to see his postings.”

Interview 2, male, 48 years old In summary, the key motive for content sharing or tagging is providing value to one’s connections, which entails sharing, or tagging content that will benefit others, that one’s connections find useful as it relates to their personal interests and relevant social issues that they would like to learn or should know about.

Previous studies point mainly to maintaining interpersonal connectivity,

strengthening ties with others, and social identity, or need for belonging and socializing, as social-related antecedents to participation in online communities or forwarding content (Dholakia et al. 2004; Eisenbeiss et al. 2012; Nambisan &

Baron 2007; Nov et al. 2010). However, the respondent diaries did not report sharing company content motivated by maintaining relationships with others without mentioning that the content provides value to one’s social circle. Thus, this research shows that it is by benefiting others that these relationships might be strengthened and that maintaining relationships with others or generating a feeling of belonging by sharing content is not an end in itself.