Social Media

The term Social Networking Site has often been used interchangeably with the term social network site. The definition of the two terms are one the same. According Boyd and Ellison, social network sites are, “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.

The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.” The authors chose the term network instead of networking simply because the latter term emphasizes building new relations between people. Although SNS have allowed people to meet others, it appears that the main purpose of SNS is to communicate with people who are already part of their extended social network.

Social network sites are used in different ways and for different purposes. Users of such sites take advantage of its various features that allow them to do different things. One feature of social network sites that is considered advantageous is that it allows users to share information with each other.

Also, users have the option to share only the information that they want. Each user of each site has a profile page. This page contains a personalized description of the member.

Demographic details, tastes, videos and photographs are the common things found on profiles. (Boyd) From these pages, the users can share their information with others people. Also, some use SNS to share pictures and videos with their friends.

SNS are also useful for they allow users to build new relationships and maintain current ones. Some use such sites to meet new people. According to Lenhart and Madden, “For girls, social networking sites are places to reinforce pre-existing friendships, while for the boys who use the sites, the networks provide opportunities for flirting and making new friends.”

Social network sites are commonly utilized to communicate with friends. In a study conducted on why teens use social network sites, Lenhart and Madden found that, “91% of all social networking teens say they use the sites to stay in touch with friends they see frequently, while 82% use the sites to stay in touch with friends they rarely see in person.”

Whatever type of relationship it is, it is evident that social networking sites build and foster relationships particularly friendships.

Another reason why social networking sites are useful and popular is that it builds and strengthens communities. Social network sites allow users to choose the people who will become part of their network. These associations form the communities.

Choosing Friends in social network sites give the users a chance to write their communities into being. (Boyd). SNS creates and improves communities based on similarities between users. Some sites such as MySpace connect people based on shared interests. (Ellison et al)

Also some sites such as Facebook allow its members to, “Join virtual groups based on common interests, see what classes they have in common, and learn each others’ hobbies, interests, musical tastes, and romantic relationship status through the profiles.” (Ellison et al)

Social network sites are advantageous because they allow users to create their identity and space. Through the profiles, the users are able to create an image of themselves. Their profile page is their space, defined they way they want and containing the things they want.

More importantly, the user’s social network is his space and he has the ability to change it simply by adding or removing people from his list. His social network defines his identity as well. According to Donath and Boyd, “Public displays of connection serve as important identity signals.”

Works Cited

• boyd, danah, & Ellison, Nicole. “Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2007, 13(1), article 11.  2 December 2007 <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html>.
• boyd, danah. “Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” In David Buckingham (Ed.), Youth, Identity, and Digital Media (pp. 119-142). Cambridge: MIT Press. 2 December 2007 <http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf>.

In April 2009, The Ford Motor Company launched a new marketing campaign called the Ford Fiesta Movement. The campaign had an unusual approach, never previously used before by Ford since being incorporated in June 1903: Ford used amateurs to create ads for Ford Fiesta, their new B category car and relied on (an artificially designed) Word of Mouth Marketing that used online social media to build awareness. Their thinking was unusual in two ways: Today, it’s a familiar case to everyone to use blogs and social media to engage buyers, but in 2009 letting consumers take over your brand was unheard of.

Plus, Ford decided to create a campaign for a product that was not on sale and would not be sold for another 12 months from the start of the campaign (‘atypical timeline’ –Exhibit E). Two months into the campaign the marketing team responsible for the effort had to evaluate the campaign’s performance and possible next steps. There are two key questions: How do you evaluate a marketing campaign’s performance for a specific product, when in reality you haven’t sold anything? What should Ford do after the campaign to leverage the newly build brand awareness and convert interest into sales?

Measuring Campaign Efficiency – Will we make enough profit at the end? 1) Calculate expectation: There are very few hints in the case study that allows the reader understand how would Ford measure success: Ford targeted 9% market-share from the total amount of new passengers in the B category, a segment that consisted of 437,000 passengers – that works out to an expected 39,330 cars sold At the start of the campaign Ford expected a 100. 000 test drives within the 12 months Calculating with Ford’s expectation of market share, it sounds like Ford expected to sell 39.

330 cars out of the 100. 000 expected test drives, which tells us that every test drive, in Ford’s mind has a 39% conversion rate. This is one benchmark we can use to assess the prospects of the campaign At the time of evaluation Ford accounted for 6,000 test drives for the 2 months, unless there is a fundamental change in the number of cars available for test drives, the trajectory is that this will allow Ford to assume a total of 30,000 test drives ONLY for the next 10 months of the campaign, and a sum of 36,000 test drives for the total year.

Calculating with the assumed 39% test-drive success rate Ford seems well behind on its plans to reach a 9% market share. (36,000 x 0. 39= 14,040 vs. 39,330) Why is this problem? 2) Will this trajectory make enough profit? What sort of profit does a car manufacturer make on a new car? Unfortunately, no profit margin % figures were given in the case study, but if one looks at industry averages on the internet (Exhibit A), the average manufacturer makes about 4.13% net profit margin on every car.

I am going to use this percentage and the given selling prices in the case: both the low-end and high-end selling prices in order to calculate potential revenue and profit generated against the year to date and year to go spend to assess whether the test drive figures for Ford Fiesta are an indication of an acceptable Return on Investment or could they be dangerously low? The calculation above shows worth case and best case scenarios.

The calculated figures above show that Ford needs to be very careful: If the test drives remain this low, and the majority of buyers chose a low-end, lower spec, low priced car, the campaign with industry average net profit margins would probably not be on break-even. This tells us that It would probably be worth importing more test cars from Europe – see cost reasoning below – as soon as possible or/and transform some cars that are now currently used by the advocators into test driving cars, e. g. Ford could make a policy that the bottom 20% advocators would have to hand over their cars for better use.

These two steps (importing more cars and converting advocators cars) seemingly would be vital to deliver business success. 3) Measuring Campaign Efficiency – Other Performance Indicators – The Reach and CMP Based on the case study Ford is happy about their early results when it comes to their website visits, video-views, tweets and blog mentions, these all perform above expectations they say. But how can we make sure that the spending of $3,000,000 is justified for the amount of impressions Ford experienced in the first 2 months?

Calculating the total Reach is relatively easy, we could in theory add up all the impressions from all internet sources mentioned in the case study to get an arbitrary number for total impressions reached with this spending – see below chart. Ford exposed a total of 5,049,256 people to their Fiesta Movement. This means that the target audience watched and paid attention to what Agents got up to, leaving comments and replying to videos, and linking the Agent content on their own web-sites. But was this the most effective spend of the $ 3 million?

To compare this, we need to calculate the CPM and compare this to different media spend at the time of the campaign – 2009. The CPM: using the cost of the campaign and dividing that by the number of impressions, expressed in thousand is: 3,000,000/ (5,049,256/1000) = 600. This number is atrociously high when compared to TV ($10), Magazine ($7), Cable TV ($6) CPMs in 2009 (Exhibit B) – I hope I calculated this correctly. So the question is: Would TV/Radio/Cable TV be able to generate the same number of test-drives and conversion? We do not have data for this, unfortunately.

What Ford was looking at at the time was that the campaign was on track when it comes to building a buzz around the new product and the total cost of the campaign was going to be small when compared to the overall cost of a nation-wide TV campaign. Below I compared the expected web-visits, video-posts, calculated indexes and also calculated total impressions for areas like Video’s posted online, photos posted online and tweets. Mid-term corrections The measure of success of a marketing campaign in the car industry is the number of test drives that can turn into sales.

As mentioned above, these were WELL BELOW expectations in the case of Ford Fiesta because of the limited cars available. This was not just an opportunity for Ford; it was a must to increase the number of cars available for test drive. It would have been a crucial business decision to import more cars suitable to drive in the U. S. to expand the number of cars available to try for the Public. The cost of a test car is around $20. 000 ($2 million divided by the 100 cars employed from the case)– this includes import duties and running costs. Let’s say a car can bare an average 5 drives a day, with 10 months remainingfrom the campaign that would be (365/12*10 x 5) 1. 520 test drives per car and we expect 39% of those turning into sales = 593 potential car sales – that is a potential $5,931,250 Revenue and $244,961 profit (calculating with 4,13% average industry margin). This means each and every car added to the test-drive pool has a huge potential to generate incremental revenue and sales for Ford. On top of this, cars should have been taken from the bottom 20% of bloggers based on their performance and put into the test drive pool. Converting Interest into Sales

There are a number of ways one can convert interest into sales. Without testing these Ford would not know which ones deserve more resources than others, so I am going to list these ideas, but will not elaborate as no test results are available: Using the collected e-mails to send out newsletters with special videos, personal messages and even promotional offers (one year insurance for free if you buy now…) Following up promotional e-mail messages with a Telemarketing effort inviting people who opened e-mails for test drives Embedding promotional offers to all YouTube videos

Asking newest Ford Fiesta buyers after the launch to become brand ambassadors and post their positive experiences on their personal social media circles (Facebook, twitter, YouTube).

I think not using fresh, new buyers for a product for future testimonials is a lost opportunity Promoting the opportunity of test-drives in all social media channels and in Point of Sales more aggressively for a set period of time (Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook) – (assuming the issue with lack of cars for test drives has been corrected) Partnering with selected car dealers agreeing that they would fill their full car park with Ford Fiesta’s for a two week period and no other cars would be placed on their premises (based on the successful Heineken pub case)

Sending direct mail packages to selected previous Ford users if such list is available, whose cars are about to reach a certain age (5-7 years) with a message that it is time to change. The list needs to be well selected, assuming that we target people who are in need of a B category car Campaign in high-schools or around the teen-age target audience (teenage car show? ) building messaging on Ford’s highest safety perception in 2009 & 2010 listed in the case study Closing Remarks Although the case is set two months into the Fiesta Movement, as the team evaluates just the first set of metrics and seemingly they are behind target on their most crucial metric: number of test drives, we already know that Ford decided to continue the Fiesta Movement and thus created a unique campaign that left everybody much (!) wiser about marketing in the digital space and proved everyone that social media has tremendous potential for business organizations.

Ford Fiesta became the company’s best performer, far exceeding the company’s expectations, helped turn around not just Ford’s business performance but stock performance as well (Exhibit D). This is probably because the campaign worked with a perfect idea of identifying and using capable individuals who are able to generate a steady-stream of content to raise interest level AND who are positively motivated to share their experiences when a Ford Fiesta is in their daily lives. This combination created tremendous market receptivity.

We now also know that the effects of the campaign are beyond any imaginations or forecasts*:

•Ford sold 10,000 cars in the first week of sales for the fraction of the cost of a national TV campaign

•The campaign generated over 30,000 original content, 40,2 million Twitter and Facebook impressions and 229 million consumer engagements

•Produced over 50,000 requests for more information from people who never used a Ford before

•The campaign also generated high profile media coverage in outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today and CNET. According to Ford’s research, 60% of the public is now aware of the Fiesta brand even though the vehicle has not yet debuted, a metric that would have cost $50 million in traditional media spend to achieve. (*Enhanced Online News, 2010 July: Action Marketing Group Awarded Golden Effie for Ford Fiesta Influencer Campaign)

A department store is a retail establishment preferring wide range of commodities, usually including ready-to-wear apparel, fashion goods, beauty necessities, yard and household goods and further on. Numerous department in which it is divided such as merchandising, advertising, marketing, services, accounting and financial department usually handle it. The first department store in the retailing history was Bennett’s in Derby, it opened in 1734 and it remains in the same building since it’s opening. The origin of department stores is related to the industrial revolution in the 19th century and the growth of a consumer society.

A wealthy class was growing, dragging with a constantly changing fashion, which created an enabling environment for the expansion of stores in that area. Today, department stores are mainly part of a retailing chain, usually a main department store is located in strategic area of a big city and the others are all around the city, country or sometimes the world. But we can still find independent retailers. “ Vision without action is a day dream. Action without vision is a nightmare. ” – Japanese proverb. This applies to marketing. Indeed, establishing a procedure in marketing without planning it in advance will lead to ruin.

Before initiation, a plan should be well prepared from it’s begging to its end leaving to chance any step. For a successful marketing plan the contractors have to initially think about the aim. All factors must be taken into consideration before starting the procedure. JC Penney’s case is a relevant example. When the American department store launched its new pricing strategy consisting in the suppression of discounts, heavy promotions, coupons and replacing it by every day low price. The chief executive underestimated the importance granted by costumers to sale and special discounts, which made its plan a big failure.

In the fashion industry, when a company needs to launch a new product or line they develop a marketing plan. These plans explain the strategy that will be followed and the details of the procedure in order to legitimize the costs, which will be implied on the company. We can count the main type of marketing plans: the strategic one, where the decision is up to the senior management and the plan is designed to achieve a long-range goal (at least five years), for example a ?10 billion investment plan for Japan’s premier department store, Isetan Shinjuku, based in Tokyo.

The outlet has been completely redesigned and transformed into a fashion museum presenting a combination of art, music and films while maintaining its primary function as a department store. The second type is the functional planning, which is a short-term plan up and is up to the middle mangers in key business areas but supervised by front line mangers.

This is the kind of marketing planning is used during the Christmas period with the window displays in the biggest department stores, such as Galleries Lafayette in Paris or Selfridges in London, they team up with fashion houses and designers for displays with recurring themes including architecture, fairy-tales and scale play. We can also count the operational planning, a short-term action plan developed by supervisors or front-line mangers to accomplish a specific goal, for example: the case Macy’s plan to open on thanksgiving, while all of its competitors are closed on that day.

The goal here is to be the only department store open, generate a tremendous profit in one day. Finally, there is the contingency plan, aiming to get a back up plan ready to cope an anticipated situation if it ever occurs. All of these plans need to be efficiently prepared step by step. According to Phillip Kotler, there are six essential steps for a successful planning. The first one is the situational analysis, where the company examines the Macro forces to highlight its strength and weaknesses. Although these factors can play in the favour of the company, sometimes they can also be barriers in the smooth running of a project.

Then comes objectives setting, in order to set its objectives a company have to take into consideration it’s stakeholders, company reputation, technology and other matters of concern. Then, once the goals are set a timetable has to be held to avoid any mishaps. Then the strategy, by choosing which strategy will be pursued to complete the task successfully. The company then sets its mode of action and the path that will be followed during the project. After that comes the tactics, this step is meant to plan what is called in marketing the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion) but also to schedule the strategy into a calendar.

And finally the controls, which lasts throughout the project, since it aims to ensure the effective conduct of each part of the marketing plan and if not then find a solution to remedy the situation. All of these plans differ from one company to another according to its positioning goal. The positioning of a company is what distinguishes it from its competitors, so the ideas in costumers mind when they think about that company. As we can see in the perceptual positioning map above, the customers may see department stores that sell the same product as different.

Thereby, the Italian department store, Rinascente, is considered as one of the most fashionable department stores across the world. However, the German department store Kadewe which is ranked equally fashionable is perceived as more luxurious while Debenhams despite the fact that the fashion perception it granted is as high as the two previous stores its luxury perception is lower than both of them. Nowadays, these marketing plans include immense use of technology to improve and facilitate their performance. “Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven.

I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without talking about the other. ” – Bill Gates. Reaching that goal is made possible by the numerous advantages of technology. One of them is social media. Based on telecommunication and social interaction, it is the best way to disclose information and to advertise, but in the same time get live feed back about it. Indeed, markets behaviour is changing, how they are known for talking but not listening and now a new strategy is being implemented known as buzz monitoring. This consists of tracking relevant conversations through the Internet that will allow the company to get an idea about its level of popularity amongst people, but also what comes to their mind when they think about it. However, a scientifically developed panel is still more effective than social media listening to gather data but then social media is more relevant because costumers are discussing with each other. Indeed, they don’t always trust what the company says to them since it is a part of their strategy to only reveal the best about it self, but costumers will talk about their experience and what they honestly think about it as they don’t have any interest in hiding the truth.

The beauty department store Sephora belongs to those who knew how to make profit from social networks. Indeed, it manifests its presence in all of the most popular social medias – such as Facebook, micro blogging as Twitter, photo-sharing websites as Pintrest, smartphone photo-sharing application as Instagram, video-sharing websites as YouTube and further more. It takes advantage by finding the purposes other than advertising and buzz monitoring.

The department store figured out that customers want beauty advices and tutorials both in store and online, so it started sharing experts’ knowledge and guidance, which will then boost sales. It also promotes loyalty programmes via social medias, offering exclusivities to followers which was obviously a successful marketing plan to gain followers since they count more than 5 million fans on Facebook and more than 1. 8 million followers on Google+. But technology is not used by department stores only for advertising and maintaining a relationship with customers; it is also used for selling purposes.

E-shopping makes life easier by a greater availability of products, constant sales and discounts and international shipping. However, the relevance of department stores websites for shopping is still questionable. Indeed, when a retailer selects a brand to work with, it can’t also select the products that will be displayed under that partnership and the brand won’t display all of its collections in the department store. Since then, when it comes to online shopping the brand’s own website is more attractive as there are considerably more options.

In the pictures below we can see the example of Adidas and Galleries Lafayette – the French department store- website. While the retailer only sells four bags for both men and women, in the brand website customers can shop up to 218 bags and that’s only for women. The maintenance of this relationship between the business and the customer is based on the principal of communication. Communication is the process of transferring information between senders and receivers, using one or more written, oral, visual, or electronic media.

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” – James Humes Whatever the idea one person has, even if it is the greatest ever, it won’t be useful for the company if the person doesn’t know how to communicate it, how to explain it and make other people understand what it means. Whether addressing to a superior or an employee if there is a misunderstanding the project will be doomed to failure. Also, for some positions in the workplace one needs to deal with costumers who don’t have the same level of expertise, in such situations good communication skills will be useful to explain intricate things in a simple way.

Likewise, the higher the hierarchical position, the lower are the technical skill requirements and the greater are the good communication skill needs. This is explained by the fact that important positions implies dealing with more important people, who are more punctilious when it comes to the way you talk or behave near them. Tough, to be an effective communicator it is necessary to master the different stages of the communication process: To manage this process successfully a behavioural equilibrium has to be found.

There are three main types of behaviours: Passive Behaviour involves saying nothing in a response, keeping feelings to yourself, hiding feelings from others, and perhaps even hiding your feelings from yourself. Aggressive Behaviour involves expressing your feelings indirectly through insults, sarcasm, labels, put-downs, and hostile statements and actions. And the third type is Assertive behaviour, which is a balance between both of the preceding behaviours. It involves describing your feelings, thoughts, opinions, and preferences directly to another person in an honest and appropriate way that respects both you and the other person.

It is the latter, that is most recommended to adapt in the workplace. Then, the sender needs to decide which communication tool is the most suitable one to the audience and the situation. When it comes to business-to-business communication e-mails are faster, efficient and direct. They say enough without saying too much. While Faxes mark certain indifference since they are limited to the strict minimum. Usually, they should be accompanied with a phone call to give further information or at least show interest from the sender’s part to the receiver.

Phone calls can also be used for other purposes; it is a good way to show concern but also to show respect. This leads us to the audience-centred approach which consists in getting to know the audience we are dealing with which is known as the «you » attitude. This ability to relate to the need of the others is one of the keys of success of manager leaders. It works both in the Business-to-Business communication and Business-to-Customer communication. In the example below, we can see the example of an advertising campaign of the French department store Galleries Lafayette.

The model on the signboard is dressed like the « perfect » Parisian, with the beret, the white top and blue pair of jean’s and in addition to amplify the French spirit, on the foreground of the scenery an accordion is shown. All of this staging is meant to flatter Parisian, which are proud of their identity and make them feel that the department store is made for them. Communication skills may also be useful when it comes to marketing communication. Marketing communication is defined as the media tool used to reach a market; it refers to the promotion part of the “marketing mix” and the “four Ps” (Price, place, product and promotion).

It also refers to the different strategies used while making the promotion of a certain product. The marketing process is divided in five steps: Here, marketing communication starts in the second stage and goes until the fourth one and its primary purpose is to create value for customers and build customer relationship because without customers a company has no reason to exist. To achieve that goal numerous tools can be used. Advertising is one of them, provides a direct line of communication to your existing and prospective customers about your product or service.

As here for example, with Harvey Nichols advertising campaign called THE NEW BREED which plays on the luxury stereotype of the handbag dog replacing the traditional Chihuahua by a bull terrier to promote its new involvement into an accessible fashion « The new breed ». Public relation is also a tool of marketing communication. Building and keeping good relationships with media is important for the brand/store’s image and reputation. But the art of good public relation also involves being able to manage successfully and adverse publicity.

Another tool is sales promotions, commonly used to increase sales in short term, it attracts new customers interested in lower price, which can later become loyal customers depending on their experience in the department store. For example, the British department store Selfridges runs every year « Christmas comes early », which consists in Christmas sales earlier than its competitors so it can attract its concurrent customers since they can do their Christmas shopping earlier without paying the high price.

To make their promotion, companies use more and more direct mail, which consist in an e-mail address of the receiver by its name and selling him products destined for its target group depending on information the company collected about him in its database. The Internet marketing – as seen previously – also used very much by retailers to sell and promote their products. Sponsorship is a form of indirect marketing that consists of paying an organisation, which will use your brand logo and this way generate publicity.

Below are Macy’s areas of sponsorships in 2011 according to IEG Research. Competition in the retailing world has very quickly grown during the last century. Today, to face the concurrence retailers resort to strategies aiming to bring them to the top. To reach that aim different tools are used and mainly communication that builds relationship between department store, stockholders, partners, employees and customers.

In 2010, Big Skinny CEO Kiril Alexandrov was looking to transcend from retail distribution and print advertising to the world of online marketing to achieve maximum growth. The retail sales pitch was an easy one, as Alexandrov focused on the value of the wallet and the impulsiveness of consumers (Benjamin & Kominers, 2012). Unfortunately, translating this type of sales pitch was much harder to do in the world of cyberspace. Big Skinny centered their online marketing efforts around display Ads, keyword searches, social media and relationships with online distributors and deep discounted sites such as Amazon and Groupon respectively.

The expansion caused much hardship, as Big Skinny received negative feedback on the review website Yelp that stemmed from their Groupon experiment. They also faced a glitch in their online promotion that allowed 4,000 people to order free wallets from their online store. Big Skinny needs to refocus their online marketing strategy by getting rid of display Ads, refining keyword searches and severing ties with deep discounted sites. Big Skinny can create value for their product and manage their orders better by being more selective with who distributes their product and by keeping the price steady.

A more seasonal approach surrounding keyword searches can create new revenue from those who are looking to make quick and impulsive purchases. Lastly, by being responsible for who distributes their products, Big Skinny can deliver their product in prompt and timely manner, which will resolve the majority of customer complaints against Big Skinny. Problem Statement Despite successful in-person sales campaigns, Big Skinny struggled to find an effective online marketing platform that would grow and connect them to their consumer base.

Big Skinny also ran into glitches with their current online marketing campaigns that brought unwanted negative attention and resentment towards the company. Data Analysis When Big Skinny transcended into the world of online marketing, it had to develop a way to attract visitors to the website while attempting to convince these visitors to buy wallets. Since most of their wallets were being sold at trade shows or retail stores that centered on a straight-forward approach regarding impulse and value, the translation of this strategy to the internet proved to be a tall task.

Big Skinny looked at various means of advertising such as display ads, algorithmic search, sponsored search, A/B Testing and social media. Display ads offered a two-frame animation; however, the click-through rate of general display ads in 2009 was only . 1% (Bejamin & Kominers, 2012). Algorithmic searches use algorithms that the search engine deems most relevant to the user’s query. The websites that most resemble the query appear the highest on the search engine’s list. Sponsored searches use keywords that the advertisers specify that they want to target.

These are mostly sold on a “per-click” basis; however the company loses money if the clicks aren’t converted into sales. A/B testing is a marketing technique that shows different advertisements to different users to compare the response rates between the two. Lastly, social media utilizes websites such as Facebook and Twitter to try and create an interactive relationship with consumers.

1% of the time the money is essentially thrown away. Investing in A/B testing requires the hiring of a permanent person and huge overhead. Getting rid of online distributors allows Big Skinny to eliminate the 7-15% commission they pay to Amazon and eBay while being able to manage their order load. Social Media is more than enough because 71% of social media participants say they are more likely to purchase from a brand they follow online. 91% of local searchers say they use Facebook to find local businesses online (Bennett, 2013). The cons of this are that they are missing out on a lot of potential customers by eliminating Amazon and eBay.

While online paid marketing can be expensive, there is still benefit to sponsored searches. Some of the cost per conversions are profitable and by completely eliminating these searches would be throwing away potential opportunities. The pros of Big Skinny being more selective with their online distributors allows for a happy customer base. There have been several negative reviews on the Yelp site regarding slow delivery and non-existent customer service. By eliminating deep discounting sites such as Groupon, Big Skinny can manage their order load and keep customers happy.

Big Skinny would also keep the revenue from the top paid sponsored searches rather than eliminating them all together. The negatives of this are that Big Skinny could miss out on a lot of revenue by not using Groupon or Living Social. They could also miss out on the repeat customers that are generated by these sites as well as missing out on the people who want to try their product without having to pay full price. Instead of eliminating sites like Groupon and Living Social, Big Skinny could embrace the huge influx of customers that it brings.

According to the customer satisfaction and analytics company ForeSee, 91% of customers have already or plan to conduct business with the merchant since buying the deal (Bedigian, 2013). This strategy generates a large influx of customers in a short time while attempting to generate residual income by repeat customers. The cons of this are that company’s often lose money during the initial Groupon. The product is discounted by 50% or more and then Groupon takes a 50% commission on the sale price, which leaves the seller receiving only 25%

of the original selling price of the item (which in some cases is less than the cost of the item). Forbes has found that 1/3rd of businesses have lost money on a Groupon deal and there is no guarantee that the customers ever return to pay full price from the merchant again (Gleeson, 2012). The pros of using a more traditional advertising medium such as TV or radio would bring brand recognition for Big Skinny. Big Skinny has always had success selling in retail stores because they market their products based on value and impulse.

By putting the product in more retail stores, there is a greater chance people will put it in their hands and buy on impulse. Instead of targeting just one big audience, Big Skinny should advertise by target market such as Big Skinny Sport or Big Skinny Women. By doing this they could partner with big retail chains to get into more stores and generate more revenue the old fashioned way. The average time an American spends watching TV is 5 hours compared to just 1 hour browsing the internet, which leads for greater exposure.

The cons of doing this are that TV advertising is much more expensive than online marketing (Nielsen, 1997). Another con is Tivo allows people to record their favorite shows and then fast-forward past the commercials. The last con is that TV advertising seems to be a thing of the past, as the amount spent on TV advertising was only up 4. 5% in 2011 as compared to 21. 7% via online marketing (Gleeson, 2012). Recommendations Based on the data, it is best for Big Skinny to be more selective of their online distribution, while tailoring their paid sponsored searches to generate interest and sales.

In regards to online distribution, Big Skinny should keep eBay and Amazon, however, should drop deep-discount sites such as Groupon or Living Social. To offer a Groupon deal, Big Skinny is guaranteed to be taking a loss. To be eligible to offer a Groupon, Big Skinny must discount the price of their wallet by at least 50%. This turns a $20 wallet into a $10 wallet. Groupon takes a commission of 50% on the sale price, which leaves Big Skinny walking away with only $5 for every wallet sold (Bice, 2012). Essentially, they are taking a loss with every wallet they sell on Groupon.

The goal of a Groupon is to try and get repeat customers; however, the people that use Groupon are bargain-hunters. They won’t return to Big Skinny, but rather, they will return to Groupon again looking for another bargain deal. By using Groupon, Big Skinny also decreases the value of their brand (Gibbard, 2011). Why would a customer pay full price for a $40 wallet when they just bought it on Groupon for $15 or $20 just a short time ago? In addition to dropping Groupon, Big Skinny needs to manage their online distribution better because of customer satisfaction issues.

On the review site Yelp, Big Skinny’s wallets are only receiving a rating of 2. 5 out of 5 stars. A lot of the reviews include gripes about not receiving their order for 3-4 weeks or non-existent customer service (most of the negative reviews are from users who bought a Big Skinny wallet on Groupon). If the online distributor doesn’t ship your product in a timely manner, your company risks a tarnished reputation. Whether Big Skinny didn’t have enough stock to fulfill orders or whether Groupon didn’t ship the products in a timely manner, Big Skinny is taking the fall and abuse from customers.

When people do research for a product they are going to see Big Skinny’s products with poor ratings. These poor ratings can scare potential customers away. Big Skinny should only use Amazon, eBay and their website to sell their wallets. This allows them to manage their inventory, not get behind on orders and make sure their product gets shipped in a timely manner. Big Skinny has excellent Amazon ratings and should continue to grow their product through the sterling reputation of Amazon. They should sell the product for a higher price on their website so that people are encouraged to buy through Amazon.

This is a win-win for Big Skinny because if people buy through Amazon then Big Skinny doesn’t have to waste time and effort fulfilling and shipping orders. If they choose to buy direct than Big Skinny receives a larger profit on their wallets. Lastly, Big Skinny needs to tailor their sponsored keyword searches. They need to eliminate the term “leather wallet. ” They don’t manufacture a true leather wallet and the cost per conversion for this keyword is a sky-high $20. 26. Big Skinny should also bid less for the term “thinnest wallet. ” The cost per conversion for “thinnest wallet” also has a high cost, which is $10.53.

After replacing leather wallet and lowering the bid for thinnest wallet, Big Skinny should add keywords centered on holidays. Wallets are popular gifts on occasions such as Father’s Day and Christmas. Big Skinny should add season keywords such as “Father’s Day Wallet,” “Wallet for Dad,” “Best Wallet for Gift” and “Wallet for Christmas. ” This will bring seasonal shoppers into the mix who are looking to spend quickly and impulsively. Action and Implementation Plan CEO Kiril Alexandrov will be responsible for delegating the following tasks.

The Director of Marketing will pull any promotions or future plans with deep discounted sites such as Groupon or Living Social. The Director of Marketing in combination with the Director of Product Management will reach out to all of those who left negative reviews on Yelp to satisfy the customer complaints and retract the negative ratings. The Director of Sales will carefully select the online distribution channels which Big Skinny will sell through. Big Skinny will only sell through Amazon, eBay and any online outlets of the retail stores that they are currently featured in.

The Director of Sales will also raise the prices of wallets on the Big Skinny Website by 10-15% to create value for the product and promote customers to purchase through the select online distribution. Doing this saves Big Skinny the time it would take to fulfill and pack orders, however, if a customer decides to purchase direct, then Big Skinny recoups the 10-15% it would pay Amazon or eBay to sell and fulfill the order. This new price point will be conveyed in a message from the Director of Sales to Big Skinny’s distribution channel.

Social Media Use in the United States: Implications for Health Communication Wen-ying Sylvia Chou1,2, PhD, MPH; Yvonne M Hunt1, PhD, MPH; Ellen Burke Beckjord3, PhD, MPH; Richard P Moser4, PhD; Bradford W Hesse2, PhD 1Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA? 2Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA? 3RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA, USA? 4Behavioral Research Program, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USACorresponding Author: Wen-ying Sylvia Chou, PhD, MPH National Cancer Institute Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch 6130 Executive Blvd (EPN), 4051A Bethesda, MD 20892-7365 USA Phone: +1 301 435 2842 Fax: +1 301 480 2669 Email: chouws [at] mail. nih. gov ABSTRACT Background: Given the rapid changes in the communication landscape brought about by participative Internet use and social media, it is important to develop a better understanding of these technologies and their impact on health communication.The first step in this effort is to identify the characteristics of current social media users.

Up-to-date reporting of current social media use will help monitor the growth of social media and inform health promotion/communication efforts aiming to effectively utilize social media. Objective: The purpose of the study is to identify the sociodemographic and health-related factors associated with current adult social media users in the United States. Methods: Data came from the 2007 iteration of the Health Information National Trends Study (HINTS, N = 7674).HINTS is a nationally representative cross-sectional survey on health-related communication trends and practices. Survey respondents who reported having accessed the Internet (N = 5078) were asked whether, over the past year, they had (1) participated in an online support group, (2) written in a blog, (3) visited a social networking site. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify predictors of each type of social media use. Results: Approximately 69% of US adults reported having access to the Internet in 2007.

Among Internet users, 5% participated in an online support group, 7% reported blogging, and 23% used a social networking site. Multivariate analysis found that younger age was the only significant predictor of blogging and social networking site participation; a statistically significant linear relationship was observed, with younger categories reporting more frequent use. Younger age, poorer subjective health, and a personal cancer experience predicted support group participation. In general, social media are penetrating the US population independent of education, race/ethnicity, or health care access.Conclusions: Recent growth of social media is not uniformly distributed across age groups; therefore, health communication programs utilizing social media must first consider the age of the targeted population to help ensure that messages reach the intended audience. While racial/ethnic and health status–related disparities exist in Internet access, among those with Internet access, these characteristics do not affect social media use. This finding suggests that the new technologies, represented by social media, may be changing the communication pattern throughout the United States.

(J Med Internet Res 2009;11(4):e48)? doi:10. 196/jmir. 1249 KEYWORDS Internet; social media; social networking; demography; population surveillance; eHealth, new technologies; health communication |Introduction | From 2005 to 2009, participation in social networking sites more than quadrupled [1]. In the health communication community, there is a widespread assumption that recent advances in Internet technologies (Web 2. 0), particularly the participative Internet (known as social media), have transformed the pattern of communication, including health-related communications [2].For example, social scientists observed that social media have increased individuals’ connectivity and enabled users’ direct participation. This observation is believed to have direct implications for health communication programs, prompting efforts to identify new opportunities of using social media to impact population health [3-6].

While these observations on the impact of social media are important in public health, little of the research in this area has been based on large-scale population data, partly due to the rapidity of technological changes.The key questions that remain unanswered include the following: (1) What is the true reach and impact of social media among the current US population? (2) What are the user characteristics of the different types of social media currently being used? Although market research has previously reported on the overall prevalence of Internet and social media use, with the exception of online support group use, user characteristics of social media have not been comprehensively examined using a nationally representative population sample [7].Developing an empirically based understanding of these behaviors and their implications has become a key priority in current health communication research. Given that key aims of social media research are to monitor its growth and to inform health promotion efforts aiming to utilize new communication technologies, it is important to explore the relationship between social media use and health-related factors. Current research on the relationship between social media and health has produced conflicting results.On the one hand, studies have found that social media may bear health-enhancing potential through several mechanisms. First, the Internet-based social networks may increase perceived social support and interconnectivity among individuals [8,9].

Second, with the increase of user-generated content, information sharing is seen as more democratic and patient controlled, enabling users to exchange health-related information that they need and therefore making the information more patient/consumer-centered [10]. Third, n recent times, public health programs have demonstrated success in adapting social media as a communication platform for health promotion efforts such as smoking cessation and dietary interventions, increasing their reach through cyberspace [3,4,6,11-13]. Yet, indirect and sometimes unintended negative health impacts of social media have also been identified. First, the participatory nature of social media entails an open forum for information exchange, therefore increasing the possibility of wide dissemination of noncredible, and potentially erroneous, health information [14,15].Second, health scientists exploring the issue of the digital divide have found evidence of a double divide. Specifically, those without Internet access (a large portion of whom may be without adequate health care access) are prevented from gaining health information available on the Internet [16-20]. In sum, given the direct and indirect health impacts and the wide range of and divergent results, the current study will offer an opportunity to disentangle aspects of the complex relationship between social media use and health-related factors.

The most recent iteration of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 2007) is an ideal data source to provide an in-depth examination of the prevalence and user characteristics of social media. This nationally representative survey is uniquely positioned to study social media because this new iteration contains specific follow-up questions for all Internet users, allowing us to separately estimate and compare the use of different types of social media.Another distinct advantage of the HINTS 2007 is its inclusion of many health-related questions, enabling us to comprehensively examine the association between social media use and several important health proxies. Our primary research aims are to (1) report on the prevalence of three forms of social media use in 2007: online support group participation, blogging, and social networking site participation; and (2) identify the sociodemographic and health-related predictors of the use of these three forms of social media. Methods | Data Source The data for this study were drawn from HINTS 2007, developed by the National Cancer Institute in 2007 with data collected from January 2008 through May 2008. Publicly accessible on the Internet, the HINTS is a biennial national survey of the US civilian noninstitutionalized adult population designed to assess the American public’s use of health- and cancer-related information and to assess other cancer-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.The survey’s primary goal is to inform social scientists and program planners about current health communication usage across populations and to assist in developing effective health communication strategies in an age of rapid communication changes.

Comprehensive reports on the conceptual framework and sample design of HINTS are published elsewhere [21,22].Note that while the conceptual framework and most survey content remained consistent across the three iterations of HINTS (2003, 2005, and 2007), the newest iteration (HINTS 2007) contains some changes. Detailed information about HINTS 2007 scope and methodology can be found in a comprehensive report [23]. Specifically, in addition to the inclusion of new survey items (such as items concerning blogging and social networking site participation), a new sampling method was adopted for HINTS 2007 to increase response rates and reduce bias.Two modes were used for data collection: (1) a random digit dial telephone survey, using a computer-assisted telephone interview, of representative samples of US households with land-line telephones (N = 4092); and (2) a pencil-and-paper questionnaire mailed to representative US postal addresses that oversampled for minorities (N = 3582). The use of the dual sampling frames was a response to the recent dramatic decrease in telephone survey response rates and is a method currently being utilized by other government agencies. Response rates were 24% for the random digit dial survey and 31% for the mail survey.

Complete surveys were obtained from 7674 adults. Only Internet users (N = 5078; approximately 68% of the population) were asked about social media use, and they form the sample for the current study. HINTS contained both final sample weights that helped obtain population-level estimates and a set of 50 replicate sampling weights to obtain the correct standard errors; both of these were included in the present analysis. Detailed descriptions of how the sample and replicate weights were calculated can be found in the HINTS 2007 Final Report [23]. Study VariablesWe selected the following sociodemographic variables to be included in the study: age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity. Age was categorized into six groups: 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65 and above. Education was categorized as high school degree or less, some college, or college graduate.

Race/ethnicity was coded into one of the following four categories: non-Hipic white, non-Hipic black (black/African American), Hipic, and non-Hipic other. In addition to the sociodemographic variables, three health-related variables were examined.The first is self-described health status, including overall health and distress level(measured by a summed score of six-item assessment of depressive symptoms borrowed from the National Health Interview Survey, 1997, Adult Core Questionnaire [24]). The second is the respondent’s cancer experience, coded into three categories: (1) having had a personal diagnosis of cancer, (2) having had a family member diagnosed with cancer, or (3) having had no personal experience or family member with cancer.Note that the categories are mutually exclusive: individuals with a personal diagnosis of cancer are automatically categorized as (1) regardless of their status in (2). The final health-related variable is health care access, measured by whether the respondent reports having a regular health care provider or not. Internet status was measured by response to the following question: “Do you ever go on-line to access the Internet or World Wide Web, or to send and receive an email? Among Internet users, social media use was assessed by responses to the following three questions: “In the past 12 months, have you done the following while using the Internet: (1) participated in an on-line support group for people with a similar health or medical issue? (2) wrote in an online diary or blog? (3) visited a social networking site, such as ‘My Space’ or ‘Second Life’? ” Data Analysis To accommodate the complex sampling design of HINTS, analyses were conducted using SUDAAN, version 10 (Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA).

Missing data (with responses of “refuse” or “don’t know”) were recoded as missing for all analyses. Bivariate analyses (chi-square) were conducted to estimate the prevalence of social media use and associations between study variables and each of the three types of social media. To address potential differences in responses due to the dual frames of the 2007 survey, we tested for potential mode differences and found no differential responses by mode to any of the social media use outcomes of interests; thus, a combined sample was used for subsequent analysis.Separate multivariate logistic regression models were conducted to estimate the odds of writing a blog, participating in an online support group, and participating in a social networking site, while including a set of demographic and health-related predictors. Finally, given the overwhelmingly significant contribution of age in all three models, each outcome was tested using age-stratified analyses by running separate models within each of the three age categories of 18-34, 35-54, and 55 and above. |Results |Sample Characteristics In 2007, approximately 69% of the US population reported having access to the Internet. This estimate is consistent with other prevalence estimates of Internet use in the same period [1].

Table 1 displays the weighted sample characteristics of non-Internet users and Internet users. ? | |Table 1. Weighted sample characteristics: proportion of non-Internet and Internet users in each category | |[view this table] | |Bivariate analyses revealed a number of significant differences between Internet users and non-Internet users. Consistent with prior results, non-Internet users were more likely to be ethnic minorities, older, less educated, less healthy, more distressed, and to report a history of a cancer diagnosis. Further, as Table 2 below shows, among Internet users, approximately 27% reported using at least one form of social media.We used chi-square tests to compare those who reported using social media (as defined by individuals who responded “yes” to at least one of the three questions on social media) to Internet users who reported not using social media. ? | |Table 2.

Weighted sample characteristics of Internet users (N = 5078, 68. 54% of US population) who use and do not use social media | |[view this table] | |Among Internet users, use of social media was not uniformly distributed across the age strata. The largest proportion of social media use occurred among Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 (65%) and decreased thereafter with each subsequent age group. In addition, patterns of social media use varied by race. Non-white Americans who accessed the Internet were more likely to use social media than white Americans. The potentially different user characteristics among different types of social media prompted separate analyses by each type of media.Table 3 summarizes the bivariate associations between each type of social media (not mutually exclusive) and the study variables.

? | |Table 3. Bivariate associations between three types of social media use and study variables: weighted results | |[view this table] | | Among the three forms of social media included in the survey, social networking received the most utilization (23% of Internet users), followed by blogging (7% of Internet users) and, finally, participation in online support groups (5% of Internet users).Blogging and social networking site participation showed the expected inverse linear relationship with age (ie, increased use across decreasing age strata). Partially because of the younger age, users tend to not have personal experience with cancer and not have a regular health care provider. The user characteristic profile of online support group participation was distinct from the other two forms of social media.Use of online support groups was rarely seen in the youngest age group (18-24) and was uniquely associated with several health-related factors, including rating general health as poor and reporting psychological distress. In contrast, blogging and social networking site participation were not associated with measures of self-reported health status.

Finally, we found an unexpected education and racial/ethnic breakdown among social networking site users: less-educated individuals and racial/ethnic minorities were more likely to use this form of social media.However, these differences disappeared in subsequent regression analyses (below), suggesting that the differences observed here are likely explained by age. Multivariate Analyses The three separate multivariate regressions estimated the odds of using a particular form of social media in HINTS 2007. Given that gender was not associated with social media use at the bivariate level, we dropped it from the regression models. Table 4 displays the results of the analysis. Among Internet users, online support group participation was predicted by age, education, as well as several health-related factors.Compared with people 65 and over, those aged 25-44 were three to five times more likely to use support groups.

Compared with college graduates, those with some college were more likely to use support groups. Moreover, consistent with the bivariate-level observations, those who regarded themselves as less healthy, more distressed, and who had a personal cancer experience were more likely to have used online support groups, confirming that health status is an important determinant of support group participation.In contrast to the model for support group participation, age emerged as the only significant predictor in the models of blogging and social networking site participation. A statistically significant linear effect of age on the two outcome variables was observed (P ;lt; . 001). Among individuals aged 55 and below, we observed a strong linear age effect, with each decreasing age stratum, in the odds of blogging. Participation in social networking sites shared similar user characteristics, except the odds ratios were even larger, with the age effect encompassing every age stratum.

In addition, among Internet users, African Americans were more likely than non-Hipic whites to use a social networking site (OR = 1. 51, 95% CI 1. 01-2. 24). ? | |Table 4. Multivariate logistic regressions of three types of social media use among Internet users | |[view this table] | | Age-Stratified Multivariate AnalysesGiven the central role of age in predicting social media use, and the significant interactions found between age and race/ethnicity, we conducted age-stratified logistic regressions to see whether adjusting for specific age strata would illuminate other important variables associated with social media use. Age was stratified into three categories for multivariate logistic regression models: 18-34 (younger group), 35-54 (middle-age group), 55 and older (older group).

In general, the stratified models confirmed age to be the single most important predictor of social media use.Significant predictors within each type are summarized below. Note that all results reported are significant at P ;lt; . 05. Online Support Group In the youngest group, higher education (OR = 6. 33, 95% CI 2. 10-19.

10) and higher distress level (OR = 5. 56, 95% CI 1. 65-18. 76) explained the outcome. Among the middle-age group, female gender (OR = 2. 04, 95% CI 1. 20-3.

46) and higher education (OR = 2. 13, 95% CI 1. 21-5. 12) were significant predictors. In the oldest group, poorer self-reported health (OR = 3. 39, 95% CI 1. 38-8.

4) explained support group use. Blogging In all three age categories, the age-stratified models found no significant predictors of blogging. Social Networking Sites In the middle-age group, having no personal experience with cancer predicted social networking site participation (OR = 0. 39, 95% CI 0. 18-0. 86). For the oldest group, male gender was the sole predictor of social networking site use (OR = 1.

87, 95% CI 1. 28-2. 71). |Discussion |The current study examined sociodemographic and health-related predictors of the use of three forms of social media in an effort to better understand who is accessing and being reached through these emerging communication channels. The results showed that these three forms of social media have distinctly different use patterns and user characteristics, hence different health communication implications. Among the three forms of social media considered in this study, social networking sites by far attract the most users, making them an obvious target for maximizing the reach and impact of health communication and eHealth interventions.Furthermore, with increasing prevalence of personal wireless devices, communication scientists unanimously anticipate the popularity of social networking applications to continue to grow worldwide [2,25-27].

Compared to social networking sites, a much smaller percentage of Internet users reported writing in a blog, suggesting a lower prevalence of blogging. However, reading and commenting on a blog may have been a more reliable measure of blogosphere penetration due to its lower intensity than actively keeping a blog.Moreover, the blogosphere presents a tremendous opportunity for health communication. Particularly so, because bloggers have been observed to act as important communication stakeholders—not only are they information disseminators, but they play a crucial role in directing Internet traffic through opinions and hyperlinks [28]. Online support group participation was the only survey item included in the present study that was assessed throughout the three iterations of HINTS, and the weighted prevalence estimates suggest a minor increase: in 2003 and 2005, 3. % of Internet users had participated in online support groups compared to 4. 6% in 2007.

User characteristics of support groups differed from blogging and social networking site participation, suggesting that online support group participation is driven by health status. This disease-focused medium may be gradually replaced by more interactive, patient-directed social networking sites and blogs, such as CaringBridge and Patientslikeme. These forms of social media have the potential to serve the social support and empowerment functions previously identified for online support groups [29].Apart from the patterns described above, the results of the study underscore the extent to which age determines who among US adult Internet users are engaging with social media. In this nationally representative sample, age emerged as the single strongest predictor of both social networking and blogging. In light of these findings, it seems reasonable to conclude that health communication efforts utilizing social media will have the broadest reach and impact when the target population is the younger generation.The relatively low penetration in the older population of 55 and older suggests that it is not yet an opportune time to utilize social media in communication with this age group.

While this is true currently, we predict a continuing increase in utilization across all generations and groups in the next few years, and it remains a key health communication priority to continue tracking the sociodemographic trends of social media use to be sure that health communicators leverage these dissemination channels most effectively. Finally, for cancer communication efforts, this study found a igh prevalence of Internet and social media use among individuals with family members who have/had cancer (see Table 1 and Table 2), suggesting the potential effectiveness of social media cancer communication efforts targeting “secondary audiences,” that is, caregivers, family, and friends of cancer patients. A key finding of this study offers new and important implications for health communication in this digital age: among Internet users, social media are found to penetrate the population regardless of education, race/ethnicity, or health care access.In particular, the multivariate analyses showed that having access to a regular health care provider did not predict social media use, suggesting that its significance in the bivariate analyses was primarily due to the effect of age. Specifically, younger individuals are less likely to have a regular health care provider. Considering implications of health communication efforts, the results of this study suggest that in the future, social media promise to be a way to reach the target population regardless of socioeconomic and health-related characteristics.If we can enable broader and more equitable Internet access (eg, increasing broadband access or wireless mobile access), thus reducing the digital divide, the potential for impacting the health and health behavior of the general US population through social media is tremendous.

Furthermore, the results showed social networking sites are being utilized by African Americans at a higher rate than by non-Hipic whites.Given the continuing increase in Internet penetration, these findings suggest a potential systematic shift in the communication pattern that transcends the traditional digital divide. Future studies should continue to examine the impact of changing technologies on patterns of health disparities. On the practice side of health communication, social media outlets may represent an excellent opportunity to reach traditionally underserved members of the population. LimitationsThe nature of self-report and the current low survey response rates present two major challenges to the generalizability of the results. First, the accuracy of self-reports of specific Internet usage may be affected by recall bias and respondents’ comprehension of survey items. In spite of this issue, this study’s prevalence estimates on Internet and social media penetration are in agreement with the published literature and are the first to be drawn from a nationally representative sample.

One aspect to note is that compared to market surveys such as the Pew and Manhattan Research reports, the HINTS estimates are generally more conservative. This is in part attributable to the higher sampling precision mandated for federal surveys. Second, low response rate being a challenge facing all current survey research, HINTS 2007 attempted to boost response rates and extend coverage (especially to cell phone–only households) by adapting a dual sampling frame.As a result, the addition of the mail survey helped remedy the low response rate, to increase the generalizability of the data. An additional limitation concerns the instrumentation and questions related to blogging and social networking site participation: since neither question asked specifically about health-related use of these technologies, we cannot precisely estimate the prevalence of health-related social media use using HINTS data. Given the growing role of social media in health, future iterations of HINTS may specifically capture health-related social media use [10].As well, the question on blogging does not capture individuals who view and comment on blogs and thus may underestimate the degree to which the American public is engaged with this activity.

Finally, with new technologies and social media continuing to evolve rapidly, these data, despite being the most updated national survey data available, may not have been able to capture some emerging social media forms (eg, Twitter and Wikipedia) and rapid changes brought on by the increasing use of personal wireless devices [27].In order to track the public’s use of new media, future research should track different age groups’ social media adoption while identifying new forms of social media. Given that the younger age groups are likely to continue their use of social media, we would expect to see a persistent increase across the middle-age population in the near future. Conclusions With the goal to develop a better understanding of social media use in the current US population, we have reported on the prevalence and user characteristics of three types of social media using the 2007 HINTS survey.While observations and theories about communication changes brought about by new technologies abound, little is supported by empirical evidence based on nationally representative data. The findings of this study contribute to the knowledge base to inform future programs aiming to utilize social media. As we have seen, forms of social media present different opportunities for health communication efforts.

In particular, social networking sites attract the largest portion of Internet users and are likely to continue to grow, making them an obvious target for maximizing the reach and impact of health communication and eHealth interventions.In addition, recent growth of social media is not uniformly distributed across age groups. New health communication programs aiming to utilize social media must first consider the age of the targeted population. The data also prompt a rethinking of the connection between technologies and health disparities since the findings point to the fact that social media are penetrating individuals of different demographics at the same rate.Opportunities for narrowing the health disparities gap exist through effective use of social media as communication and health promotion platforms. These media will not enable targeted communication messages but may have the capacity to reach a wider audience than traditional media have been able to reach. Finally, while surveillance research such as the present project is useful for determining the reach of social media, it is less useful for assessing the impact of participation in social media use on health.

To assess the multiple levels of social media impact on health, future studies need to bring in diverse disciplines and methods, including intervention studies, longitudinal cohort studies, as well as ethnographic/qualitative observations to examine the effect of the social media–driven changing communication patterns on health. Acknowledgments This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. Conflicts of Interest None declared.