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Social media usage has grown exponentially over the last decade, especially with the vast development of mobile applications. Among the different social media platforms, Facebook is the leader of social media. Other popular social media applications are Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Vine, while popular mobile-chat applications include WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger. There were an estimated 3.46 billion active social media users worldwide in 2019 (Statista, 2019). Although social media presence is dominating users daily activates, it is especially widespread among teens and young adults. It has become an essential form of communications for young individuals and thus has drawn researchers’ interests in several disciplines including social psychology, communications, sociology, and marketing. By large, marketing field covers an increasing number of researches and articles that have addressed social media issues (Alalwan et al., 2017). This growing stream of research provides strong evidence that social media and their implications should be the center of attention for both practitioners and researchers.
In 2020, marketers are expecting to spend over $102 billion on social media advertising (Statista, 2020) to engage their users and get them to convert to their brands. Social media has become an essential part of many marketing campaigns due to its influential effects. Despite the importance of social media as a communication channel for both business and individual users, little is understood about how and why users use new social media platforms and how these platforms affect users’ lives. More importantly, most of the communication messages that have been directed toward users are randomly placed on social media platforms with very little knowledge about usage behaviors. The traditional paradigm of integrated marketing communications (IMC) suggests that marketers should send a unified customer-focused message using different promotion tools in order to intensify the message effectiveness on target segments and achieve organizational objectives (Boone and Kurtz, 2007). However, the tools and strategies for communicating with customers have changed considerably in the era of social media (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Given the distinctive designs and features of social media platforms, one may argue that, in the new paradigm of social media communications, marketers should develop unique strategies for each social media platform in order to match the usage behaviors of platform users.
Overall, consumers are turning away from the traditional media and demand more control over their media consumption (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). These consumers use social media to create personalized profiles and engage with their friends and acquaintances with no time or space limitations. The majority of consumers depend on social media applications to share views, give opinions, and generate content (e.g., information, photos, and videos) in order to stay in contact with their friends and informed about trending news or events (Amichai-Hamburger and Vinitzky, 2010; Kuss and Griffiths, 2011). Past research has demonstrated different social motives of Internet-communication users such as user’s need to belong and self-presentation (Nadkarni and Hofmann, 2012). In addition, group identification, collective self-esteem, and keeping in touch with friends are other types of social motives for a continuous user engagement on social media (Floros and Simos, 2013; Kuss and Griffiths, 2011). Researchers have also shown that social media is a prospering environment for consumers who have higher levels of shyness and anxiety in face-to-face interactions since it is easier to fulfill social needs online than via offline communications (Banjanin et al., 2015; Steinfield, Ellison, and Lampe, 2008).