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zeroamuckstogive · 3 years

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Keeping it Together

Social Media Positives

Social connection is important to our wellbeing. So much so that a UCLA Neuroscientist wrote a book about it. Matthew Lieberman is an originator of social cognitive neuroscience. His work focusses on how the human brain seeks socialization (Wolpart, 2013). Socially connected people have lower rates of anxiety and depression whereas people that are socially disconnected tend to have higher rates of psychological distress (Seppalla, 2012). Use of social media is simply using technology like a tool to stay connected while fulfilling our brain’s need to socialize. If you are interested in learning more about Wolpart’s work, you can connect with him on Twitter @social_brains . Social media helps people stay connected. Its an easy way to keep up with friends and family that we wouldn’t be able to as often. The ability to post pictures in real time and video chat are almost like being together.

What is homophily. Dictionary.com defines homophily as “the tendency to form strong social connections with people who share one’s defining characteristics, as age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, personal beliefs, etc.:political homophily on social media.” Information sharing is rapid through social media. This could be beneficial to sharing your thoughts and ideas with likeminded people. As we approach an election next week, I found it particularly interesting that Dictionary.com used political homophily as an example. I prefer to steer away from politics on my social media. The various platforms have made that more difficult by adding information about registering to vote and polling locations based on user location to their options. However instead of the information being a feature to choose it was implemented on all accounts. When I shared instructions on how to turn off the feature, I began seeing more political information in my feed. This brings me to algorithms.

Algorithms boost user content based on user interest instead of when the content was posted. Have you ever googled something only to find ads for that subject appearing in your Facebook feed? This is how algorithms work. Also, the users or accounts that you interact with the most? You will find those appearing first in your feed. Algorithms are supposed to give you, the user, a better social media experience, by giving you the most relevant information (Barnhart ). Algorithms promote homophily on social media. One way is through personality profiling. Algorithms attempt to bring relevant content to the user. Political Micro Targeting has shown to be effective at matching political advertising to a social media user’s personality traits (Brahim Zarouali, Tom Dobber, Guy De Pauw, Claes de Vreese). Being lead to more people with similar interests the algorithms promote or create homophily. All of this creates a sense of belonging and connection.

References

Barnhart, Brent Everything you need to know about social media algorithms. Sprout Social. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-algorithms/

Seppala, PHD, Emma Psychology Today Connect To ThriveSocial connection improves health, well-being, and longevity. Posted Aug 26, 2012 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/feeling-it/201208/connect-thrive

Wolpert, Stuart. UCLA neuroscientist's book explains why social connection is as important as food and shelter. October 10, 2013 https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/we-are-hard-wired-to-be-social-248746

Zarouali Brahim, Dobber, Tom, De Pauw, Guy, de Vreese, Claes. Using a Personality-Profiling Algorithm to Investigate Political Microtargeting: Assessing the Persuasion Effects of Personality-Tailored Ads on Social Media. October 20, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650220961965

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zeroamuckstogive · 4 years

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How to stand out without being just another Mom blog

Capturing Attention in Social Media

Capturing attention in social media is getting people to notice you. This seems to be the easy part because people are always looking for the next best thing. It is important because people want to be seen and heard. People want to be entertained. But, creating a social presence doesn’t automate followers. Knowing who you are trying to draw into your social presence is important (Matejic, 2015). Topics that go viral tend to be emotional or morals based as moral and emotional content creates a sense of community inclusion (Gantman, Van Bavel, 2020.) When should you post? Are there times of day that there is more user engagement (Matejic, 2020) that will be beneficial to capturing attention?

Maintaining Engagement in Social Media

Attention Please! Try keeping people’s attention in a world of rapid changing interests and technology. The myriad of apps that are available use technology to track user traits and interests and are designed to induce a high rate of use (Firth, Tourous, firth, Stiner, Smith, Alvarez-Jimenez, Gleason, Armitage & Sarris, 2019). Tapping into a niche interest area or demographic can be a key to maintaining attention. Chances are that someone is already doing it, but what can you offer that is unique and engaging? Going live is one tactic to connect with your following. Running contests or games to keep a post fresh in user feeds is useful. Use of hashtags of relevant words will also help keep posts connected. Keeping your following engaged is important because without their continued interaction your content will no longer be relevant. You will become lost in the plethora of content available on the internet today unless you are able to stay one step ahead of the pack.

References.

Brady, W. J., Gantman, A. P., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2020). Attentional capture helps explain why moral and emotional content go viral. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(4), 746–756. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000673.supp (Supplemental)

Firth, J., Torous, J., Stubbs, B., Firth, J. A., Steiner, G. Z., Smith, L., Alvarez-Jimenez, M., Gleeson, J., Vancampfort, D., Armitage, C. J., & Sarris, J. (2019). The "online brain": how the Internet may be changing our cognition. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 18(2), 119–129. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20617

Matejic, Nicole. Social Media Rules of Engagement : Why Your Online Narrative Is the Best Weapon During a Crisis, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=2031449.

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