Although widely applied in practice, the field of SM lacks a comprehensive understanding of the factors that shape diffusion during campaigns.
The lack of such understanding hinders the development and implementation of effective SM campaigns.
They reviewed extant literature on diffusion and SM campaigns, and conducted two experiments to test the validity and predictive power of the new model.
The final version of the model identifies four interrelated categories of factors as being responsible for the spread of SM campaign content:
- campaign content characteristics (message clarity and message valence),
- user perceptions (perceived relevance, perceived source credibility, and perceived effectiveness of the appeal),
- user social network characteristics (network type and network size), and
- user motivations (social influence, self-expression, social responsibility, and message endorsement)
The findings suggest that content that focuses on the social effects of a campaign, and that comes from a credible source with a good track record, is more likely to go viral. Furthermore, campaigns delivered via online social networks and that include appeals encouraging the user to share the message are more likely to go viral.
The researchers say their study could help practitioners determine the effectiveness of SM campaigns before implementing them.
