Social Media Usage and Profiles of University Students

DISSERTATION
SZAKDOLGOZAT

Gergő Molnár
2011

Dissertation
Social Technographics Profiles of
Students at University of Pécs
By

Gergő Molnár

Instructor: Dr. Krisztián Szűcs

University of Pécs
Faculty of Business and Economics
Business Degree Programmes in English
Master of Sciences in International Business
14 Dec 2011

Executive Summary

In the last few years the Internet changed people’s life and have became a daily
routine; the part of everyday life. This dissertation provides an insight in social
media user habits of students’ who study at University of Pécs. With the
appearance of Web 2.0 and Social Media, user habits have changed generally.
People use the Internet for communicating, entertaining, purchasing,
consuming, selling, gathering information, and further activities. Businesses
use social media for marketing purposes. They publish corporate blogs, and
they have presence in several social media services, instead of get to know
target audience and build a relationship based on which context are they able to
reach. To help businesses, Forrester identified social computing profiles
according to the participation level of users. Author of dissertation have
adapted Social Technographics Profiles for students at University of Pécs in
order to know how actively students participate in social computing activities.
Although engage students is difficult because of the general lack of brand
loyalty, according to the results they can be targeted in an effective way by
local companies or business.

Acknowledgement

I would like to express thank my supervisor Dr. Krisztián Szűcs who gave me
direct instructions about writing my thesis.
Since this is my master dissertation and I am hopefully going to graduate in
January I would like to denote my gratitude to my former lecturers who taught
me on the master and bachelor program.

Above all I would like to say a big THANK my family for everything I have
got in my life: the support, the patience, the opportunity for further education
and many things.

Table of Content
List of Figures ......................................................................................................i
Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1
Literature Review ................................................................................................ 3
Social Media & Web 2.0 ................................................................................. 3
Social Technographics Ladder ...................................................................... 14
Changing User Habits ................................................................................... 22
Research methodology ...................................................................................... 32
Primary and secondary data .......................................................................... 32
Questionnaire Design .................................................................................... 34
Sampling ....................................................................................................... 34
Pilot study ..................................................................................................... 35
Field work ..................................................................................................... 36
Limitations .................................................................................................... 36
Data Analysis and Findings .............................................................................. 37
Demographic data ......................................................................................... 37
How do students use social media ................................................................ 38
Social Technographic Ladder ....................................................................... 41
Final Conclusion ............................................................................................... 44
References ......................................................................................................... 46

List of Figures
1: Types of bloggers 8
2: Motivations of bloggers 9
3: Social Technographics Ladder 16
4: The new communications paradigm 22
5: The loop of needs 24
6: Hierarchy of needs in online communities 25
7: The gender of respondent students 37
8: The age of respondent students 38
9: Spent time on social network sites 38
10: Which device do students use to browse social network sites 39
11: Social network sites by visit frequency 40
12: Social Media profiles of students at University of Pécs (sorted individually
by students) 41
13: Social Media profiles of students at University of Pécs 42
14: Social Technographic Profiles of European users (18-24 years) 43
15: Social Technographic Profile rates at University of Pécs 44

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Introduction
Title
The proposed title of the dissertation is Social Technographic Profiles of
Students at University of Pécs. The present dissertation research was conducted
in order to design the Social Technographics Ladder in reference to the
students of our university. The dissertation tries to give a picture about
students’ online social behaviour, and their social computing profiles.

Research objectives
1. AIM – Identify Students’ Social Media Usage
• To determine Who are the users?
• To determine Which social network sites do they use?
• To determine How much time do they spend on social network sites?

2. AIM - To determine how students form groups according to Social
Technographics Ladder
• To determine How do they participate in social activities?

Structure of Content
The main parts of the dissertation are the followings below:
 Chapter 1
In the first chapter is the introduction the topic and the field briefly. In
the chapter the problem, the aims of the dissertation and the hypothesis
are determined.

 Chapter 2
In Chapter 2 author presents the literature review of the research. This
chapter is divided into three parts:
 Describe the relationship between social media and web 2.0;
gives an exact picture of the possibilities in social media

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 Describe what Social Technographics Ladder is and introduce
social profiles
 In the third part author introduces how social behaviour of
young adults and students changed in online environment due to
the spread of social media services

 Chapter 3
In the third chapter research methodology will be introduced: the
procedure of research; the design and planning processes; and the
execution of my research.

 Chapter 4
This chapter is to present and analyse the research results and collected
data.

 Chapter 5
In the last chapter of the dissertation author describe the conclusion.

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Literature Review
Social Media & Web 2.0
As Constantinides and Fountain suggest (2007) people often use the two terms
‘Social Media’ and ‘Web 2.0’ interchangeable. However there is a slight
overlap, professionals say Web 2.0 means the new web-based applications and
Social Media analyzes these Web 2.0 applications in social aspect. Web 2.0
and social media are slowly attracting attention and yet there is no definition of
these two terms that is enjoying general academic acceptance. (Karger and
Quan, 2005; Biever, 2006)
However there is still no comprehensively accepted definition of the Web 2.0
and organized research that can prove its importance and the special effects on
the marketing practice, it is crucial for marketers and professionals to take into
consideration Web 2.0 as a challenge or as a new type of commercial strategy
(Constantinides and Fountain, 2007).
As Madden and Fox (2007) dissert Web 2.0 has been used to signify paradigm
shift from a broadcast, or information transmission, model of the web to a more
social model that makes communication much easier and cooperation through
its platforms.
Besides web 2.0 transforms peoples’ individual and group actions, has also
affected the balance of forces between corporations in the marketplace. Hence
the migration of power from businesses to customers is observable. Nowadays
customers can provide such information to the community that were not
accessible before, so basically customers shape the web (Constantinides and
Fountain, 2007).
Many authors tried to give the definition, but academics have always found
something that was not correct. Here are some definitions from different
authors:
“Web 2.0 is a collection of open-source, interactive and user-controlled online
applications expanding the experiences, knowledge and market power of the
users as participants in business and social processes. Web 2.0 applications
support the creation of informal users ’ networks facilitating the flow of ideas
and knowledge by allowing the efficient generation, dissemination, sharing and

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editing / refining of informational content” (Constantinides and Fountain, 2007
p.232-233)
“Web 2.0 is both a usage and a technology paradigm. It’s a collection of
technologies, business strategies, and social trends.” (Murugesan, 2007 p.34)
And finally here are the competencies according to Tim O’Reilly (2005).
O’Reilly has summarized the main features of a Web 2.0 service:
 “Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability

 Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as
more people use them

 Trusting users as co-developers

 Harnessing collective intelligence

 Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service

 Software above the level of a single device

 Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business
models.”

Several professionals (O’ Reilly, 2005; Daconta et al., 2003) have determined
and analysed the main elements of Web 2.0 web-services. Based on their
researches, Constantinides and Fountain have identified the key innovative
elements that typify these new Web 2.0 applications. Authors summarized as
the three main principles of Web 2.0:
 “1. Focus on service-based, simple and open-source solutions in the
form of online applications.

 2. Continuous and incremental application development requiring the
participation and interaction of users in new ways: not only
‘consuming’ but also contributing, reviewing and editing content.

 3. New service-based business models and new opportunities for
reaching small individual customers with low-volume products.”
(Constantinides and Fountain, 2007 p.235)

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As Cormode and Krishnamurthy (2008) described some relevant and important
site features that have to be included by websites or services that labelled them
as “Web 2.0” web-service:
 “Users are first class entities in the structure

 The ability to form connections between users (via links)

 The ability to post content in many forms: photos, videos, blogs,
comments and ratings

 Other more technical features, including a public API to allow
third-party enhancements and “mash-ups”. (Cormode and
Krishnamurthy, 2008 p.6)

Giving an exact definition of social media is complicated because many
professionals and academics describe the term in a different way. There are
several approaches that will be presented.
Constantinides and Fountain (2007) states social media has the power to affect
how users communicate, make decisions in the social community and even in
real life, who they learn and entertain themselves or how and whom they
connect on the social web.
Blackshaw and Nazzaro (2006 p.2) draw this phenomenon as the new online
media that ‘‘describes a variety of new sources of online information that are
created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers intent on educating each
other about products, brands, services, personalities, and issues’’.
According to Gunelius (2010 p.10), social media “are the online publishing and
communication tools, sites and destinations of Web 2.0 that are rooted in
conversations, engagement and participation.”
Gillin (2007) says the social media provides a brand new phenomenon,
becoming the new source that encourages creativity, influence and
empowerment of consumers.
In the traditional marketing and media paradigm, the key components of the
promotional mix are coordinated to develop an integrated marketing
communications strategy, and the content, frequency, timing and place of
communications are allocated by the advertiser organization and the
advertising agency or Public Relations Company. Social media is a compound
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element of the promotion mix because it mixes characteristics of traditional
integrated marketing communications tools (business-to-customer) with a more
effective form of word-of-mouth (customer-to-customer) (Mangold & Faulds,
2009).

As social media services support the connectivity, the number of subscribers to
these services is continuously increasing, and these users are spending the most
of their time online engaged in social media activities (M2PressWIRE, 2010).
CityVille on Facebook that was developed by Zynga reached 100 million users
worldwide in 43 days (GKIeNET, 2009). The greatest advantage of social
media it enables customers to talk to another one. This is an extended version
of traditional word-of-mouth communication (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). The
social networking phenomenon is infecting the business life such as the private
life. Generally the most of business software developers add new features to
their core products to provide more connected working processes for
companies and institutions (M2PressWIRE, 2010).
According to Mayfield’s (2008) characteristics, social media is much more
comprehensible. The main characteristics of this new media are the followings:
 Participation: social media encourages users who are interested in a
given topic to contribute and give feedback contributions and feedback
from everyone who is interested. Social media obscures the broad
between audience and media.

 Openness: However, sometimes it occurs that the content is protected
by password, social media services support online voting, comments
and the sharing of information, so most of them are able to giving
feedback through them.

 Conversation: In front of the traditional approach of media when the
content is simply provided to the audience, social media is a two way
communication channel

 Community: Due to social media, customers can form communities and
communicate each other quickly. These communities share information

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and different kind of contents that is related to their common interests,
such as hobbies, a political issue or a favourite athlete and so on.

 Connectedness: Social media services mostly increase accordingly their
connectedness, which means how many peers are connecting to each
other and how frequently they sharing content, sending messages, or
commenting.

According to Constantinides and Fountain’s (2007) classification, social media
is divided into five categories that are based on the types of social media
application:
 Blogs: Blogs are known as also Web Logs. Blogs are often combined
with podcasts, that is, digital audio or video that can be streamed or
downloaded to portable devices.

 Social networks: These are the most known and most increasing
category of Web 2.0 applications. Social network applications give
users the chance to build personal websites that can be viewed by other
users.

 (Content) Communities: Websites organising and sharing different
types of content.

 Forums/bulleting-boards: On these sites visitors can share and exchange
ideas and information about their fields of interests.

 Content aggregators: These applications allow users to collect the web
content accordingly their own interests. These applications are known
as Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (RSS).

Blogs
According to Reuben (2008), blogs are a new form of online journal. Blogs can
be edited by only one or even several authors. In most cases visitors can leave
comments on blogs post as a response for the discussed topic. Chiang and
Hsieh (2011) determine the term of blog as a continuously edited and managed
website whose main purpose is recording separate articles and post them in a

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time line. Saxton (2008), studying blogs, notes that most blogs are information
filters with the author’s comment.
Blogs and podcast are powerful marketing tools. The influence power of blogs
is increasing just as the audience and reader-basis (Gillin, 2007).
As Dave White (2008) states bloggers are heterogeneous people they can be
segmented only by their type of blogs. White determines three main types of
blogs. These are personal, professional and corporate blogs. However millions
of people write about their everyday life and using blogs just as a public diary,
personal blogs are moderately popular today. In general, the most visited blog
category is professional blogs. These blogs are written in specific topic like
football, engineering, biology, or gastronomy. By a corporate blog, companies
are allowed to write and communicate in more informal style than they have
done it in traditional newsletters and brochures that let them become a more
human organization (Mayfield, 2008).

Figure 1: Types of bloggers
Source: Technorati (2008)

Cox (2008) suggests three basic principles for companies if they would like to
apply outside bloggers:
 “Be aware. Corporate managers should find and monitor influential
blogs related to their companies and industries.

 Engage. Establish relationships with independent bloggers when
possible.

 Respond quickly and appropriately”. (Cox et al., 2008 p.7)

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The different kind of unique characteristics distinguish blogs from other
electronic media and communication tools. Over against short message service,
multimedia message service or email, blogs can be linked each other thus
visitors can jump from post to post. These linked blogs can allow visitors and
readers to make relationships or form a community. The most important blog
characteristics are links and trackbacks, opportunity to leave comments and
subscriptions via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) (Mayfield, 2008).
Year by year increasing influence of bloggers (Technorati, 2011) caused
rapidly growing reader engagement. To get more of frequently visiting readers,
bloggers have to provide quality content. This is not so simple because readers
spend less than two minutes to read a blog. This time in most cases not enough
to engage visitors and transform them frequently readers. (Chen et al., 2010)
Information creating and consuming by bloggers basically origin two
behavioural orientations of blogging: information search and social interaction
(Huang et al., 2007).

Figure 2: Motivations of bloggers
Source: Huang et al. (2007)

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Social Networks
The different kind of social network sites provide several technological
solutions to support the wide range of users’ perceptions according to their
interests and practises (Ellison and Boyd, 2008). Social networking is one
characteristic type of social media, where individual users can share their ideas,
interests, join online communities or can meet people with similar personality
(Reuben, 2008).
Ellison and Boyd (2008) defined social network sites as web-based services
that allow individuals to
1. “Construct profile that can be public, semi-public or private within a
bounded system,

2. Edit a list of other users with whom they share a connection,

3. View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others
within the system.” (Ellison and Boyd, 2008 p.217)

As Ellison and Boyd (2008) states people often use the terms “social network
site” and “social networking sites” interchangeably that is not wrong, but they
suggest using “network” instead of “networking”. As they have described, the
term “networking” means literally relationship initiation, often between
strangers. However networking is possible on these sites, people usually use
them to make connection with friends.
In most social network site, people are prompted to inviting real-world contacts
and friends to join the social network (Mayfield, 2008). The label of
connection is varying on social network sites. The most popular labels are
Friends, Contacts, or Fans. On many social site is needed a bi-directional
relationship confirmation in order to avoid spamming. (Ellison and Boyd,
2008)
Businesses are able to talk to their consumers or any external actors through
social network sites. They can promote, recruit, building brands on these
platforms (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Until many social network sites’ goal to
spread and increase user base exponentially, there are some platforms that
target a niche market and seek narrower audiences (Mayfield, 2008). Social
network sites differ greatly in their user base and most features. Some of them

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are able to send instant messages, upload videos, or write a blog inside the
platform (Ellison and Boyd, 2008).
Facebook is the most popular social networking site that allows people to make
connections with friends, colleagues, classmates or build business
relationships. Most of people use Facebook to stay connected with their
friends, upload photos and videos of their lives, share links and different kind
of content, and just get more information about new people who they met.
Facebook was founded by Harvard students and initially it was made their
classmates. Later on, Facebook was expanded to any other schools and anyone
who are older than 13 (Reuben, 2008).
Facebook consists of five main components: profile pages, status updates,
groups (schools, interests, and companies), applications and fan pages
(Reuben, 2008). According to GKIeNET’s research (2011), 3.5 million
Hungarian users have a Facebook profile that is 85% of Hungarians with
Internet access and 42% of the Hungarian population. One of Facebook’s key
success factors is the “open-up” system that allows anyone to develop
applications and run them on the Facebook platform without any charging fee.
Due to this move, users can play chess, managing online farms, restaurants,
compete with each other, send gift cards and they have much more possibilities
that can engage people (Mayfield, 2008).
Micro-blogging is an online platform that mixes the features of instant
messaging, blogging and social networking. Twitter allows users to post short
status updates within 140 characters (Reuben, 2008) instantly to different
social media platforms (Mayfield, 2008). Twitter users can “follow” their
friends, send messages directly, retweet their updates, publicly reply, or post
questions and comments as a status update (Reuben, 2008).
Another social networking site is LinkedIn that allows people to build
relationships with professionals and make business connections (Mayfield,
2008). According to SocialTimes’ statistics (2011), until November of 2011,
174 266 people have registered a profile on LinkedIn.
The Hungarian social networking site, iWiW has lost continuously their users
in the past few years. After spreading of Facebook in Hungary, iWiW’s visitors
per day ratio started falling dramatically. Its developers tried to copy some
Facebook features, but this movement was not successful.

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Content Communities
According to Mayfield (2008), content communities are a bit similar to social
networks. Users have to register or sign up; they can log in to the site and make
connections with friends. The main difference between social networking sites
and content communities is people make the content and rate it, but on social
networking sites users usually just share the content (Mayfield, 2008).
Constatinides and Fountain (2008) identifies basically four types of content
communities:
 Video-sharing sites

 Photo-sharing sites

 Wikis

 Online bookmarking sites

YouTube is the biggest online video-sharing service. Its initial goal was to
entertain and attract people by uploading and sharing their own videos that are
accessible across the Internet. Since then many content provider started using
YouTube to share videos in various field (Reuben, 2008). According to
GKIeNET’s survey (2009), in Hungary 2.9 million users visit video-sharing
sites in a month.
The two biggest online photo-sharing sites are Picasa and Flickr. These sites
are an online photo site where users can upload and organize their their photos
in sets of collections. Basically these sites are a private online photo album, but
users can share their photos with friends and public. Public photos can be
viewed and rated by anyone (Reuben, 2008).
As Mayfield (2008) describes wikis are websites on that users can contribute
or edit content. Wikis are great for collaborative working for students, or
professionals. Leuf and Cunningham (2001) identified three main features of
wiki sites:
 “A wiki service invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages
within the wiki by using only the web browser without any add-ons

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 Wiki promotes significant topic relations between different pages by
making page easy-to-use

 A wiki is not a well-designed site for casual visitors. It rather
encourages the visitor to creating and collaborating projects that
constantly changes the web site landscape.” (Leuf and Cunningham,
2001 p.64)

The most visited social bookmarking sites are Digg.com and del.icio.us. The
primary use of these online bookmarking services is to store bookmarks online
that allows users to access their online bookmarks from different PCs and add
bookmarks from anywhere to their profile. Bookmarks on these sites are able
to be organized by tagging (Reuben, 2008).

Content Aggregators and Widgets
Due to innovation has increased in the last few years, the reach of weblogs and
podcasts a technology named RSS (Really Simple Syndication) appeared
which makes people able to subscribe to websites and blogs (Mayfield, 2008).
Really Simple Syndication is a kind of Web feed formats used for seeding
content from blogs or Web pages. Generally, RSS is an XML file that provides
content for users (Murugesan, 2007). RSS technology is highly important
because it makes it much easier to become part of an online community
(Mayfield, 2008). RSS is now being used to collect information about a
specific field, push not just notices of data updates, including stock quotes,
weather data, and photo availability (O’Reilly, 2005).

Forums, Bulletin Boards, Reviews
The websites for exchanging information and ideas around special interests are
another growing phenomenon on the internet (Constantinides and Fountain,
2008). Internet forums are the oldest form of social media. Forums usually
exist around specific topics and interests (Mayfield, 2008).
The main characteristic of forums is the structure of discussion in which post
and respond to questions and comments are allowed. (Farayd and DeSanctis,

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2010) In a forum each discussion is a thread, and the different threads can be
continuously active in same time. On the top of the forum hierarchy, there is an
administrator or admin who moderate comments and remove spam and
irrelevant posts (Mayfield, 2008).
Forums are able to build a strong community. Some forums are highly
enclosed from online social media activity and have no connection to other
forms of social media (Mayfield, 2008). Online forums often called virtual
communities or electronic discussion groups, which provide an opportunity for
people to exchange ideas and experiences through group discourse around a
common topic (Farayd and DeSanctis, 2010). As Schultz (2000) states online
forums raise the interactivity of the mass media generally by widening the
scale of opportunities for users’ communication. In order to encourage
participation and change knowledge, these online forums have to develop a
sense of ‘we-ness’ or sense of belonging. These online communities often built
up just as a real life community: there can be different character roles like
bossy, smart guy, and so on (Farayd and DeSanctis, 2010).
Moe and Trusov (2011) states, in the last few years, online product ratings and
reviews have become more important in the consumer’s decision procedure. As
they argued, product sales are highly affected by product ratings from online
customers. The common basic statement of researches that study the effect of
customer reviews on product sales is that posted ratings reveal the customers’
experience with the product independent from other customers’ ratings (Moe
and Trusov, 2011). Against Moe and Trusov (2011) studies, Schlosser (2005)
and Godes and Silva (2009) argued that community influence posted product
ratings. A person’s posted rating for a product is affected by the previously
ratings.

Social Technographics Ladder
In 2007, Forrester Researcher introduced the term of Social Computing that is
“a social structure in which technology puts power in communities, not
institutions.” (Li and Bernoff, 2007)
Due to social activity shift online, that gives opportunity for small business
owners and marketers – who would like to take control of their presence on the

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Internet - to get found, engage with and attract more qualified users to their
own website. (Beale, 2010)
As Li (2007) expounds, companies usually do not have any information about
how their customers use social technologies. They do not know how many
online users or consumers read online blogs or use social network sites, and
asked themselves how many of “my consumers” are engaged in Social
Computing. It is more important that marketers lack an understanding of which
factors force the implementation of a new Social Computing method. It should
be important to know what the motivations of the users are to upload a video
on YouTube, read a comment or start writing a blog.
Li (2007) states average marketers’ main challenge to identify the target
market’s profile that is explained by lack of experience. User-generated content
seems well-sounded buzz-word but implementation means difficulties.
Marketing professionals were not have enough knowledge and skills to identify
which approaches and technologies work in dissimilar situations and for
dissimilar objectives or customers. A company’s Social Computing approach
must be ﬂexible enough to fulfil these innovations. This challenge was one of
many that caused Bernoff and Li (2007) framed the Social Technographics
Ladder. As Bernoff (2010) draw “social technographics classifies people
according how they use social technologies”. Social Technographics Ladder
was made to reveal personal activity in social networking sites. Social
Technographics Profiles group people who are using the Internet into
overlapping clusters based on their online participation. (Solis, 2011)
According to Chow (2011) Technographics Ladder is basically a way of
measuring how the target audience partakes in social media, from the Creators
who writes a blogs or publish videos on YouTube through Conversationalists,
Critics, Collectors, Joiners, and Spectators and finally the Inactives.
Social Technographics was consciously designed, rather as a profile not as a
segment. That's because the then data showed that users participate in multiple
behaviours, and if a user sits on a higher level that does not mean actually does
every activities that is typical of lower rungs. (Bernoff, 2011)
Josh Bernoff and his team have analyzed data for 13 countries, for business
buyers, and even for voters. The researcher team have done profiles based on a

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database that contained information about more than hundred clients. Profiles
were designed like Wal-Mart shoppers, non-profit donors, and doctors.

Figure 3: Social Technographics Ladder
Source: Li and Bernoff (2008)

According to Fridolf and Arnatuovic (2011) Social Technographics Ladder
report shows how companies can design strategies by using Social
Technographics. Participation ladder have helped to figure out which social
strategies to deploy first and also how to assist users to "climb up" on the
ladder, from being Spectators to becoming more engaged.

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As Falls (2010) states Social Technographics Ladder has been the milestone of
numerous social media marketing approaches designed in the last few years.
By Social Technigraphics Profile it can be understood how social technologies
are being adopted by any group of users. By assessing where one’s clients fall
in a space it is possible to make rational judgments about which social
technology will be most appropriate.(Chow, 2011) According to Bunzel (2010)
organizations apply this profiling tool to appraise their target even if it is a
market segment, interest group, constituency, or any other potential pool of
users for social media.
„In their latest report (2010), Forrrester has revised the Technographics Ladder
and added another rung named “Conversationalist”. The profile contains users
who update their status and actively using Facebook or Twitter. (Falls, 2010)
As Bernoff (2010) have wrote “one thing has been bugging me: there was no
place for Twitter” before. So he added the Conversationalists rung to the
ladder.
‘Conversationalists’ reflects two changes:
1) It includes people who update social network status to converse, not
just Twitter members;
2) It includes only people who update at least weekly, because anything
less is not a conversation. (Bernoff, 2010)

Comparing the results of previous years with results of the current year, the
report shows increases across the board in the percentage of people
participating in each rung, except of course the “inactives” which dropped.
(Falls, 2010)

Creators
„At the top of the ladder are Creators that mean they are the most active
participants on the Internet.
Creators characteristics are publishing blogs, maintain websites, or upload
videos to sites like YouTube at least once per month. As Li (2007) suggests,
Creators is an elite group and they are generally young (average age is 39).
Their contribution in creation activities is wide-ranging.

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Creators are the users who create the key, initial content for a community or
network and make the most obvious contributions to the community. Creators
want to form and convince the other members in the community and want their
‘products’ to be read critically. Thus, creators will often trigger personal
attacks, flaming, and what constitutes valid forms of evidence in persuasive
arguments. The users in this profile necessitate knowing they are being read
and having impact on their community, even in case if that impact is not
constructive. (Howard, 2010)

Conversationalists
„Conversationalists were added to the model later. This cluster is also creating,
but only to facilitate communication and conversations. They would like to
reflect themselves in their status updates and trying to converse with their
audience. Conversationalists say their opinions to other people through social
channels such as Facebook, Twitter and other Social Networking Sites. (Fridolf
& Arnatuovic, 2011)
According to Bruce’s (2010) criticism, Conversationalists sit above Critics,
which is not definitely pertinent because Critics produce much more useful and
relevant content than Conversationalists.

Critics
Basically, critics are the reverse of the conversationalists: people in this profile
respond to status blogs, articles, status updates, websites, forums, and so on.
There is a significant overlap among Creators, Conversationalists and Critics.
Critics are a very important rung in the ladder because for creators and
conversationalists, this group is important to interact. However, there is a
significant overlap in these three segments (creators, critics and
conversationalist).
Essentially people in this group participate in two ways:
1) Commenting on blogs or other sites
2) Posting ratings and reviews on sites. (Li, 2007)

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As Li (2007) explains, this level of partaking not as much intense as being a
Creator because Critics choose where they will share their expertise and often
publish other blog posts to support their contribution.
Commenting on other users’ contents needs less energy and effort than
producing the original material. Critics need to know how popular their
contents are and or how others think about their reviews and comments.
(Howard, 2010)
Four out of 10 Critics are Creators as well. (Charlene Li, 2007)

Collectors
People in this group use online resources to process information, or to reflect
what they are interested in. Li (2007) explains when people save links via web-
based online bookmarking services they create metadata that is shared with the
whole virtual community.
By collecting and aggregating information Collectors become important in the
system because they structure the online information that are produced by
Creators and Critics.
According to Howard (2010) Collectors influence social networks and
communities because they are able to systematize the content created by
Creators and Critics into ranked categories. They are satisfied if they know
their archived information will help the community.

Joiners
Joiners just maintain profiles in social networking sites and build their online
relationships. The joiners are present at Social Media websites to maintain their
own profile and their relationship circle. They also share information to
improve their own knowledge, however not at extent of the collectors. This
group is using social networking sites like Facebook and Youtube. They are
highly likely to engage in other Social Computing activities. Joiners are the
youngest among the Social Technographics groups. (Charlene Li, 2007)
Howard (2010) states Joiners need to see that their profiles have been viewed
by others.

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Spectators
As Li (2007) describes Spectators they are just viewing from a distance. They
collect information about different topics, products, services, friends,
celebrities, and they are not active participants in the community. The most
common activity for Spectators is reading blogs, watch peer-generated video
and so on.
„This group benefits from and consumes what the rest produce. They watch
videos read blogs and forum postings. This is the largest group. Since being a
spectator requires so much less effort than the other activities among the rungs.
Spectator category dos not occupy the bottom rung of the „ladder” because
consumption is still a form of participation requiring some effort. If Spectators
feel neglected or ignored, they may leave a community or network and stop
supporting it through their consumption of the content that the Creators and
Critics generate.”(Howard, 2010. p.88)

Inactives
Implicitly inactive people are not present on social media and they are not
doing anything at all.
According to Li (2007) about 52% of online adults do not partake in social
computing activities.
They do not spend time and energy to be a part of the social network thus
Inactives appear on the lowest rung. Inactives do not create, collect or organize
the contents and information. People can be Inactives without or by losing
motivation. Based on Howard’s (2010) theory creators who see that they are
not having influence will stop creating messages, just as Critics will stop
commenting or as Spectators will stop consuming.

The Eighth Rung
Many marketer and strategists have issued criticism about the Social
Technographic Ladder. For example the GlobalOne Blog (2011) states the
Ladder needs a new rung named “Requester”. This user type maybe represents

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already in the Critics, Joiners, and Spectators, but the author thinks “in a sales-
driven environment, the amount of requests can far outweigh the content being
produced by the marketing team (creators) or the sales support organization
(joiners).” According to Ben Foster (2009), another opinion about possible new
rung is “Surfacers”. Surfacers are users whose links on social networking sites
we regularly read. Actually these users do not comment or create content, but
they have a huge role in what we click, read and after that share.
The Surfacers should be within the Top 5 rungs with these its characteristics:
1) Takes pride in ability to share new information
2) Digests massive quantities of content through RSS feeds, their friends’
content, and their own curiosity
3) Focused primarily on sharing information with friends, not with broader
community
4) Avoids posting content that is super-popular
5) Credits friend/source of information. (Foster, 2009)

Social Technographic Ladder applies a brand new approach of social media
and reaching customers on the Internet. Marketers, online strategists and
professionals have to think about how they could engage with their customers
and create content, features, and functionality that create a way for
participation. According to Li (2007), if marketers would like to use Social
Media effectively they have to:
 Analyze the Social Technographics Proﬁle of audience or at least check
sites that audience frequently visit
 Figure out how users will participate in the present and in the future.
Make a plan how consumers will interact on the sites and how they will
engage with the brand or product.
 Create multiple participation points because marketers never know how
users will want to interact and engage.
 Secure easy-to-access content to Spectators
 Prepare organization for criticism and consumer responses. Sometimes
people converse rude in social media about a product or brand and these
have to be handled by the operator or administrator.

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Changing User Habits
To better understand how students use social media it is indispensable to
understand how customers’ expectations and motivations have changed by the
appearance of social media. Before wide spread of social media, companies
communicated with customers both individually (personal sale, telemarketing,
direct letter) and in mass media (traditional advertising) (Gallaugher and
Ransbotham, 2010), but the most trusted way of promotion have been word of
mouth (Evans, 2008). Formerly, regardless of the medium, customers were not
able to connect with others to observe, change experiences or influence about a
firm or its product (Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010). Today, in the age of
social media, customers have the tools to tell even ten million people if they
are dissatisfied. It was unimaginable few years ago and took long time to only
tell ten or twenty people their dissatisfaction. (Gillin, 2007)

Figure 4: The new communications paradigm
Source: (Mangold and Faulds, 2009)

As Mangold and Faulds (2009) states, networking opportunities can be
effective even without social media, but people communicate more likely on
social media platforms when they are engaged with products or services that
results a much more efficient word-of-mouth marketing. However on the social
web, people are seeking information, instead of different promotions (Evans,
2008), users are actively trying to impress their engagement with popular

22

brands (Universal McCann, 2010). Social media raised the firms’ opportunity
to communicate in firm-customer dialog, enhancing firm-to-customer and
customer-to-firm interaction (Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010).

Modern technologies nowadays offer various communication channels that
encourage people to produce and consume content. Similar to traditional
media, social media provides two options:
1. It supports the interaction between customer and the firm.
2. It encourages firm and customer to observe what other people expect
and think about the firm. (Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010)
Due to these two options, people communicate more intensively than before.
Social media affect continuously and change consumer behaviour (Dutta,
2010) because consumers trust each other even in the digital environment. This
is a visible change in consumer attitudes. Consumers like to interact with other
people who have common interest and desires with their own. Organizations
need to recognize and capitalize this phenomenon by creating online
communities of like-minded people (Mangold and Faulds, 2009)
(Constantinides and Fountain, 2007). People become more engaged with
brands and businesses if they can feedback or able to response (Mangold and
Faulds, 2009).

The change in customer behaviour has been also seen in the increasing demand
for online services, for example in case of Web 2.0, where users can also
access peer communities, besides cooperate with businesses. The different
online services and applications are becoming continuously popular because
they provide different advantages to users. New customer needs can be
triggered by other customers’ conversation and former buying attitudes
(Constantinides and Fountain, 2007). According to Foux (2006), consumers
perceive a much more trustworthy presence in social media than before in
traditional media. Firms need to provide creditable information in order to keep
customers’ attention because the fact people is more and more turning away
from traditional advertising. They also spend more time to choose which
medium they will consume, because it is perceived to access information easily
(Vollmer&Precourt, 2008).

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Internet and social media are much more influence customers’ buying habits
than other media types. As Wolburg (Wolburg et al, 2001 p.38) say “buying
trends and new products are expected to come and go almost as rapidly as
young adults can find new websites.” According to Mangold and Faulds
(2009), customers become more engaged by online contests, voting; rating
products; playing games online and gather extra information about the
company.

Marketers were challenged by customers’ changed perceptions. They were
very confused due to the Internet, the new online communication channel.
Changing user habits can be the consequence of motivation change in the
digital environment. Understand users’ behaviour and their motivations meant
an unsolved problem. According to Whipperman’s (Trendbüro, 2008)
approximation to the changed behaviour that Maslow’s pyramid transformed to
a feedback loop that mean “in the process that is never completed self-
actualization remains the individual’s basic motivation and is increasingly
coming to the means of self-optimization.” (Trendbüro, 2008 p.11)

Figure 5: The loop of needs
Source: Trendbüro, 2008

Without any doubt, motivation has transformed in the last few years that is
caused by the Internet and social media. Abraham Maslow kept that
motivational needs of people is ranging from basic survival to self-fulfilment,
and until the lower-level needs will not be satisfied, neither will be the higher-
level ones. Bowman and Willis (2003) used Maslow’s pyramid of needs to
clarify the goals and needs of online community participants.

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Figure 6: Hierarchy of needs in online communities
Source: Bowman and Willis (2003)

Net Generation
In order to give a clear picture about online consumption habits of students,
younger generations’ behaviour in the digital environment need to be
understood. In several literatures young people are named as Net Generation.
Members of Net Generation were born between 1980 and 1994 (Kennedy
2007) that means principally university and college students belong to this
group of people. Net Generation –or as known as ‘Digital Natives’ (Prensky,
2001), Generation Y or Yers (McCrindle, 2006) – uses as often as it can social
network sites (Pempek et al., 2009). This is the first generation, which grows
up with technology presence in their lives from their birth. Such things like
computers, laptops, video games, cell phones, iPod, Facebook accounts are
integrated into their everyday lives but this is just the beginning of the modern
technology (Nikirk, 2009).

According to Tapscott (2009) Net Generations have eight characteristics that
form them as a generation:
 Freedom – The basic characteristic of Yers the demand of free choice in
all field of everyday life. It is bear in relation to their career, leisure
time, choosing the right higher education organization and so on.

25

 Customization – Former generations - like Boomers and Generation X
(McCrindle, n.d.) – have accepted goods that were produced to the
mass. Nowadays youth adults prefer services and products that can be
purchased with individual product features just as computers, cars, or
even distemper.

 Scrutiny – Net Geners scrutinize any kind of information they come
across and filter the noise and irrelevant information based on their
instinct. To communicate with; and promote to this generation it is
indispensable to be honest and open.

 Integrity – Integrity is expected by Yers. They require honest and
correct behaviour in their job and cannot accept harmful and unfair
manner.

 Collaboration – Youth adults prefer collaborative work because it is a
natural way of work for them. Working alone is less effective during
their work and studies. Collaboration is often applied in co-creation
processes like in case of Wikipedia articles.

 Entertainment – Young people relatively much better love to be
entertained does not matter where they are. They consume different
kind of offline and online content that provides that provides a unique
experience.

 Speed – Generation Y frequently uses electronic devices to texting,
instant messaging that is supported with high speed telecommunication
technology. This devices – cell phone, computers – and Internet
connection become much faster and they expect to occur everything
quickly. Rapid answers are demand.

 Innovation – Net Generation pays attention to innovative products and
technologies.

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According to Wilson (2007) Generation Y has three typical features:
 Multi-tasking: Due to this generation is busy in the everyday life they
are able to run several projects in same time.

 Creativity: People of net generation believe they are highly expressive,
accordingly they try to show their creativity and individuality.

 Immediacy: As the Yers get used to obtain anything they want, long
waiting time in consumption is not preferred.

Despite there is a general lack of brand loyalty on the part of Net Generation
(Wolburg et al, 2001), they expect the active communication and interaction
from firms they purchase products or services (Tapscott, 2009). Advertisers
and marketers cannot agree what Generation Y wants and how to approach and
engage them (Milman, 2010). Marketers need to think differently and approach
Yers on alternative ways. These young adults have met with a lot of
impressions since their childhood and are able to ignore much kind of ads by
using modern technological tools (Wilson, 2007). Rather than approach them
with traditional ads, companies should build relationship with them (Tapscott,
2009). Digital natives act differently than older generations when they watch
an advertisement. They much prefer direct messages that they receive at
frequently visited places than online or cable television ads (Wilson, 2007).
According to Wilson (2007) grassroots marketing, local events, unusual
promotions can be effective to reach this generation.

According to Tapscott (2009) Generation Y has an addiction to their computers
and think digital technology has to be granted in any circumstances. They
assume continual access to computers and to Internet via phone, computer and
other devices. Despite they have grown up with television, Yers spent more
time with surfing on the Web than watching television (Wolburg et al, 2001)
(Barnikel, 2005). As Williams states (2005) young adults do not read long
articles, because all they need is pure information without any circumlocution.
They frequently use mobile devices and reading long texts are not comfortable.
“This is the true multimedia generation" (Williams, 2005). Yers frequently use

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several mobile technologies such as Bluetooth, GPS, 3G (Bradley 2007); spent
time with online gaming and play Xbox and other video games (Milman,
2010); download music, movies via iTunes, or applications and software
(Reisenwitz and Iyer, 2009). Generation Y prefer communication through e-
mail and short message service against face-to-face conversation (Barney,
2011). They live in a technological environment that let them be plugged in
24/7 (Wilson, 2007), (Barney, 2011). Almost every member of Net Generation
uses the Internet actively: they read blogs, leaving comment, and recommend
links, so they do not want to be passive receivers. They have developed brand
new social skills on the Internet (Tapscott, 2009). As Kennedy (2007) cited
Philip (2007 p.1), Net Generation expects “technology will be an important
part of their education” (Philip, 2007, p.1). Accordingly Net Gen’s demands,
higher education need to integrate technology in courses to stay competitive
(Tapscott, 2009). According to Milman (2010), these people constantly stay in
touch through different electric devices, and frequently influence friends, share
opinion. Due to Yers are perceptually connected, they can influence others
relatively in a more effective way than brand advertising could do (Wilson,
2007). As Reisenwitz and Iyer (2009) dissert, against older generations,
Generation Y has more expertise in technology and solve several problems
through collaboration.

Unlike boomers, Net Generation is racially and ethnically heterogeneous. This
group was born in the age of Internet and computers (Wilson, 2007). These
young adults cannot be called to action through older messages and filter out
irrelevant and boring media messages; they are looking for creative brand
messages (Wolburg et al, 2001), (Wilson, 2007). Since this generation is
brand-savvy and has spending power, they can influence buying decisions from
the early stages of their lives. Gen Y can quickly recognise the hype or
unreliable products and can be engaged by authentic brands (Wilson, 2007).
Young adult prefer humour in advertising (Wolburg et al, 2001) (Wilson,
2007). For this generation product attributes are much more important than
product image (Wolburg et al, 2001). In comparison with Generation X or
Boomers, adulthood comes later in Yers’ life. For boomers, being a single
adult ended in their early 20s. Today young adults become parents in their 30s.

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The reason is these young adults expect different life circumstances and focus
on career rather than get married and have children. As Wolburg (Wolburg et
al., 2001) discourse, earlier generations came family plans true after the
military service or university. However Yers have greater responsibility in their
family and social life than earlier generation, they rather study at Universities
than get married in order to stay “children”. Many young adults have part-time
job during their studies to support their parents. (Auby, 2008)

Students
Students are important part of Net Generation (Wolburg et al., 2001). As
Eberhardt (2007) states to maintain a profile and using social network sites
actively has become a routine behaviour for university students.
The young generations are not media experts; they have to learn so many
things about the Internet and privacy. Students usually do not care about what
they share. They share awkward photos and update their statuses precipitately
and these contents can be harmful in their studies or in their future career
(Shorey, n.d.). Students try to build a little different identity on social network
site profile and want to keep out parent of their online social circles. Many
young people decline friend requests from their parents because they wish
avoid awkward moments (West et al., 2009).

By using one-to-many communication style on Facebook and on other social
network sites also, students are able to act like creators when they disseminate
content among their friends. Students use Facebook to demonstrate an identity
with religious and political view, workplaces and schools and to interact with
friends with whom they have built offline relationship (Pempek et al., 2009).
As Subrahmanyam (Subrahmanyam et al., 2009 p.420) states “young adults
may use several online contexts to strengthen different aspects of their offline
connections.” According to Subrahmanyam’s researches students communicate
with their friends face-to-face, by instant messaging and on social network sites
that mean two of three is transacted on the Internet (Subrahmanyam et al.,
2009). According to ICMPA’s research (2011), email is still popular but
student use rather for formal communication for example with professors and

29

lecturers. Students preferably use text messages or Facebook to communicate
with classmates and folks, launch voice call if they want to talk to their parents.

According to Nealy (2009) higher education institutions need to develop social
networking strategies to inform student what is appropriate and what is
prohibited. Few students may show too much about themselves that can be
viewed be academic leadership. Despite Facebook has several privacy option,
student does not really care about their shared information. (Nealy, 2009)

In the last few decades the spending power of students has increased
continuously that means youth market have became significantly larger than
the earlier (Wolburg et al, 2001).

According to Wolburg (2001), marketers marked the market of university
students as one of the most coveted of all segments. As they describe, the
reasons of it are:

 “Their sheer size makes college students an important market.
 Students are often put in the role of trendsetters to the thousands of
visitors who attend events on college campuses.
 College students acquire preferences for goods and establish brand
loyalties that continue long after the college years.
 Students are expected to attain a high standard of living after
graduation.
 College students set examples to the remainder of the population by
being more receptive to new products.
 Students influence parental choices for major purchases” (Wolburg et
al, 2001 p.44).

Students usually get information and news via friends. The term News does not
mean only political or economical information for students. News is both what
happened to friends and worldwide. In their everyday life students read news
that appear on social network sites that practically means they do not search for
news, rather news find students in social media (ICMPA, 2011). An interesting

30

fact is that was reported by ICMPA’s research (2011) is youths in higher
education could spare television and newspaper but they cannot live without
media and their iPods. Students do not watch television they rather listen the
entertaining shows while using computers. TV is also a background noise in
their lives (ICMPA, 2011). Most students who was asked by ICMPA (2011)
said they check emails, Facebook updates after wake up and before go to sleep.

Based on the collected and examined literature it is ascertainable that media
became a part of students’ life and they extended their private life to social
media. To reach students effectively with commercial purpose, the most
effective communication channels could be the online social platforms.
Another conclusion is that students are a highly heterogenious segment that
means they can be engaged differently. In the following part of my dissertation
I will conduct a research that analyzes how students at University of Pécs form
groups according to the Social Technographics Ladder.

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Research Methodology
The literature basically distinguishes exploratory and descriptive research
methods. The difference is exploratory research is carried out to establish the
nature of problem; and descriptive research conducts to determine attributes of
phenomenon or population (Zikmund, 2003). Present dissertation contains
results of a descriptive research since Social Technograpics was analyzed. The
research approach can be inductive and deductive. Saunders (Saunders et al.,
2009) states the main difference is in the approach of theory. Practically
inductive approach is designing a theory and deductive approach is confirming
the theory. This paper applies deductive approach.
This study is a theory-led research since it is based on the various theories that
describe the how students are represented in social computing. The main goal
of the research is to identify how students at University of Pécs form groups
accordingly the Social Technographics Ladder.

Primary and Secondary Data
According to Malhotra and Birks (2003) the success of the research projects
highly depends on the data collection. The literature distinguishes two types of
data collection method:
 Primary data collection

 Secondary data collection

Primary Research
I my dissertation I have chosen to conduct a primary research. Despite social
media is a quite new field of communication, marketing or sociology, there are
many studies that describe several related researches. However these studies do
not provide fully sufficient secondary data.
Primary data is the data that researcher gather in order to understand the
specific research project and find a solution if there are any (Zikmund, 2003).
Primer data can be gathered in several way just like observing, experimenting,
measuring, questioning. Primary data fit better to research project or research

32

problem but the data collection process usually needs more time (Ghauri and
Gronhaug, 2011).
The primary research was conducted by a short online questionnaire. I have put
many online survey sites to the touch (KwikSurvey, SurveyMonkey, Google
Spreadsheet, Free Online Surveys, Kerdoivem.hu) and Zoomerang seemed the
best choice so I purchased the PRO Account for a month for 19 $. I designed a
questionnaire that is introduced in Questionnaire Design subchapter.

Secondary Research
Secondary research consists of two processes: (1) gathering and reviewing
secondary data and (2) analyzing the collected secondary data.
According to Zikmund (2003) secondary data are information or data that have
been collected by other researchers for different purpose than the given
dissertation at hand. Secondary data sources can be journal articles, books,
project papers by others, or the Internet and other common resource (Gill and
Johnson, 1997). In academic research papers the review of literature contains
the collected secondary data that were published in articles or books (Zikmund,
2003). As Ghauri and Gronhaug (2011) states, secondary data are able to give a
more exact view of topic and make the problem more comprehensible.
Gathering secondary data is simpler than collect primary data and in many
cases it is also more inexpensive and faster. On the other hand secondary data
can be obsolete and not necessarily meet the actual research topic (Zikmund,
2003). As Zikmund (2003, p.741) describes, “Secondary data analysis is a
preliminary review of data collected for another purpose to clarify issues in the
early stages of a research effort.”
The secondary research I conducted based on journals and books that can
found in Dél-Dunántúli Regional Library & Learning Centre. However I have
found a lot of useful literature, EbscoHost online database was more expedient
to gather literature that fits my topic. The third resource was the Internet. I
found a big amount of good reading through Google Scholar or Google Books
and even websites and blogs have provided data, statistics and information. I
have used literature of four different topics; social media literature, customer
behaviour literature, sociology literature about the different generations, and

33

methodology literature. I have checked sources and reference lists in books and
articles in order to know the used sources and see if they can be useful.
Through this method I found more literature that I show in the References
Chapter.

Questionnaire Design
In case of a questionnaire the two main criteria in order to a successful research
are accuracy and relevance (Zikmund, 2003). Zikmund (2003) further states,
the research problem determines how the information needs to be gathered.
According to Milne (n.d.) questionnaire is a relatively quick way of gathering
data and information. Questionnaire is a relatively objective way of collecting
information and the response rate can be relatively high if it is delivered in the
right time. However questionnaire is a good way of ask students, many of them
probably answer perfunctorily because they are not motivated in participation
Milne (n.d.). Since I analyze social media habits of students, the simplest
method for information gathering is designing a questionnaire. The title of
questionnaire was “Felmérés a pécsi egyetemisták közösségi media használati
szokásairól” that roughly means Survey about the social media habits of
University Pécs’ students. From the first question to third one are general
questions about social media usage like “How often do students use the given
social network sites?”, “How much time do they spend on social network sites”
and “Which electronic devices do they use to browse social network sites?”.
The fourth and fifth questions are related to Social Technographics Ladder. In
these questions I have asked respondent about their most typical online habits
and how often do they do each activities. The sixth and seventh questions are
asking demographic data like age and gender.

Sampling
The target segment of the research is students from University of Pécs. In my
dissertation I study how students from groups according to Social
Technographic Ladder. The age of the defined target is between 18 and 25
years but some student can be older. The research does not differentiate
students by their faculties, class. Ghauri and Gronhaug (2011) states in
researches distinguishing each element would be costly and it would take time
34

hence researchers need to select a sample of the whole segment. In frame of
this dissertation I am not able to finance a representative research thus I have
chosen convenience sampling and judgement sampling that are nonprobability
sampling methods. Convenience sampling is not able to provide representative
results and statistics (Ghauri and Gronhaug, 2011). According to Zikmund
(2003 p.380), “convenience sampling is the sampling procedure used to obtain
those units or people most conveniently available”. I applied convenience
sampling when I posted the link of questionnaire on my Facebook Wall in
order to my Friends who study at the University of Pécs will response. The
judgemental (purposive) sampling is also a nonprobability sampling method in
which researcher chooses the members of sample accordingly a specific
characteristic (Zikmund, 2003). I applied this method through posting the link
on CooSpace (University’s community forum) and selected Facebook Pages
that relate to University of Pécs.

Pilot Study
In order to transact a successful research, it is needed to conduct a pilot study.
Pilot study is a “small-scale exploratory research technique that uses sampling
but does not apply rigorous standards.” (Zikmund, 2003 p.739)
Improving the success and quality of methodology is the main objective of
pilot study. Pilot study results are applied to improve success and efficiency of
the research (Beurskens A. J., de Vet H. C., Kant I., 1998). According to
Crisnall (1997) the recommended pilot study sample size is 10 percent of the
main sample. My perceived aim was 100 respondents that mean the sample of
pilot study contained 10 people. I sent the pilot-questionnaire ten of my friend
on University via e-mail and asked them to respond. Some of them noticed
there are a few things about they have never heard before and do not know
what it is (Podcast, Tablet). In my opinion this is not a questionnaire problem
because if they do not know what Tablet is they have never used it before that
is pointless in the survey.

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Field Work
The questionnaire was shared on different Facebook pages and on CooSpace
tha social site of the University.
Facebook
First I posted the link of survey on my profile and ask my friends to respond.
After that the questionnaire was posted on Facebook Pages and Groups that
related to the students of University of Pécs: PTE ÁJK HÖT; PTE KTK HÖT;
Pécsi Tudományegyetem (PTE); Pécsi Tudományegyetem
Közgazdaságtudományi Kar (PTE-KTK); Közgáz Szerda; PTE-s Gólyák
(2011).
Besides these sites I posted continuously the survey link on my Wall every
second day from its launch. Besides these postings, 9 of my Facebook friends
have posted the link so my questionnaire reached students from several
faculties of University of Pécs.
CooSpace
CooSpace is the social site of the University where students can access course
material and public information. I left a comment in the forum of
(KTK_Students) KTK Hallgatói színtér scene with a short introduction and the
link of the survey.
I have no information about how many users have seen these postings but the
site where survey was designed measured 330 click-throughs. The total number
of respondents is 171 users from which 53 males and 118 females. The
difference between genders is significant.

Limitations
Since the research was conducted in online environment the result are not
reliable in the aspect of the Inactives profile. If a user filled the questionnaire
he/she met the questionnaire on Facebook or CooSpace that mean they
definitely have to use forums or social network sites.
Another limitation is that research was spread among my Facebook friends and
some of them reposted the questionnaire link on their wall so the results are not
representative.

36

Data Analysis and Findings
Demographic Data
In order get an exact picture of sudents’ social media profile the first thing that
need to be analyzed are demographic data. Gender and age were asked in the
questionnaire as demographic data. Class even would have asked but I think
age is more expressive demographic data. According to the statistics of the
questionnaire, 69% of respondents were female and 31% were male.

Figure 7: The gender of respondent students

As Figure 2 shows the ages of respondents. Twenty percent of respondents are
23 years old. As it is shown the most respondents are from 21-24 age groups
with 66% of total responded questionnaire. Freshmen are represented at least
with 9% that means 15 respondents. The second least represented students are
probably graduate students (25 years and above) with 15%.

37

Figure 8: The age of respondent students

How Do Students Use Social Media

Figure 9: Spent time on social network sites

38

Most of students spend more than 30 minutes online on social network sites
that means only 11 percent of respondent browse social network sites less than
thirty minutes. As pie-chart shows 30% of students are online for 30-60
minutes and the rate of respondents who spend 1-2 hours are the same (30%).
The figure furter shows 29% of students use these sites more than 2 hours and
8% of them more than 4 hours a day. My assumption is that respondents do not
spend this time with active browsing, the social network sites run in the
background while they just surfing on the Internet, read blogs, or news portals.

The following figure (Figure 4) shows what type of computer do students use
to check their social media profiles. Respondents had the choice to give
multiple answers that mean thera are overlaps among the devices. Most
respondents use notebook or netbook to browse social network sites. Slightly
more students use their phone to social networking than desktop computers. An
interesting fact that only 2% of respondents use tablet (eg. iPad, Samsung
Galaxy Tab) to log in on social network sites.

Figure 10: Which device do students use to browse social network sites

39

Figure 11: Social network sites by visit frequency

Research results suggest that students use Facebook and Youtube most likely.
According to the results, 95% of students log in on Facebook daily and 2% of
them weekly. It is interesting that 3% of respondents say they never use the
most popular social network site. Probably they clicked through from
CooSpace to the questionnaire. Watching YouTube videos is also a daily
routine for 66% of students. At first sight Twitter and LinkedIn seems as the
least engaging social network site among students. Twitter is visited at least
weekly by 15% of the respondents while this rate is 12% in case of iWiW. In a
monthly sight iWiW performs better in aspect of visits because 36% of
students log in at least once in a month since in case of Twitter only 18% of
respondents check in monthly. My assumption to explain this fact is that iWiW
has more members among University of Pécs’ students than Twitter has but the
users of micro-blog service are highly more engaged in comparison with the
Hungarian Facebook. The least popular site is obviously LinkedIn. There are
no respondent who visits this site daily and 86% of students do not visit it at all
or do not even have an account.

40

Social Technographic Ladder
Analyzing students accordingly the Social Technographic Ladder is not easy.
Due to the lack of time I was needed to conduct the survey quickly. The lack of
time and money are the reason I designed a questionnaire that is simpler than
the one was made by Bernoff (2007) and his team. I have designed two
questions in relation with the Technographic Ladder. Both questions have been
divided according to the activities that are characteristically done by each
profiles or rungs. For instance instead of Creators I offered “Publish a blog”,
“Publish own website”, “Upload videos” and so on. This is important because
respondent does not need to know what Creators mean exactly. They might
understand questions and answers well by this way. In the fourth question I
wanted respondents to group themselves individually in conformity with the
Profiles. I wanted to know how they evaluate themselves.

Figure 12: Social Media profiles of students at University of Pécs (sorted individually by
students)
More than half of the respondents identified themselves Joiner that mean they
maintain profiles on several social network sites and regularly visits these
online services. This result is not surprising because Facebook is apparently
popular among young people. Relatively small numbers of students grouped
themselves in Critics and Collector Profiles. As Conversationalists, 15% of
respondents update status messages on Facebook or Twitter. Almost twenty

41

percent of students stay in background and just listen to others as Spectators.
They just read different contents but do not participate actively in online
communities. On this pie-chart the most interesting profile is Inactives. 6% of
all respondents selected “None of these” answer from the possible activities.
This data is strange since the questionnaire were promoted in social media sites
and forums. My assumption is respondents did not understand what the other
activities mean or did not find answers like “Instant messaging”, “Sending
emails” or “Reading news”. Inactives are not people who do not use internet at
all. They just do not create any kind of social content.

The fifth question of the survey is more complex. Although profiles include
people participating in at least one of the indicated activities at least monthly,
Respondents had the opportunity to sign if they participate in each activity
weekly or daily.

Figure 13: Social Media profiles of students at University of Pécs

As it was expected, the most students are Conversationalists, Joiners and
Spectators. At first sight these results can seem incredible but accordingly
IMCPA (2011) result students are highly engaged with social media indeed. I
have to note that there are overlaps among the profiles; this is why the sum of
percents transcends 100 percent. Joiners are represented by 83% among
students of University of Pécs and 81% of respondents are Conversationalists.
The 81% means 81 students of 100 update their status at least monthly. It can

42

be assumed that social network sites (eg. Facebook and Twitter) are highly
popular. Most students cannot live without check social profile once a day.
Spectators are represented by 57% of the students. They do not participate in
any kind of interactive communication; they rather just read blogs and gather
information by Social Computing. Students participate less in data and
information gathering and appraising activities like posting comments on blogs
and forums or use RSS feed and tag content.

Figure 14: Social Technographic Profiles of European users (18-24 years)
Source: Forrester, 2009

Comparing result with the European average young adults, it can be stated that
students crate less content than European young people but they are more
actively collect contents than the average in Europe. It is important to note that
these data were collected two years ago, in 2009 so it could be obsolete. As it
can be seen European young people are rather Spectators than Joiners against
students in my results. The figure does not provide information about
Conversationalists since this Profile was added to the Ladder in 2010.

43

Final Conclusion
According to the literature review social media have became the part of
students’ life. Young people in higher education use electrical devices and
check their profiles using them. Posting comments or press the like button is a
daily routine. As responses show, most of students check social network sites
even via mobile phone or smart phone. The most popular social network site is
Facebook, but Youtube is also a highly visited site. Students rather prefer video
content than texts, but the most important is to stay connected. The Social
Technographic Profile groups of University of Pécs students can be seen on the
ladder below with the each percentage rates.

Figure 15: Social Technographic Profile rates at University of Pécs

The biggest limitation of the research that the survey was distributed in online
communities (Facebook and CooSpace) and I applied convenience sampling.

44

The results might have been affected by respondents’ mood since in this period
of the semester many students share dissertation surveys on social network
sites and respondents might be tired of helping others by fill the questionnaires.
Although engage students is difficult because of the general lack of brand
loyalty, according to the results they can be targeted in an effective way by
local companies or business. Marketers should consider the result as it provides
insights to Students social media usage. In addition academic researchers can
use or verify the results.

45

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