Digital Technology and Uncertainty Reduction: Does Media Richness affect Anticipated Future Interaction? Part Two
Dawn Marie Fichera
There are multiple reasons why people use social media sites, limited only by the imagination of the creator. Some users use these sites as gateways into interpersonal communication and relational development on a personal level. Others use the sites for networking or professional opportunities. Marketers and business savvy individuals use SMS to market their products and innovations.
As a result of the research I have conducted, social media and interactive marketers would do well to pay attention to what their audience is saying about the amount of tools (videos, blogs, photos, games, interactive text boxes) used on a social media site.
For instance, of the participants I studied who viewed two static mock-Facebook profiles varying in levels of media richness, the amount of social media site tools available, 75% said that there was too much clutter on the profile sites, and 74% said there were too many applications used on the mock-up profile sites.
Social media sites are a community; they are in essence, a conversation. As with every conversation, too much noise can adversely affect the communication process, and disrupt the cues necessary to communicate with one another effectively.
Results of my research also indicate that employing too many social media tools on one profile may ultimately circumvent marketer’s efforts to reach their audience if they are not listening to the needs of their intended audience. As with face-to-face communication, marketers and interactive communicators must determine how much information is too much. At what point does the mind numb to the cues being offered on a social media sites?
Social media sites illustrate the new ways people create, share, and collaborate with each other. Communicators use multi-media tools within SMS to disclose information by sharing pictures, videos, blogs, music, and to update their friends, families and strangers on their life, their preferences, hopes, dreams. Social media tools serve as the cues necessary to deliver information about the target to a user.
While use of these social media tools reduces uncertainty and increases anticipated future interaction, this disclosure online does not come without a hefty price. As an increasing number of communicators move their conversations online, issues of privacy abound. Future research should look at issues of privacy and communicator’s willingness to relinquish it in order to obtain social information.
