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adm_sns_week_11.docADM_SNS
Social Network Usage and Self-Concept of U.S. College Female Fashion Opinion Leaders
Alkharashi, N., Burns, R., Kensra, D. and Naz, F.
California State University, Northridge
Keywords: Fashion; SNS; Behavior
Research Description, goal, question, and significance
1. The goal of this research is to discover the relationship that exist, if any, between Fashion Opinion Leadership, Social Networking Site Activity and Self-Concept.
2. In this research we ask, is there a relationship between the Fashion Opinion Leadership of U.S. College Females and their Social Networking Site Activity and Self-Concept.
3. Social media has been widely adopted as the channel for real-time interaction with customers and to get them engaged with various companies and products. This study is significant as it can possibly help fashion marketers to identify fashion opinion leaders on various SNS through their behaviors on the various sites to be studied. Fashion Opinion Leaders can act as a channel of diffusing fashion trends to the masses through the use of this widely adopted channel. Additionally, it may be helpful for fashion marketers to determine the ways in which fashion opinion leaders self-identify in order to properly identify this segment of the market.
Research Variable & Definition
1. Conceptual Definition
Independent Variables
-Fashion Leadership
Fashion opinion leaders are influential in persuading others to adopt fashions (Weisfield-Spolter & Thakkar, 2011). They have a high level of fashion involvement, a perceived knowledge about fashion, and spend a significant amount of time on fashion related behaviors-time spent shopping for clothing and spending for clothing (Goldsmith, Flynn & Moore, 1996)
Social M
edia Site usage refers to activity on several social networking sites including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Activity can be measured by the time spent on these sites, the content posted on these sites, and the members in their network (i.e. followers and friends).
Dependent Variables
-Social Networking Site Activity
Typically allow users and subscribers to post to created profiles and create personal networks for the exchanging of information with other uses (Weaver and Morrison, 2008).
2. Operational Definitions
Female Fashion Opinion Leaders will be those identified as those who have a high level of perceived fashion knowledge, those whose fashion behaviors indicate significant activity related to fashion and a high level of fashion involvement . Their social networking profiles will indicate a high level of interest in fashion. A large portion of the social networking groups they belong to as well as the pages they follow will be fashion driven. Additionally, a significant amount of the content they share will be fashion driven.
3. Control Variables
Demographics.
Research Model & Hypotheses
1. Research Model (drawing)
Research Model
2. We hypothesize that
1. Fashion leadership spends more time on social media; the fashion leadership will have a greater influence.
2. Fashion leadership’s content of the post influences shoppers.
Preliminary Outline
1- Introduction
· Background-The background of our research stemmed from a desire to further understand fashion opinion leaders. Research has been done to study their consumer behavior but very little research has been done to study their social networking site behavior and their self-concept
· Motivation- to be able to identify fashion opinion leaders through their social networking activity as well as the self-concept
· Significance-identifying fashion opinion leaders is significant to fashion manufactures market new clothes
1. Summers, J. (1970). The Identity of Women's Clothing Fashion Opinion Leaders. Journal of Marketing Research, 7(2), 178-185.
2. Goldsmith, R., Flynn, L., & Moore, M. (1996). The Self-Concept Of Fashion Leaders. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 14(4), 242-248.
2- Fashion Opinion Leader Characteristics
· Fashion Leadership
· A Fashion Opinion Leaders have influence on other’s attitudes and behaviors towards fashion trends
· They are knowledgeable about fashion and their advice is taken seriously
· Self-Concept
· There are many facets to self-concept (actual self, ideal-self and social-self to name a few). Our study will focus on the actual self, which is the way one sees themselves
· The idea that self-concept can serve as a predictor of consumer purchasing behavior was proposed in the late 1960s by Grubb and Grathwohl.
1. Weisfeld-Spolter, S. & M. Thakkar (2011). Is a Designer Only As Good As A Star Who Wears Her Clothes? Examining the Roles of Celebrities As Opinion Leaders for the Diffusion of Fashion in the US Teen Market. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 15(2), 133-144.
2. Goldsmith, R., Flynn, L., & Moore, M. (1996). The Self-Concept Of Fashion Leaders. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 14(4), 242-248.
3. Abel, J., Buff, C., & O’Neill, J. (2013). Actual self-concept versus ideal self-concept: An examination of image congruence and consumers in the health club industry. Sport, Business and Management: An International Journal, 3(1), 78-96.
3- SNS for fashion communication
1. SNS for fashion communication:
1.1: SNS
a) Definition:
Social network sites, as web-based services allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.
Boyd, D. M. and Ellison, N. B. (2007), Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13: 210–230. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
b) SNS Categories:
Seven major categories of social media sites include social connections (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, My Space), multimedia sharing (YouTube, Flicker), Professional (LinkedIn), others are informational, educational, hobbies and academia.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2272684/blogging-pr-secrets-and-style-guides-whats-in-and-out
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2272684/blogging-pr-secrets-and-style-guides-whats-in-and-out
1.1 SNS activity for fashion:
a) Time spent:
In the era of technology life, everyone wants to be the first one to know the latest developments through social media. In fashion, the first thing that comes to mind is clothing. Fashion celebrities (fashion leadership) frequently use the social media to update their followers about the latest clothing trends and the followers take the lead from the celebrities and assist brands in extending different fashion trends.
b) Content Posting:
Fashion leadership update their status related to the current fashion on a regular basis. Usually it happens when they have been clicked for the new collection by their brands or sometime they update status with a single photo sharing on a daily basis.
Fashion leadership gets likes and comments, as soon as they share the post with their followers. They must have to respond to their fans because it helps them in increasing the number of followers and also maintaining their interest and reliability with them.
· Social Networking Sites allow it’s users to post to user created profiles and create personal networks
· Most individuals make their purchasing decisions based on the information they get from social media and therefore social media plays an important role in consumer behavior as well as fashion businesses.
1. Alfred C. Weaver, Benjamin B. Morrison, "Social Networking", Computer, vol.41, no. 2, pp. 97-100, February 2008, doi:10.1109/MC.2008.61
Theory
· Two-step flow of communication theory-
· According to the two-step flow of communication theory, there are two steps in which the influence of mass communication flows. The first step being mass media messages’ influence on opinion leaders, also known as the “influential”, and the second step being the opinion leaders relay of this mass communication to social networks close to them.
· By using different social networks like Facebook, twitter etc. fashion leadership update their status and they will gets like reply and reposting of the status or message by the followers. This two-step flow theory of communication would be helpful for our research project to support the concept of communication in between leadership and followers.
Barnett, G. (2011). Two-Step Flow of Communication Theory. In Encyclopedia of social networks (1st ed., Vol. 2, pp. 888-890). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Choi, S. (2014). The Two-Step Flow of Communication in Twitter-Based Public Forums. Social Science Computer Review.
Research Model & Hypotheses
Research Model
Hypothesis
H1- Fashion leadership spends more time on social media; the fashion leadership will have a greater influence.
H2- Fashion leadership’s content of the post influences shoppers.
1. Phau, I. , & Lo, C. (2004). Profiling fashion innovators. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 8(4), 399-411.
2. Richard Michon, Hong Yu Donna Smith, Jean (2007) "The shopping experience of female fashion leaders", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 35 Iss: 6, pp.488 – 501
Methodology
· Fashion opinion leadership is determined by fashion innovativeness, fashion involvement, perceived knowledge of fashion, and fashion related behaviors.
· The six item domain specific innovativeness scale developed by Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991) can be used to help us measure innovativeness
· Mittal and Lee’s (1989) 3 item involvement scale can be used to measure fashion involvement
· A 4-6 item self-report can be used to measure perceived knowledge and questions regarding the amount of time and money spent on clothing shopping can be used to measure fashion-related behavior.
· The top percentile of theses participants will be determined to be fashion leaders.
· Our team will develop a scale to measure social networking site activity.
· We will use Malhorta’s (1981) scale of self-concept to measure self-concept
1. Goldsmith, R., Flynn, L., & Moore, M. (1996). The Self-Concept Of Fashion Leaders. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 14(4), 242-248.
2. Summers, J. (1970). The Identity of Women's Clothing Fashion Opinion Leaders. Journal of Marketing Research, 7(2), 178-185.
Time Spent
H1
H2
Content Post
Fashion Leadership
Time Spent
H1
H2
Content Post
Fashion Leadership
