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How Social Media Is Changing the Diffusion of Innovations
- 1. How social media is changing the Diffusion Process AGRI 4304
- 2. Adoption and Diffusion • Connectedness can be tied to adoption. • Social media allows for more sharing.
- 3. Metcalfe’s Law • If Facebook was a country, it would be the third most populous on the planet. • Users of Social Media platforms over time (video).
- 4. Diffusion of innovations • Starts with innovators. • Relies on how we communicate idead.
- 5. The Chasm • The chasm gap (16% market penetration) become more crucial because of social media. • Market disruption can kill the adoption of an innovation.
- 9. Communication Channels • Communication channels also play an important role in diffusion • Innovation must be communicated to potential adopters
- 10. Social Networks • Social networks can provide access to information about an innovation and influence the adoption of an innovation. • Create opportunity structures for contact and information transfer. • Mechanism for social comparison
- 11. Spiral of Silence • Individuals have a fear of isolation • leads to remaining silent instead of voicing opinions • Essentially, people who know their opinions are in the majority were comfortable expressing their opinions publicly
- 12. Summary • Social media which is one of the most striking innovations of today • Lends a hand in: • compatibility, • complexity, • trialability, • observability • and relative advantage
Editor's Notes
- Theory on the diffusion of innovations has been used to study the way in which new ideas and practices spread within and between communities, organizations, states, or populations. An individual’s decision to adopt a new behavior often depends on the distribution of similar choices the individual observes amon her peers, be they friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. These often are referred to as social networks.
- Adoption and diffusion are arguably more important than new product development aspects of innovation because that’s where the rubber meets the road — so to speak — and any innovation that doesn’t plan for adoption and diffusion is doomed to failure even if the product itself is stellar. Adoption is a personal state of mind — being innovative, but it’s also a function of your connectedness to other people. Not surprisingly, Ev Rogers (father of diffusion theory) was a communications expert, not an engineer or even a marketing person. The more connected you are to folks who are more innovative, the earlier you’ll adopt an innovation, all things being equal, because they share their experiences with the innovation through both verbal and non-verbal communication. Obviously, in the age of social media, opportunities to observe adoption abound in the pictures and videos friends share, their recommendations, even their social check-ins and other types of shares.
- Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of users connected to it. In practical terms, this means that as a system like Facebook grows, the system becomes increasingly valuable and useful to you because more people (including people you know) are users. That’s a network effect.
- According to diffusion theory, an innovation starts out in the hands of a tiny group of innovators, moves on to early adopters, then an early majority, a late majority, and finally laggards. Most innovations don’t make it out of the early adopter phase. Consider the iPhone. Pre-release testers in 2007 can be thought of as innovators, and the folks who camped out on release day became early adopters. The early majority saw early adopters enjoy the product and then jumped on board as soon as Apple/AT&T cut the price. Explosive growth ensued; now the iPhone is mainstream and nearing late majority adoption, the point that another bandwagon of users could jump on now that they can trust the iPhone to benefit them. Diffusion of innovations theory also considers social structure and the way people communicate ideas. Tiny web startups don’t have an easy way to get people buzzing about their product; they rely on word of mouth, and it can take months to gain serious traction.
- The chasm (which exists between Early Adopters and Early Majority i.e. at 16% penetration), refers to Moore‘s argument in Crossing the Chasm that there is a gap between early adopters and the mass market which must be crossed by any innovation which is to be successful. Furthermore, thanks to accelerating technological change they must do so within an increasingly limited time for fear of being equaled by an incumbent or disrupted by another innovation. The needs of the mass market differ — often wildly — from the needs of early adopters and innovations typically need to adapt quickly to make the transition. I would argue that MySpace, having achieved ~75 million users at peak, failed to cross the chasm by finding appeal in the mass market (ironically due in no small part to their unfettered flexibility in customising profiles) and was disrupted by Facebook. Twitter on the other hand (with some 200 million active users) has crossed the chasm, as evidenced by the presence of mainstream icons like Bieber, Spears and Obama as well as their fans. LinkedIn (for reasons explained above) belongs at the top right rather than the bottom left.
- In business theory, a disruptive innovation is an innovation that creates a new market and value network and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network, displacing established market-leading firms, products, and alliances.
- Enter Facebook. As Van Grove notes, users feel comfortable with Facebook and already tend to trust what Facebook does. This allows Facebook to introduce new features that, aided by a massive built-in network, leapfrog the diffusion curve.
- Diffusion is the process by which an innovation communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. Diffusion is special type of communication in which the massages are about a new idea (Rogers, 1995, p.5-6). Diffusion is also defined as the process by which an innovation is adopted and gained acceptance by members of a certain community. There are some major factors that influence the diffusion process like the innovation itself, how information about the innovation is communicated, time, and the nature of the social system into which the innovation is being introduced (Folorunso et. al., 2009, p.362).
- Communication channels also play an important role in diffusion. Because the innovation is a new product, process, or idea, it must be communicated to potential adopters in order for them to assess its attributes and decide whether to try out and eventually adopt it. Very broadly speaking, mediated communication and interpersonal communication play complementary, but different, roles. Electronic mass media channels such as television and radio are useful for raising awareness about the innovation, but cannot provide much detail (except for specialty radio programs). They can provide images and brand name identification, helping the attributes of compatibility and observability. Print mass media channels such as newspapers and magazines (and, to some extent, the Internet) are useful for explaining conceptual and technical details, helping out with the attributes of relative advantage and complexity. New media such as the interent can provide interesting mixtures of image, explanation, and demonstrations, thus also fostering trialability. Interpersonal communication is especially important in changing opinions and reducing uncertainty about the innovation, as potential adopters turn to credible and important sources to provide first-hand experiences and legitimization of the new idea. Much innovation research shows the significant role that social influence, peer pressure, and social learning plays in affecting not only the final adoption decision, but also the evaluation of the attributes of the innovation. This is particularly important when initial relative advantages are low (high adoption costs or low observability), critical mass has not yet been achieved (thus representing higher learning and adoption costs for early adopters), or when the innovation is not obviously compatible with current social or group norms. In such cases, certain innovation roles become crucial. Social Media provides a unique opportunity for mass media communication and interpersonal communication to occur, often with a social network or peer group.
- Social networks can provide access to information about an innovation and influence the adoption of an innovation. Networks create "opportunity structures for contact and information transfer." They also influence the adoption of innovations by providing a mechanism for social comparison (Erickson, 1988). Decisions to adopt innovations are generally made in a context of uncertainty about the best action to take, and individuals tend to look to a reference group to determine the costs and benefits or the normative implications of adoption. The reference group may be one with which the individual has ties of social cohesion—either solidarity ties (e.g., kinship or friendship), which tend to link coequals and thus generate homogeneity, or linkages of authority, which are asymmetric. Or the reference group may consist of peers (who are neither friends nor relatives) who hold similar positions within the social structure. The individual models his or her behavior on that of these structurally similar others, who need not even be aware of their influence (Marsden and Friedkin, 1993). Linking and interaction usually increase with attitudinal and behavioral similarity, so that the diffusion process alters the social networks involved.
- The spiral of silence theory is proposed by the German political and communication scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, which focuses on the concept that individuals have a fear of isolation. This fear of isolation consequently leads to remaining silent instead of voicing opinions when they feel that their opinions are in opposition to the majority's viewpoints. Media is an important factor that relates to both the dominant idea and people's perception of the dominant idea.[16] The Spiral of Silence theory was originally proposed in 1974, spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent. During the 1970s and 1980s, the media which the public used to observe the public opinions were traditional media, such as television and newspaper. The Spiral of Silence theory indicates that people remain silent after they observe public opinion climate from media for a few reasons: (1) Fear of isolation from the group or the majority of the society. (2) Fear of expressing opinion publicly might lead to a negative consequence beyond that of mere isolation [17]. Also, Spiral of Silence Theory indicated that people own “Quasi- statistic Organ” natively which make them able to observe the public opinion climate change during their environments. So, they can know their opinions are among the majority or the minority of the society. But now voters tend to use new media or social media, such as Facebook, to gather political information or observe public opinions. Can these beliefs based on Spiral of Silence theory and traditional media exist the same or similarly on the internet or on Facebook? 2016 Study. Based on the Spiral of Silence theory, people who know their opinions are in the majority were comfortable expressing their opinions publicly and those who felt their opinions are on the minority side would keep silent. In this study, the researcher found that this is partially supported on the Facebook media.
- Social media which is one of the most striking innovations of today has extremely fast and efficient diffusion power with its various platforms and millions of users all around the world. According to diffusion of innovation approach, the factors as compability, complexity, trability, observability and relative advantage have impacts on the decision and as a result the diffusion process of the innovation. In this sense, it is obvious that social media facilitates this diffusion with its dynamic, interactive, user-centered, user-friendly nature and with its opportunities that provides individuals more control over the contents and that enables users to become producers as well.