Social media Influencers and Adoption of Behavior
Understanding the conditions under which humans adopt certain behaviors can have an immeasurable impact on the likes of social networking sites, political campaigns, or even simple clothing trends and fads.
I’ve particularly been interested in how companies utilize the threshold model to maximize the number of individuals that adopt their targeted behavior, whether it’s buying a product, joining a social media site, or any other behavior that increases their profit. As someone who’s frequently on TikTok, a mobile application where you can post funny snippets for your following to view, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in “Influencer-based sponsorship videos where these influencers pitch a company’s product hoping their followers buy said product (influencers are almost like celebrities, they have a large following, but may not fit the traditional celebrity description/occupation).
These companies are capitalizing on the massive network of these influencers in a unique way. TikTok, being a primarily video-based platform, provides an especially engaging and interactive experience for users to get “closer” with the influencers they follow through comments, video replies, etc. These connections may not be considered strong, in the way we understand them in this course, but they are relatively stronger than those of other platforms like Instagram.
By targeting TikTok influencers, companies can start with a large sum of early adopters for their product, at this point the triadic closure property kicks in. For example, in my life, there is an influencer I find entertaining, and when I mentioned their name in a group of individuals, one of them also seemed to have a strong inclination towards said influencer, which helped us become friends. As these interactions occur more and more, individuals with no connection to the influencer who pitched the product will begin using the product, simply based on the number of friends they have also used it.
Utilizing large networks with relatively strong ties is a gold mine for companies; adoption of behavior begins in high numbers and spreads quickly as well.