Probability in Facebook: Like and Share Feature - Case Study Example

Probability in facebook Introduction and background information Developments in information technology has changed means of communication and led to a shift from traditional communication media to information technology based approaches. Mass communication for instance initially involved a prior announcement for awareness among the target audience or the use of media such as televisions, radios and the print media that had their own limitations. The social media has however developed to replace the originally used communication methods. The avenue that connects people across different barriers such as age and geographical boundaries is the most contemporary means of communication as is identified by its many followers. Examples of social media include facebook, twitter, and skype among others. Popularity of the social media and its advantages in communication has also witnessed its application in professional fields such as in business management in which it plays a critical role in marketing and customer relationship management. Social media has similarly been used in other fields such as political initiatives and activism to popularize candidates and their ideas among a target population. One of the major reasons for the popularity of the social media is its wide scope of advantages. It is for example cheap as no cost is involved. A party, after being online can communicate through messages or comment on opinions at no extra cost. The media is also instant and delivers an intended communication at the press of a button. It also allows for an interactive forum among people who can reply to each other’s information besides its availability. Further, the social media is a source of database that can be used for secondary purposes such as analysis of social behavior among a target group. This application has widely been adopted in business management and social and political groups with the aim of developing forecasts to aide decisions. In a research by Guo, Wang, and Leskovec, the authors identified the role of social media in communicating information to a target audience, developing trust among communicating parties, and influencing people’s attitudes over a subject. These findings are consistent with some of the benefits of the social media that has led to its popularity among professional organizations (Guo, Wang and Leskovec, n.p.). Application of the facebook feature, ‘like’ button, has also been significantly associated with levels of sales among commercial enterprises with a research finding that at least 50 percent of people who like a product on a facebook page purchases the product. Participation in the social media therefore indicates active interest in and involvement in the subject matter (Avocet, p. 1). Facebook is therefore an essential tool for professional applications and its use is continually expanding among organizations. While research has been done on its advantages with limited research on its relation to behavior, no research has been done to investigate the relationship between the different facebook features and the elements’ interaction effects towards predicting the overall impacts of the social media tools in a campaign initiative. This paper, in an attempt to bridge this gap, explores the relationship between features of facebook, like, share, and comment. The paper explores the facebook page of the United States’ president Barrack Obama to generate the variables. The explored site The study is based on the personality’s facebook fun page that is open for any member of the social network. The page has data of people’s response to posts through the like, share and comment features. Variable definition The considered variables are likes, share, and comment. ‘Like’ refers to a response of an individual who develops a positive attitude towards a post and prefers to express such emotions. A single click of a like button on the fan page is captured and added cumulatively to already submitted likes. It is therefore a numeric variable. Share is another facebook feature that expresses a person’s positive attitude of a post and the desire to be associated with the post. An individual clicks the share button to have the post appear in his or her wall. A single share also cumulatively adds a unit value to the total number for a particular post and it is numeric variable. Comment however defines expressions that are communicated in writing and in response to a particular post. Such a response may be positive or negative, and communicates popularity of a post among its proponents and opponents. Like in cases of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’, each posted comments adds a unit value to the cumulative number of comments and it is similarly a numeric variable. Assumptions The key assumption in the study is that the participants form a single and homogeneous population. The study further assumes that each of the participants in all considered posts had equal probabilities of participating in any of the post through either liking, sharing, or posting comments. Consequently, the variable can be investigated for cross-factoral effects towards understanding a subject’s popularity. Further, independence in the three variables is assumed. Methods The study used the facebook fun page as a primary resource to collect data for the three variables. The data related to posts on the personality’s fun page from November 1, 2012 to November 11, 2012. Results The following table shows results of the personality’s fun page by the three defined variables. like share comment 1 110078 15410 12011 2 257258 26572 15106 3 165834 11501 8013 4 190533 12420 10142 5 257504 36109 18520 6 134877 37713 11968 7 183968 13934 25420 8 200991 20265 9249 9 225112 42871 11368 10 93362 11218 66171 11 100118 13262 12271 12 338674 45981 11959 13 218308 12137 11689 14 295946 64532 12169 15 567001 263809 21390 16 380654 26842 15366 17 444302 55722 30707 18 271223 14872 9585 19 273191 19679 15645 20 508500 38713 22123 21 4419044 582211 213396 22 2085951 81510 84048 23 398674 23919 17426 24 34392 4094 6590 25 235366 10091 19434 26 533628 36269 23472 Discussion The collected data shows people’s responses to posts on the president’s facebook fun page. From the data, descriptive statistics per variable are as shown in the following excel output. Descriptive statistics Column1   Column2   Column3   Mean 497095.731 Mean 58525.23077 Mean 27509.1538 Standard Error 173849.955 Standard Error 23112.39352 Standard Error 8181.43109 Median 257381 Median 25245.5 Median 15236 Mode #N/A Mode #N/A Mode #N/A Standard Deviation 886464.315 Standard Deviation 117850.5455 Standard Deviation 41717.2768 Sample Variance 7.8582E+11 Sample Variance 13888751084 Sample Variance 1740331181 Kurtosis 16.6355704 Kurtosis 16.9210004 Kurtosis 16.8850754 Skewness 3.96618427 Skewness 3.997373497 Skewness 3.93533425 Range 4384652 Range 578117 Range 206806 Minimum 34392 Minimum 4094 Minimum 6590 Maximum 4419044 Maximum 582211 Maximum 213396 Sum 12924489 Sum 1521656 Sum 715238 Count 26 Count 26 Count 26 Likes is therefore the most used tool in the page as it reports the highest mean frequency, 497095.731. Share and comments follows respectively at mean frequencies of 58525.23077, 27509.1538 respectively. The sample variances for likes, share and comments are 7.8582E+11, 13888751084, 1740331181 respectively. Share recorded the lowest minimum value while likes had the highest maximum value. The following table shows co-variances for the three variables.   Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 1 7.56E+11 Column 2 8.9E+10 1.34E+10 Column 3 3.38E+10 4.04E+09 1.67E+09 The high values of covariance between the three variables indicate a close relationship and means that a shift in the value one variable, for instance in likes, is likely to cause a shift in the values of the other variables, share and comments. Analysis of correlation coefficients between the variable supports their relationship. The relationships are further strong, close to one, and are positive to indicate that values of one variable are directly proportional to values of the other variables. The table bellow illustrates the computed correlation coefficients.   Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 1 1 Column 2 0.886247 1 Column 3 0.950068 0.855365 1 Assuming independence between the three variables, the probabilities that a post on the fan page will receive a like, a share, or a comment are as follows. likes share comment 0.852 0.1 0.047 Conclusion Even through the three variables registers different values for each post on the facebook wall, their frequencies bears a significant relationship with each other as has been shown by statistical tools such as covariance values and values of correlation coefficient. Like is however, the most used tool in the page. The three variables can therefore be used singularly, or jointly, to understand people’s attitudes towards the personality and posts on his page. Works cited Guo, Stephen, Wang, Mengqiu, and Leskovec, Jure. The role of social networks in online shoping: Information passing, price of trust, and consumer choice. Stanford University. June, 2011. Web. November 14, 2012. . Avocet. Avocet communication blog. May 9, 2012. Web. November 14, 2012. http://avocetcommunications.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/is-there-a-direct-relationship-between-your-facebook-likes-and-sales/. Read More