Benefits & Social Influence Of Instagram

Instagram Motivations

Social media are internet based platforms which people create, share and exchange information in virtual communities. Individuals have the opportunity to reach the content which they are looking for and they are interested in with the internet sites and applications that enable people social network sites (SNSs) such as blogs, micro blogs, instant messaging programs, chat rooms and forums. However, social networking sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.) are increasingly important for social interactions.

These mediums allow individuals to create semi-public or public profiles, to observe and examine the inventories of their online relationships by themselves and others (Bor, 2018: 39).While most SNSs offer users the opportunity to share photos but some SNSs such as Instagram focus only on sharing photographs. (Tobin & Chulpaiboon, 2016: 303) It enable to instantaneous captures and users can share that photos with friends through a series of filtres (Hu et al., 2014: 595).

One of the things that make instagram unique is that users can only share pictures or videos with mobile phone. Users can use this application whenever and wherever they want (Lee et al., 2015: 552).Instagram is the world’s fastest growing social network site (Wagner, 2015: ?; as cited in: Sheldon & Bryant, 2016: 89). Now it has 1 billion users wordwide (Statista, 2018). What is the reason behind success of this SNS? It is important to understand why people use Instagram and what are their motivations.

Few studies have investigated the motivations of using Instagram. Marcus (2015) said that unlike Facebook, Instagram focus on one’s identity more than relationships between people. Marcus analyzed photos posted on Instagram and found that Instagram focus on individuals self-promote.

In addition to this, Highfield (2015) studied on Instagram hastags that posted on Eurovision show in Australia. Highfield analyzed 1807 posted images with hastags. Most populer hastag was #sbseurovision and almost one-quarter of photos inclueded selfies. Highfield said, Instagram is more personal medium that includes personal photos (as cited in: Sheldon & Bryant, 2016: 89). Highfield (2015) also confirm that “when people wnat to document moments of their lives, they are more likely to post a picture on Instagram.” (as cited in: Sheldon & Bryant, 2016: 94).

Therefore, for many users Instagram such a online photo albüm (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016: 94). However, Highfield (2015) and Marcus (2015) studies focus on only the photographs that posted on Instagram. They were analyzed just open profiles.Sheldon & Bryant (2016) used survey datas to answer individual’s Instagram usage motivations. They found that “there is positive relationships between high levels of social activity (traveling, going to sporting events, visiting friends, etc.) and being motivated to use Instagram as a means of documentation” Lee et al. (2015) as a result of survey of 212 active instagram users, found five sociological and psychological motivations: “social interaction, archiving, self-expression, escapism and peeking.”

The main motivations were escapism and peeking. When individuals used Instagram they wanted to escape from their real life such as friends or family relationships “and they peek at others’ photographs” (Lee et al., 2015: 555) Lee et al. (2015) shows that “social interaction is a strong factor in that Instagram users are motivated to establish and maintain social relationships with other people using this platform.” People are looking for people with common interests.

Social Influence

Social influence is defined as the conscious or unconscious attempt of an individual to influence others' feelings, thoughts and behaviors. The main reasons of social influence are acceptance, approval and not to getting rejection (Sakalli, 2013: 14-29)In one of the few social influence informational tecnologies studies, Venkatesh et al. (2003) said that, social influence have two type of forces on information system usage: “one of force pushes users to adopt a system and the other force pulls users to adopt a system”(as cited in: Yoo et al., 2014, 266). Yoo et al. (2014) said some norms, like subjective norms or social norms, pushes individuals for comply with others. In addition to this, other social effects such as social capital, social identity or social status pulls users to use SNS.

Social Conformity

One of the most important behaviors that bring humanity to today's society level is conformity behavior. Conformity means, changing one’s behavior without a clear request and feeling an imaginary pressure on his own. One's behavior changes in the direction of one another's feelings and thoughts by feeling an imaginary pressure on it. Individuals, either in accordance with normative or informational social influence, show conformity behavior. (Sakalli, 2013: 32-47; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004: 606)

Acoording to Deutsch and Gerard (1955) normative social conformity is based on whether the individual's wants to be liked or accepted by others. Yoo et al. (2014) added “volume of participants in the referance group and the strength of among the participants are importandt. For instance when users observe that more people use Instagram, they perceive it as an efficient medium for communication with convenient features for accessing a variety of information.